Super Saturday

While Bud and I sat at home eating snacks in the living room (usually forbidden), while watching "Merlin" and "Phineas and Ferb" and playing Smash Brothers--yes, I played, too, as Jigglypuff, though I wasn't that good--Mama and Sis had a long busy day outdoors.

It was Girl Scout Fun Fest here in Connecticut.  They were there the whole six hours, taking in all the activities.

Archery, with a left-handed bow

The Israeli game Gaga, which is a little like Dodgeball

And rock climbing!

Even Mama did the rock climbing--pretty fast, beating the two younger girls on the pillar to the top.  Way to go, Mama!  (And no wonder your arms were tired the next day.)

They also made marshmallow-toothpick structures, experimented with dry ice and soap to make big bubbles, created yarn God's Eyes, ate good barbecue from the Smoke and Bones truck, and then did all the physical activities again.  

The one thing they didn't do was SWAPS, those little crafts-on-a-pin that girl Scouts exchange at gathering.  Except no one else seemed to have brought them, or at least Sis didn't find them.  She had made these really cute campfire pins, with sticks and pipe cleaners.  Oh, well.  She wasn't disappointed and the SWAPS will wait for the next gathering.  (I'll see if I can get a photo.)

They came home happy and exhausted . . . . and joined us on the couches for more computer games!

Summer Fun: Camporee!

23.  Go horseback riding.

We went to the Girl Scout International Camporee at the camp east of Hartford in beautiful hilly, wooden terrain. From the moment we got on the bus and sang songs all the way into camp (the Shark song and Herman the Worm song), it was quite the GS experience.  There were girls from all of the state, the region, and several countries, including Canada, Australia, England, Japan, Nigeria, and Ghana.  But before visiting the countries' tents, we hauled all the way up to the corrals so the kiddos--yes, brother tagalongs, too!--could ride ponies (that seemed pretty tall to me).  We had to wait a bit but soon they were in their helmets and in the saddles, being led around the ring, smiling the whole way.  Afterwards, they had a better appreciation for Olympic equestrian events!  Then we headed back down (past archery, which you have to be 10 to do) the hill towards the lake.  And we went canoeing!  Yep, the two moms with back trouble gamely paddled the kids around the lake.  I thought we did pretty well, considering I hadn't been in a canoe since counselling at Girl Scout camps in the 1980s and Mama had never been in one!  But we didn't hit anyone and managed to maneuver where we wanted to go, getting up enough speed to be interesting.  Funny how the strokes came back to me.  I think I was having more fun that the kids!

Afterwards, we ate lunch from various trucks from local restaurants--a grilled cheese truck and a taco truck with portobello fajitas--we wandered the international displays, talking to Girl Guides from York and Cleveland in England and to the huge Canadian contingent from all over (including the Northwest Terriotories) and the friendly Australians who had so many swaps to share.  I liked their badge blankets (England and Australia mainly), where they place their fun patches and badges from previous levels.  And there was food!  Scones, cucumber sandwiches, iced brown rice tea, and a comparison between US and Canadian Oreos (yes, they're different.  Our fillings are sweeter and grainier.)

Sis did the ribbon and the face, we did the glue-gunned eyes and tail.

But Sis's main focus was SWAPS, aka the little crafty doodads with pins and name labels that girls exchange by the dozens if not hundreds at these events.  In addition to some "I Love S'mores" she had leftover, Sis had a new bunny clothespin SWAP which we adapted from an existing pattern I found online--instead of using the pompom for a cartoonish nose, we put it on the side for a tail.  "Some bunny loves Girl Scouts!"  (She gave them all away before I got a picture but Mama says she saved one back somewhere).  Sis was so determined that she'd wander up to a pack of girls and proffer her bag, "Do you want to swap?"  I think she came away with 75 new SWAPS, including shirnky dinks, perler beads, cricut paper, felt bed rolls, all manner of beads and friendship bracelets, and, her favorite, a little box containing a bear!  Bud even got a few from (usually adult) SWAPpers who saw that he was left out.  It made me want my own SWAPS.

By then, the heat was getting to us and we'd done everything we really wanted to do, so we hopped back on the shuttle, which was pretty much empty.  "I wish there were singing on the way back, too," Bud declared.  And so I sang "Boy and a Girl in a Little Canoe" . . . and we headed home, with a stop at Chowder Pot for lobster, clam chowder, and fish and chips.  And chicken fingers.

It was quite a trip down memory lane for me.  I always loved camp and this one looked like my beloved Camp Agnes Arnold, with all its trees, lakes, platform tents, central dining hall, gravely roads, and shortcuts through the woods between activity sites.  As we left, a group of singalongers sang my favorite GS tune, "Barges."  A wonderful day!

Jubilee Jubilation!

It was the best of Girl Scouting:  hundreds of girls exploring science (robots, astronomy), history (of Girl Scouts and also local CT sites), physical activities (tennis, rock climbing, Taekwondo, jumping rope), volunteer work (different booths by troops), environmental concerns (animals, composting), health (nutrition, recess, platelet donations), while singing, making arts and crafts (bracelets bracelet bracelets), and participating in SWAPS (aka Special Whatchamacallit Affectionately Pinned Somewhere).

Sis in full Daisy tunic with camp backpack and SWAP lanyard rushed from place to place trying so many things. Early on in the day, she received a huge special button announcing her 100+ cookie sales, which prompted a group of GS alum to serenade her with "99 boxes of cookies for sale" (you know the tune!).  She liked SWAPping, quickly exchanging her 25 marshmallows-on-skewers "I Love S'mores" SWAPS for a variety of cute pins--a "Got Cookies?" glass of milk, a slice of (sponge) GS birthday cake, square s'mores, a polymer clay whale, several beaded pins, lots of pompom pins, and such (next time, we'll a) make more SWAPS and b). bring two big Ziploc bags, one for giving away and one for collecting.  See here for SWAP etiquette and here for examples).  Sis was great about approaching older girls all on her own, negotiating the SWAPS (which is a given--you can't really refuse a SWAP if someone asks you, even if you have one like theirs or don't want one).  I only vaguely remember one SWAPS meet when I was a Brownie; don't know what I'd made but got an old black film cannister fountain soda made out of pompoms with a straw that I treasured for years. (Can leaders SWAP??  I wanna play!)  

She also liked visiting the trading post for a special Jubilee patch and a new camp journal.  And she liked the bounce houses.  Bud spent a lot of time in the bounce houses, being a really good sport about being a "GS Bro" (as proclaimed by the SWAP Sis made him).  He also enjoyed the different booths, such as the one where he and Sis played a water rapids Wii game together and when they got to run through the chambers of a giant inflatable heart.  We also did two stops on the Jubilee GS promise letterboxing trail, having come prepared with our own new family letterboxing journal and a bunny and a penguin stamp.

The day turned hotter than we expected, even with all of our water, and we'd mistakenly left many of the outside activities for later in the day (which is why we only did 2 letterboxing stops and none of the scavenger hunt--there's always more to do than there is time (which was hard for the kids).  The line for lunch was 100+ people long.  Seriously.  And the kids got fatigued after 4 hours (no shock there).  And so we headed out for lunch and home midday.  It was still a wonderful day and we'll do another big GS gathering again.  But we'll take more water, our own food, more hats and sunscreen, a rolling bag instead of backpacks, and more SWAPS!

I'm already looking for a new design!  A clothespin bunny, perhaps . . . .