Bracelet making! Always a hit any way you do it.
Painting! Always a hit any way you do it. This time we made little tiki's. (coloring also a hit) Games! Always a hit whether it's card games like Uno, or sitting around group games like Mafia. My husbands family sets up a version of horseshoes that is much more compact. It uses washers instead of horseshoes and PVC pipe flush in the ground instead of a post. It is set up just like horseshoes, but only about 1/3rd of the distance is needed. The PVC pipe is big enough that the washer can land inside of it. So it's a little bit like mini gold too . . . You get 3 washers/tries each round. You get 3 points if the washer lands in the PVC pipe, 2 points if it's touching the PVC pipe edge, and 1 point if you are within 1 washer of the PVC pipe and yours is the closest. (cover your holes when you leave) I have other things in the activity tote too like squirt guns, finger darts, waterball slingshots, etc. My family also likes to set up a small mini golf course and/or an ultimate frisbee course. (Do make sure that you cover any holes you dig.) We set up the mini golf course with PVC pipe in holes to land your ball in.
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Theme: Moana
Place: Beaver High Adventure Camp Itinerary: (This is what did happen NOT necessarily what was planned. I have learned through the years to go with it and that was super important this time!) Wednesday 10:00 am meet 1:30 pm arrive at Beaver High Adventure/check in 2:00 - 4:30 pm lunch, free time, set up camp 4:30 pm camp orientation 5:00 - 7:30 pm kick-off activity/dinner (The girls did a rotation of Moana themed activities in 3 groups. When they weren't in the activities they were eating dinner.) 7:45 - 10:00 pm Value Walk/S'mores/Movie The girls went one at a time through a values station. Once the first girl finished with Faith they went on to Divine Nature and another girl went to Faith and then when that first one moved to Individual Worth, the 2nd girl moved to Divine Nature, and then a 3rd girl entered the walk. 3 returned missionaries a member of the Bishopric, and 4 leaders all ran a station. We had 4 minutes with each girl. We could see and hear the stations on either side of us, but we were also spaced enough apart that it wasn't a bother. While the girls were waiting their turn, or after they got back, they watched The Other Side Of Heaven and made/ate their S'mores. Each station was somewhat of an object lesson/discussion. Example of a station: I had Individual Worth and I had IW description words on Jenga blocks. The girl built a Jenga tower about 7 tiers high with those blocks, looking at the words. I asked them if it was fair to say that Heavenly Father would use those words to describe them. Then I took a piece out. If the word was "welcome," I asked if anyone had ever made them feel not welcome. Most often they said yes. I then pointed to the tower so that they could see that it was still standing. Heavenly Father still knows these are words that describe you. We repeated this 2 more times. Then I talked about how if we went to church, read the scriptures, prayed, etc. we could always remember what Heavenly Father knows we are and I replaced the blocks. Obviously for each girl it went a bit different based on what they said/shared as we did this. Thursday - put in 15,000 steps today walking back and forth! 8:30 - noon COPE course low activities 12:00 - 1:00 pm lunch back at camp 1:00 - 3:00 pm waiting for high COPE course with games (waiting on weather) 3:00 - 5:00 pm free time, various crafts, and games 5:00 - 6:00 pm dinner 6:00 - 7:30 pm waiting for high COPE course with games (waiting on weather again!) 7:30 - 8:00 pm practice our song 8:00 - 9:45 pm cookies and milk and mafia 9:45 pm bedtime story Friday 7:30 am - 3:00 pm away from camp river rafting and hiking (split into two groups) 3:00 - 5:00 pm free time 5:00 - 6:00 pm dinner 6:15 - 8:45 pm HIGH COPE COURSE FINALLY!!! 9:00 - 10:30 pm songs around the campfire, devotional, and testimonies/sharing thoughts/more serious camp awards Saturday 9:30 am pulling out of camp (in the rain I might add!!!) The girls also had a reflection journal that had conference quotes and Moana quotes for each day for them to ponder and think about. Girl's Camp: I was reflecting on gear this time and the very first time that I went to camp as a leader. That first time I had everything and the kitchen sink! I wanted to try and bring EVERYTHING. This time I went much more minimalistic. I discovered a couple of things:
1. We had everything we needed and used pretty much everything we took. 2. Packing up was MUCH easier. 3. We needed a MUCH smaller trailer. 4. Cleaning up was SOOOO MUCH easier. 5. We didn't miss anything of those items. Anyway those are my words of experience. However, with that being said, I would never ever ever skimp on ways to keep dry if rain is in the forecast. Three times I have been on the mountain with MUCH rain and all 3 times our camp has been dry and functioning. The first time was when I was a youth and that has stuck with me as a leader. We knew that this year at Girl's Camp we were going to take advantage of being in a place that was packed with activities so we wanted to spend little to no time cooking and cleaning. This is how we did it:
1. Pre-cook and freeze EVERYTHING that we could. The only thing that had to be cooked that we didn't pre-cook was the sausage links. Everything else was pre-cooked. 2. Use disposable eating goods. So that we weren't wasteful I didn't pack very much extra. You could also get recycled items. I also used what we already had in storage. This was our super simple menu: Wednesday: lunch - own sack lunches dinner - roasted hot dogs over the fire, chips, watermelon, s'mores Thursday: breakfast - breakfast burritos, fruit, cocoa, juice lunch - chicken pitas, grapes, chips dinner - taco salad, mandarin oranges, cookies & milk (provided by a mom) note: we had extra chicken from lunch, Doritos from the night before, and tortillas from breakfast so we put them as an additional option for the taco salads and we found out that making their own burritos was far more popular than a taco salad. Also, they loved the chicken option. Friday: breakfast - sausage links, french toast sticks, juice, fruit, cocoa lunch - sandwiches, chips, apples (cookies provided by a mom) dinner - marinara meatball subs, salad, chips (leftovers too) - the meatballs were pre-cooked and frozen (we made our own so we had to be careful when we were stirring them in the sauce to heat them up) Saturday: breakfast - cereal, granola bars Snack Tote: granola bars, fruit snacks, goldfish crackers, leftovers from meals such as chips & fruit We literally were ready to eat in 15 minutes and cleaned up in 15 minutes for each meal. We literally had a few serving utensils to wash and dutch ovens to wipe out and that was it. So I packed by day - meaning each day had 1 tote and 1 cooler with everything we needed for that day in it. (I did have 1 tote with basic cooking supplies such as oil, salt/pepper, cooking utensils, etc. and 1 snack tote.)
Here is what Thursday's packing looked like: Menu: Breakfast: breakfast burritos with eggs, hash browns, cheese, ground sausage, salsa, juice, cocoa and leftover watermelon from the night before Lunch: chicken pita sandwiches with chips, grapes, juice (PB&J alternate) Dinner: Taco Salad with mandarin oranges Tote Of Supplies: Juice that did not need to be refrigerated initially Tortillas Salsa - enough for two meals Pitas Mayo Cans of beans Taco Seasoning #10 can of mandarin oranges 3 Ziplock baggies of plastic silver wear - 1 set for each meal Plastic cups - 1 1/2 for each person (everyone also had their own refillable water bottle) Cups for cocoa Cocoa Paper Plates - enough for 1 for everyone for every meal plus a few extra Peanut Butter Jam Loaf Of Bread Cooler: Frozen eggs - see my eggs post Frozen hash browns Frozen pre-cooked ground sausage Shredded cheese Frozen pre-cooked shredded chicken Shredded lettuce Sour Cream Frozen pre-cooked ground beef Things that were too big and came up individually: Tortilla chips Box of individual bags of chips Grapes The great thing was that with each meal we cleared space in coolers for things that needed to be refrigerated when opened. As is pretty normal for Girl's Camp, there was someone going back from camp pretty much every day so when we were done with a cooler and tote we would send it back. If there was anything we were transferring to use the next day, we would slip that into the next cooler. When I got home most of the food "stuff" was taken care of! We also sent all of the activity things we didn't need anymore home - such as the technology for the movie. Girl's Camp:
FRENCH TOAST STICKS!! On Friday morning we were heading out for the first activity of that day - river rafting - at 7:30 am so we needed a fast, yet filling, breakfast. Here is what we did: 1. Heat a griddle that takes up 1/2 of a camp chef and 2 dutch ovens. 2. Dump sausages in the largest dutch oven first thing, because they take the longest to cook. Keep them cooking by stirring them. 3. Lay one layer of french toast sticks out on the griddle. Let them crisp and warm, turn them over, put them in the 2nd warmed up dutch oven to stay warm if needed. Add some juice and some fruit to the menu (we did a #10 can of mandarin oranges) - Easy Easy Easy! We had to wipe down the dutch ovens and griddle - and it really was only 1 dutch oven - and wash 1 set of tongs, a can opener, and 1 spatula and we were gone for the day! I was thinking about how to keep our food drier in the coolers, because I really don't like soggy food in coolers. So I wondered what it would be like to make my own freezer packs. It worked SOOOO good! Almost no water in the coolers AND the ice lasted Weds - Sat. The advantages of block ice without taking up the space that block ice does.
This is what I did: 1. Purchased good gallon freezer storage bags. The kind with the zipper was easiest to work with. 2. Doubled up two bags. 3. Filled up the inside bag 70 - 75% full of water. This is the equivalent of 7 lbs. 4. Zipped up both bags - getting excess air out of the bags. 5. Lay them flat in a freezer to freeze. It takes over 24 hours to freeze. 6. When we packed up coolers - large but not the over large kind of coolers - I put one on each end and one in the middle. That coupled with freezing everything else that we could freeze made it so that the ice packs lasted from 9:00 am Wednesday morning - Saturday. (With the 3 packs in each cooler it was the equivalent of 21 lbs of ice.) Two other things: 1. We were lucky enough that the cooler for the last day was a super good arctic type cooler so I know that helped, but the other coolers did SUPER well too. 2. I also packed "by the day." So 1 cooler was only for 1 day. That way we weren't getting in and out of all of the coolers all of the time. I've always hated keeping eggs and egg cartons dry and intact when camping. I also hate cracking eggs early in the morning when it's cold up in the mountains. This year I found the BEST egg hack using several ideas on the internet. This is what I did:
1. Washed and dried a pretzel/peanut butter nugget plastic container. 2. The day before we left for camp - cracked and lightly whipped 70 eggs and put them in the plastic container. (The container held all 70, but I did whip them in a blender about 20 at a time.) 3. Put the container in the freezer the day before. (It did freeze overnight, even though it was afternoon when we put them in the freezer.) 4. When we needed the eggs Thursday morning we simply cut the container off using a knife and dumped it frozen in the dutch oven. The block of eggs melts and starts cooking amazingly fast. 5. The bonus is that we had another frozen "block" in our cooler to help keep everything cold. |
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June 2022
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