But, I digress. We really did have a great time over all. Sure, there was the normal teenage drama and at the time it was driving me totally nuts, but I'm over it now that I've had a chance to sleep.
The original plan was for Steph, Billy, Rachel, Zoe and Kat to head up Friday after we finished laundry and shopping. Well, they were calling for some pretty bad storms to roll through that night. Kat called Knoebel's and managed to change our reservation for two night and one site to two sites for one night.
Saturday morning the Kat and Steph contingent left around 9:00 and I met the girls and Mrs. D at the church and left around 9:45. We all made it up to the campground around noon. After setting up the last of the tents and wolfing down some lunch, we all head into the park. We all had a good time riding on rides. I even got to ride on some bigger people rides! Yes, I actually got to ride the Phoenix. I love that coaster!
Anyhow, after enjoying the rides until shortly after 6:00 we manage to cook dinner with only a little drama and no one getting hurt. I managed to get about half the girls hooked on banana boats for dessert. We got to watch the beautiful huge full moon rise over the ridge.
As usual, I was the first one to bed and the first one up. Actually, Boo was the first one to bed. I was so impressed, and a little sad too. He and Billy shared a tent. He only got up once when I tried to put him to bed and he and Billy did great. Boo was soooo excited to be sharing a tent with Billy. *cry* My baby boy is growing up. *pout* (On the plus side, he did awesome with the potty all weekend. I'll gladly take that part of growing up!)
Sunday breakfast went fairly well other than the fact that, as usual, the camp stove wouldn't light for me. I managed to cook most of breakfast over a small fire (we were trying to hoard firewood so we wouldn't have to get more...). The girls all enjoyed it and we managed to get camp tore down and all but packed in the cars by 10:30! We headed down to the park a bit after 11, and the rides opened at about noon. We got about an hour or so of rides in. Steph, the boys and I headed back up to the site before everyone else to get lunch going. We actually managed to get lunch fixed and cleaned up in record time and were only about 20 or 30 minutes later in leaving than I thought we might be. Thankfully, with the advent of cellphones, I had promised the parents their girls would call them before we left so that they'd have a better idea of when we were going to get back. That way, if we were running late or early, no one would be sitting in a parking lot too long.
I had an enjoyable ride back, since about 15 minutes into the ride all four of my passengers fell asleep. Yes, Boo actually fell asleep in the car with three girls who thought he was the cutest thing since sliced bread. (Or something like that...)
So, while there was a good bit of drama now and again in the down times, it really wasn't more than should be expected from the age group. I have such a wonderfully diverse group of girls. They all bring something unique to the table. They all have very different strengths, weaknesses and strong personalities. I really want to foster their sense of individuality while encouraging them to respect each other's differences and learn to work with a diverse group. And if we manage to earn a bunch of badges in the process, that'll be icing on the cake. It's hard to measure the real learning that goes on in these groups.
Anyhow, I've been fiddling with this long enough. The picture at the top are the 7 girls we had with us over the weekend. They're all wonderfully unique and great girls. Sometimes they drive me totally insane, but I really wouldn't trade any of them. Well, at least not forever...
Peace to all and may your camping adventures have dry weather and lots of fun.
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