This past weekend (4/6) was the Spring Outing with Bigun's Indian Princess tribe for the second year. Last year's outing was one of the highlights of the year for sure. This year was a bit colder but just as fun.
I always take the Evil Genius out to lunch sometime before we go do these things to try and curb any jealousy issues. And since work has been begging for overtime I agreed to work half a day Friday, that would come back to bite me. EG and I got out the door for lunch at 12:30, got back at 1:15, and Luke came to pick us up at 1:30 and we had nothing packed. Literally, grabbed the suitcase from the closet when we got back from lunch, and had it filled in 15 minutes. Who knows what I forgot to pack.
oh yea, I guess I would figure that out later.
We had to go to the Neuse Sports Shop to get our cabin assignment and I also picked up sunglasses, batteries, and another headlight. Actually the headlight is so comfortable I think I'll end up running in it. We ended up with a great cabin assignment too. After that we went to a really cool restaurant for dinner. For only $16 a pair (daddy/daughter) we got all you could eat pizza & drinks, and all you could play putt-putt golf. After being trapped in the car for 3 hours, the kids went nuts on that one. We still then drove into camp with plenty of daylight left to find the cabin, unpack the cars, make up the bunk beds, and grab a few pics.
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| Bigun rode that bike EVERYWHERE! I had to chase her all weekend. |
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| Notice the giant blue waterslide right behind our cabin. |
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| We were really close to the river |
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| And really close to the zipline/waterslide |
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| Bigun and Ms Baker in the top bunk |
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| For reference, here's Bigun and Ms Baker from last year's camp. They grow up so fast! |
It started with breakfast, then tennis, archery, and shooting BB guns. Turns out, Bigun loves playing tennis and is kind of coordinated at it. She loved the archery too but never came anywhere close to the target, and neither one of us could hit anything with a BB gun. That was just pitiful.
After lunch, the wind died down so we got into the canoes, and the pentathalon which was really cool. She had to navigate a rope ladder, grab a medicine ball and run some cones, do some fast toe touches, then run the hurdles to finish the course. She finished about 10 seconds slower than the kid record and did really well.
Saturday afternoon we also got into the Snakes Alive show! We arrived at the place and the guy had lost track of time, so we saw the finish of the first show, even though we were waiting for the second show to start. Bigun really wanted to avoid the entire thing, so she stepped up the bravery factor to go to the show at all. Then the first snake to come out was a 13' long burmese python weighing over 100 lbs! It took 8 dads to hold the thing, then the kids could come up behind the dads and hold it, or just come around the front side and pet it. Bigun got her nerve up and went near the head to pet that giant monster. Very cool. Then things settled down and we got to see the second show from the start. He talked about snakes, lizards, and turtles and showed a bunch of the smaller specimens. Eventually he let the kids come up and hold the smaller snakes too, and by then her comfort level was pretty good so she got to hold an albino corn snake for a while. Very cool!
We played around the camp some more before dinner, but after dinner was the normally spectacular campfire and fireworks show. This year "spectacular" was more like "frozen", as it was 38* with 20mph winds blowing when we got there. And since it was april and I only had 15 minutes to pack and the forecast said 70* for Raleigh that day, we were a bit unprepared. I actually used bigun as a blanket, and kept turning to keep the wind on my back. She kept me warm, I kept her shielded. The camp leaders told stories and sang songs, somebody told a scary ghost story, and the fireworks kicked off. The songs were long, the story was boring (but was really scary), and the fireworks took 35 minutes. after about 20 minutes Bigun was telling me that she was ready for it to be over so they could go back to the cabin. There was a great sigh of relief when we did make it back.
Pictures from Saturday:
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| Before the day's activities - all of those clothes got incredibly dirty |
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| Sweet girl on a cold day |
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| Dressed in the Vests before the awards ceremony |
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| Rainbow Thunder tribe 2012-13 at the spring outing! |
Sunday breakfast was continental at first. They run a 5k race this day at camp, but after saturday night's cold we chose not to run it. Then it turned out to be really nice and sunny on sunday, so that stunk. We hit the tennis courts again, and knocked out the last two events, the long jump and the 50 yard dash. She made the jump around 6 feet, which was pretty good. I only managed 9 feet something. Then in the 50 yard dash, she did really well too. The dad's record was 6.29 seconds, and I hit that sucker in 7.19 seconds. Almost there.
Sunday brunch was this biscuit and sausage gravy thing that they do every year, and it was pretty good. After that we packed up all of our stuff and headed for home. We rode with my buddy Luke and his daughter, so everyone had fun on the way back. Luke's daughter actually broke her foot saturday night, and nobody knew until she made it to the doctor on monday. We still carried her around everywhere sunday anyway so she didn't put any weight on that foot.
So this weekend was in the books as a great time at a cold camp. We had a blast and I absolutely love getting to spend this much quality time with my eldest daughter. Starting in September, I'm going to get the Evil Genius into a tribe of her own, so next year I'll get to go to TWO spring outings. Insane. I may not survive.
Have you ever taken a kid to camp like that?
2 comments:
How cool is that!! What a nice weekend
Wow, that is so cool! And those 2 photos comparing last year and this year are crazy - Bigun has grown up so much in the last year! Crazy! What a fun thing to do. I would have loved spending that much time with my dad when I was young. One of my fondest memories from my childhood was a day when my dad took me with him to Fargo (the biggest town by my hometown that was an hour away) when he had to go pick up some parts for work. I come from a big family of 5 kids so getting my dad to myself for an entire day was a really big deal!
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