Fall Outing Time!

This was an interesting time for the Fall Outing. It is a fun day at Camp Kanata in North Raleigh with the rest of the Indian Princess tribe with Evil Genius. It was a beautiful fall day, perfectly cool, couldn't ask for better circumstances. We rode up there with another pair that lives nearby right after church and got heavy into the campy fun times!

Soccer first

then playing with the other kids in my jacket

Some lakeside fun time

Ready for launch!

Big landing! She can fly!

Now she's in a tire swing

Walking the stumps

Taming a ropes course

Sniper in training

Archery too! EG's a natural

Proud Papa

Once all of the camp activities closed down we ate some dinner with the rest of the tribe, then went back to the car to get the vests and our torches. I really love the way this tribe has come together. I truly enjoy spending time with the other dads, and all of the girls seem to get along really well too. It always seems to be so much fun!

EG carrying the big torch

Then she got to practice her engineering skills building a bridge with some other kids

pretending to be asleep when I want to get a nice picture together.....

This is our second year as a tribe. The big focus of the Fall Outing is for the first year tribes. All of the second years make torches (we made ours during the recent camping trip), then you have a few hundred flaming rolls of toilet paper lighting the way for you to walk down to an amphitheater. It is a really incredible sight, and has a huge effect on the first year dads and kids. This time it was our turn to hold the flame.

Our Flaming Bucket

Two rows of illumination

My favorite pic - you can see the smoke from our torch and EG's hoodie is on point

The members of our tribe on the other line

We all ended up wrapping our torches with christmas lights and a battery pack. It was a nice touch. By the end of the night the kids are completely worn out and you know they has as much fun as possible.  EG was still EG, she cried the entire time we weren't doing an activity, and wanted to go home constantly thanks to her aversion to being outdoors. But in the end she was glad we stayed as long as we did and she had a wonderful time.

It's our swan song at Camp Kanata. We only do the Fall Outing the first two years, so Ella's first year and second year are long gone. Last year I took EG the evening after we were camping as a new tribe, so the following weekend I took both kids back up there just for the activities, not the after-dark action. So this being my youngest kid's second year, it was the 5th and final time I got to go up there. Ella and I might go back sometime to volunteer but this may be the end.  We sure went out with a bang.