We began with flag and then stayed there and got ready to swim. We were first in the pool and I was so happy, because one of the much-loved aides, Woodstock, was going to swim with the girls. We had three aides, Tinkerbell and Miss India were the other two aides who were with us for the whole week. The other aides that we had were aides-in-training and their names were Starburst, Daisy and Cheerios. Only Starburst swam during our swim time with the girls and she usually spent most of the time going off of the board. So I was very excited to see Woodstock take over some of the play time I had been doing with the girls. I got out of the pool a little early and changed because we didn't have a lot of time in between swimming and our rock-wall climb!
Sarah and Grace grew so much more independent in the water through the week. Sarah spent much of the last swim sessions jumping off the side in the deep end with her swim buddy Alex. Grace hung in the shallow end with her swim buddy Ava. One of the best pictures of the week was when the shallow end girls (about 10) jumped into the water holding hands. I had a few pictures of Grace doing this with the group. Sarah was part of this until her swim buddy had to go potty and then their swim time ended. It was so much fun to see them grow in confidence in the water.
After the swimming adventure, the girls and I got to climb the rock wall. I didn't make it all the way to the top. I may have made it half-way. But I was the very first person from our group to actually climb. Sarah climbed and I was so proud of her! She didn't want to climb at all last year and this year, she tried and made it about a third of the way up. I was just so happy she tried! She wouldn't even put a harness on last year! Then Grace began to climb and I was completely floored. She climbed to the very top of the rock wall! Good for her!!! I was so proud of her too!!! After we watched everyone in the group climb up the rock wall, we thanked the rock wall expert and headed up to eat lunch. We had a cookout in our unit on Thursday. So we had hot dogs that we grilled out ourselves, apple smiles (apple slices, peanut butter and marshmallow teeth), and ice cream in a bag. The ice cream in a bag wasn't too successful. We needed a LOT more salt and didn't have it. So we had "milkshakes". After we cleaned up lunch at the unit we had to hike to the Math and Science Center for our Math and Science session. We had been looking forward to that for days! The girls got to meet a turtle and some lizards. They got to make a special bandana that uses crystals that expand to keep them cool when they dip it in water. After that, they switched groups and Sarah and Grace got to go in and play with earthworms. They even met a snake! Grace loved playing with her earthworm and actually kissed the worm as we left.
We headed to Crafts where the girls made their final crafts. The first one we worked on was a bookmark that the girls wove. It was pretty difficult for little fingers. The 2nd craft was candles that the girls got to dip. They all loved this!
After Crafts, we headed up to flag for the closing ceremony for the day. After flag, it was time for dinner. Fried Chicken, mashed potatoes, and green beans were on the menu and it was pretty good.
The all camp event was much different than last year, but as an adult, I appreciated it very much. We were able to participate on the retiring of many flags. The first flag we retired was HUGE! It was the size of the AUL flag. Massive! Watching them cut each stripe and place it in a fire was so interesting and very patriotic! After the cut each stripe, one of the 13 colonies was named. After the whole flag was retired, we watched as each unit retired 3 flags. We had a huge bonfire of flags that had to be watched for quite a while. As all of this was going on, we noticed a significant change in the weather. The temperature dropped to about 70 degrees as opposed to the 90 it had been most of the week. It felt awesome outside! We went into the lodge for the conclusion of the all-camp event and got to meet Juliette Gordon Lowe. There was a lady who was there and had studied a lot about Juliette Gordon Lowe and knew a lot about her and talked about her and gave the girls a lot of history about her. It was very interesting and the girls did a great job of listening! They had popsicles and then we headed back to our unit for smores and bedtime. Other than one tent that was a out of hand, everyone else really settled down and went to bed easily. I was very surprised that Sarah and Grace did as well as they did. The leaders and I sat out until about 11:30 and then headed to bed! We needed to be up at 6:40 the next morning!
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