A Night With My Very Own Brownie

The second of Bitty's two Girl Scout camps happened last weekend, and I was much more comfortable with this one than the last because I didn't have to send her off and wonder how she was doing - I got to go with her!  (Poor Bundle.  She is so tired of being left behind!) Despite leaving a sad Bundle, I was very happy to have a chance to give all my attention to my middle child and spend a really fun over night with her.

Her camp was held at Trefoil Ranch, a girl scout facility up Provo Canyon.  It is quite the facility!  I wasn't sure what to expect but I'll tell you, I wouldn't mind hanging out for a few weeks every summer at that gorgeous lodge all snugged up in a narrow canyon.

I was shocked to see some gold and amber leaves as we walked around.  I know autumn comes early to the mountains, but I wasn't expecting it quite yet!  Made for quite a site, though.

Bitty and I had a ball.  It was a little slow getting up there due to horrendous traffic including two different accident scenes on the freeway. (I hope everyone was okay!)  Evenutally we made it, and once we were there I let Bitty hunt down a great sleeping spot for us.  There were probably 60 families there, mostly just a mom and daughter duos but some families had more than one daughter there.  The lodge was gigantic, plus there was a separate bunk house, and every room was stocked with these huge mattresses, covered in vinyl, that you could drag around and plop where you wanted.  Bitty chose an upper level porch for us, really wanting to sleep under the stars.  Brilliant choice.

We spent the evening playing games, chatting with the three other families we knew, eating a yummy dinner and eventually gathering around a campfire for singing and s'mores (which were prepared for us in the kitchen, thank heavens.  I didn't love the idea of 60 girls all clamoring around a fire trying to poke sharp things into the center of the flames.)

I was worried that we would be bombarded with bugs, but somehow Bitty and I both escaped our adventure without a single mosquito bite.  We snuggled down into our puffy sleeping bags and she held a flashlight while I read Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban to her until we were both falling asleep. I think she lasted longer than I did - in the morning she told me about the falling stars she watched and I totally missed.

 We were up very early to pack up our stuff before gathering for breakfast (crunchiest sausages I have ever had; I could actually smell them burning as I was stuffing my sleeping bag and almost ran down to the kitchen to attempt a rescue.  I should have.  It's not a happy thing to wake up to the delicious smell of cooking sausage, only to smell them start to burn and yet be served them for breakfast anyway. Only complaint of the weekend.)

After breakfast we divided up into groups to do things like Kapers, nature walks, archery and team-building games.  It's kind of weird but the best part of the trip for me was when we went to archery, discovered that only kids age 9 and above got to use real bows and arrows and Bitty was heartbroken.  She almost dissolved on the spot; she so did not want to use the Nerf arrows provided for smaller kids. I thought for a moment about helping her just get through it and then thought to myself, you know, this is HER weekend - we should do whatever she wants.  So we made our excuses, headed back to the lodge where there is a basement absolutely stuffed with games like ping pong, air hockey, hula hoops, velcro-frisbee catch, and stuff.  I think the two of us spent 1 1/2 hours down there playing together happily with almost no one else there.  It was really fun. And she is surprisingly good at air hockey.

I am looking forward, if we remain a girl scouting family, to going again with both girls.  With everything that Bundle has seen us go and do, there is no way she is letting me off the hook when she gets old enough to start scouting!!