Fort Wilderness Camping with the Girl Scouts - Day 1

So to continue the nature-loving trend I'm having here on Domestic Spaz, it's time to talk a little about last weekend's camping trip.

It wasn't really intentional that we planned a weekend camping trip for the girl scouts on Easter weekend.  It was more of a "Hey! We need to book a camping trip! The girls don't have school that Friday, let's book one then!" and bam reservations were made.

It didn't really pose much of a problem for our troop, luckily, as out of sixteen girls, only three decided they couldn't make it.  In the end, two more dropped out due to health issues.  So Friday morning we gathered at my co-leader's house at the crack of dawn to begin our adventure.

We had gathered most of the girls gear the night before and put it in the topper on my van.  The Man packed that sucker like a game of duffel bag tetris and I warned everyone not to even think about opening it until we had arrived at Fort Wilderness.

The real challenge was packing up the open trailer we were using to bring up the tents and food and BIKES.  Luckily, my co-leader's husband was willing to pack it up nice and securely for the ride up.  Since we're smartypantses, we took pictures of the trailer in order to remember how to pack it up to come home. This would be the first of our genius moves of the weekend.

We got on the road a little late, but managed the 3 hour drive without incident.

The trailer and all of its contents remained secure and once we arrived on our campsite we managed to back it into place and unhook it from the Suburban that had pulled it up there.

Nevermind that we forgot temporarily to actually unlock it from the trailer hitch and managed to actually pick the back of the Suburban off the ground while attempting to unhook it.  And nevermind that the block we placed underneath the front of the trailer wasn't exactly level, causing the trailer to roll backward and KACHUNK on the ground. No one was injured and all was well. And we did it.

We quickly ate a sandwich lunch because we were all starving.  Then our first real challenge (aside from the trailer) was to set up camp.  We had three tents for the girls and one ginormous tent for the five leaders and two adjacent campsites to utilize.  So we decided to put all the girls on one site and then put the leaders on the site with the trailer and all of the cooking stuff.  This would be the second of our genius moves of the weekend.

The girls tents quickly started going up.  Until we got to the tent I had brought for the girls.  Now, the last person to use this tent was The Man's cousin when she took our kids and her kids camping with the boy scouts.  I was actually in Pittsburgh at the time, but evidently when the tent was returned it was a little disheveled.  The Man was dealing with an arm injury at the time, so I guess when he attempted to return the tent to its original condition, he forgot to make sure that the entire structure of tent poles and framing was put in the bag with the tent.

I had planned on setting up the tent at home before the trip just to make sure nothing like this happened... but time caught up with me (as it usually does) and it never happened.  So you can imagine my frustration when I realized that the tent I had brought for the girls wasn't going to happen.

Yeah.

Luckily, we had to make a run to Walmart for food just after setting up camp, so the troop could purchase another tent while we were there. Crisis averted.

While one of the leaders and I ventured off to Walmart, the other three leaders took the girls to the pool.  There is an awesome bus line that runs throughout Fort Wilderness that will get you pretty much wherever you need to go.  But the girls wanted to ride their bikes.  And when they had played all of the cards they could play to get us to agree to let them ride their bikes to the pool (that we weren't sure where it actually was), they played the final card.

"But it's EARTH DAY!"

And off on their bikes they all went.






After the pool and the trip to Walmart, we started dinner for the girls. The girls had planned the menu, so Friday's dinner was spaghetti with meatballs and garlic bread.

Time was of the essence (as it always is), so we decided to make a big pot of spaghetti and drive the girls over to the movie (there's a movie under the stars every night at Fort Wilderness) and let them eat the spaghetti there.

So we drove them over (as close as we could drive them, a lot of Fort Wilderness is bike & golf cart accessible only) and set up an assembly line of plates and forks for them to get their spaghetti and walk over to the movie.

The pot was on the floor of the front passenger seat of my van and to serve it, we had the brilliant idea of me putting my hand in a big ziploc bag and grabbing a handful of spaghetti to put on their plate.  The idea was awesome.  Except for the fact that the spaghetti was like LAVA.

I served the first girl in this manner and my hand was immediately tingly like it was on fire.  But I had eleven girls to serve and there was a bit of a sense or urgency... so what did I do?

I persevered.

I stuck my hand into the burning lava spaghetti eleven times and served all eleven girls.  And then I cried as the feeling returned to my fingertips.  But all girls ate. Mission accomplished.

In the morning I discovered two meatballs on the floor of the van and three strands of spaghetti stuck to my dashboard.  But it was all good.

Not that I gave up anything for Lent anyway, but The Spaz will be celebrating the end of it with copious amounts of booze...

The next few days in Spazland are going to be a little nutty. I feel like I've been triple whammied by life.

Thursday is The Man's birthday.  While I'm not planning a giant celebration for him (sorry, Mr. Wonderful), I'd still like to make his day special. :) So I need to find some time to make the house somewhat enjoyable for him and bake him a birthday cake. No big deal, right? Unfortunately, I also have a girl scout meeting that night that is necessary for me to attend so the tribute to The Man will have to wait until after the meeting.

Why on earth would a girl scout meeting trump The Man's birthday? Well, because on Friday (Earth Day!) I'll be heading up to Disney's Fort Wilderness with thirteen 9 year old girls, their bikes, and 5 other grown women for a weekend camping extravaganza. So the meeting on Thursday is kind of an important one to touch base with the girls and their parents and to pack up the minivan.

Now, it's not as if I haven't known about this trip for EVER.  But I just wouldn't be me if I didn't leave all the pertinent little details to the last minute.

So between now and Thursday I have to somehow find the time to clean out the van and vacuum it so the girls aren't accosted with something foul that may be living in the 3rd row, get to the grocery store, do enough laundry to make sure everyone has clothes for camping and for the boys at home until I return (including Easter clothes), set up our tent to make sure it's not all screwy for some reason (and to make sure I know how to set up our tent), put a First Aid kit together for the troop, put the topper on the minivan, clean the house, buy all of the stuff we'll inevitably need for camping, buy Easter stuff, pack 200 colored eggs with candy and treats, get new tires on the van, bake a cake, host a girl scout meeting, and, oh yeah, actually get some work done.

I'm giggling a little. It's probably hysteria. 

Our check out time from Fort Wilderness is Sunday at 11:00 AM.  Easter Sunday. It was a bit of a screw up that we actually booked this camping trip for Easter weekend, but oddly enough, it hasn't caused too much of a disruption with the girl scout families. Out of the 16 girls in our troop, 13 are attending and the other three are not missing the trip due to the holiday.

So on a morning when I would usually be watching my babies wake up to colorful, chocolatey, jelly beany goodness, I'll be breaking down a camp site and loading girls into cars to head home.

And hopefully we'll be able to get to The Man's aunt's house by 2:00 for our annual Easter egg hunt.  I'm sending The Man and the boys with the previously stuffed eggs just in case we don't make it.

I think I'll be having a nice, stiff, Easter evening drink.

Birthday, Earth Day, & The Wild Kingdom

Today is The Man's birthday and I got to see him for a whole 15 minutes before he trotted off to work this afternoon. He's turning the big three five this year and he's looking quite dapper for his old age, if I do say so myself.

Today is also the eve of Earth Day. Last year I went all gung ho on the Earth Day front and I figured it might be about time to reflect on the big changes I made to The Spaz household a year ago in honor of our planet.

Recycling bins. Yes, we got them. I even placed them in my kitchen when they arrived and lectured the kids on how to separate the plastics from the papers and which bin to place them in. Oh how much fun we had separating and filling up our bins which were to be collected once a week on Wednesday mornings.

After three Wednesday mornings had gone by and no one had taken out the bins, they were a little full. And stinky. And then one Friday night while everyone else was sleeping I threw everything in a garbage bag and put it out on the curb for Saturday morning's regular pickup. And that is how our recycling bins became acquainted with the back of our garage, never to see the light of day again.

Maybe I'll dig them out this year and try again.

Eco Friendly Lunchboxes. I'm actually doing great with this because now Goober is in kindergarten and therefore eats school lunch. So I haven't had to pack a sandwich in a ziploc bag or buy a box of Capri Suns all year! Score one for The Spaz!

I did, actually, have to pack Bug a lunch today for a field trip and did utilize a sandwich container and reusable plastic container for applesauce. That was more of an avoidance of the grocery store, though, than a real attempt to save the earth. I was out of ziplocs and only had a giant jar of applesauce. I did, however, save gas by not driving to the store.

Buying jugs of water. I can honestly, and not sarcastically, say that I've done really great with this. We still use our Brita pitcher and I haven't bought any jugs of bottled water. Seriously, I'm proud of myself here. Score another one for The Spaz!

Reusable shopping bags. Let me just tell you how much I use these bags. They're great for packing a kid up for a sleepover. You can send kids to school with all sorts of stuff in them. In fact, on the first day of school all of those supplies went to school in reusable shopping bags. They work great for bringing gifts to parties, sending stuff home with guests, the uses are endless!

If only I could remember to bring them with me to the actual grocery store I might be saving the earth.

I don't feel too terribly horrible about my Earth Day Failures, though, because I read a blog post today that let me know how much I do for the earth every day that I didn't even think of. Water conservation? Big giant check!

In other news, I have managed to keep Felix, the kitten, alive for over 7 weeks now. He's quite the feisty kitten these days so I guess I did a pretty good job. Cause The Spaz and wildlife go together like PB&J, y'all.

In fact, I saved a turtle crossing the road just this afternoon by standing in the middle of the road and motioning to cars to go around. Pick him up? No way. Those things can bite your finger off!