Brownies camp

What a weekend! Our light party was the biggest yet, with just under 500 paying kids (we only had 400 loot bags prepared!) and around 1,000 people on site. I was exhausted and had bruised feet by the time I got home from that huge day - but then it was straight to packing bags for brownies camp the next day! I hit bed at 11:30pm Saturday night! 

This was Jaimees first camp for kids, and she was so excited and nervous but glad mum was coming along. We got there at 9:30am, armed with "ditty bags" and torches. It was fun setting up sleeping bags in our dorm room before heading out to explore with the other 14 excited brownies from the two Hastings units. The guides were tenting in the nearby field and some acitivities were with them. We had a great morning doing jungle crafts - painting rocks and sticks up as animals, making sand gardens, doing chalk drawings and making alligators with celery, peanut butter and choc chips. 

After a lunch of yummy bread rolls that we made ourselves jaimee did our dishes camp style for us. 

In the afternoon we joined the guides and split into groups for team stationed games. I was in charge of a stepping stone game where the kids had to use logs to get across from one point to another without touching the grass. The excitement of the afternoon came when we all had to hit the ground as a busy swarm of bees flew down the meadow. Jaimee was amazed at how they travelled together. 

For dinner, we headed down to the river bank and cooked our own sausages, fish fingers and meat patties. We even made our own damper (scones) and cooked them on sticks before eating them with jam - they were delicious! It was really fun cooking our own food like this. 

Of course by the time we did dishes it was 7:30pm and even though that's bedtime at home it's not at camp! The girls all decorated a blanket badge in the fading light while we got the camp fire going. The all the girls sat around and we actually had a real campfire singalong! We sung so many classics - koombaya and edelweiss, bear hunt and some fun camp action songs like "there are no bananas in the sky". Jaimee LOVED it. When the fire died down we put the scooped out Orange halves we had prepared with a cake mix filling in to cook and also banana and choc chips wrapped in foil. We roasted marshmallows and ate s'mores. I was so stuffed!!! After all that it was bedtime, the girls were shattered (we hadn't stayed Friday night when they played night torch games). Jaimee had 2 other girls from her unit in with us, they loved the girl time. 

Unfortunately, we had a leader in with us who snores terribly all night long - jaimee started crying for home in tiredness and ended up with me awake until after 2am! I dozed with headphones in but didn't sleep properly at all. Early night for us! 

The next day everyone slept in till 7:30am, when we ate breakfast outside (we actually never went inside except to sleep all camp, Sunday was 30 degrees!). 

Then we took the brownies down to the bamboo forest to play hide and seek for a while, I love that even a little girl with CF in a wheelchair joined in with everything - we just all had turns carrying her through the bush! Then we cooled off at the river throwing stones and making dams, paddling in the cool. Jaimee had a drink from the river with her hands too! 

After a lunch of all the leftovers, we had "guide time" circle where all the girls shared their thanks and favourite things about camp. Jaimee and her roommates wrote a poem together that they read aloud. 

What a fun weekend, so many cool experiences and new friends. Jaimee earnt 2 new badges and loved her time. Bring on the next camp - a beach one in March! Maybe jaimee will be confident now to go without mum too!