More Camping...and Loving IT!

Three weeks ago I got to go camping with my oldest daughter, Macy (age 5). It is part of the YMCA program called Y Princess. For the boys it is called Y Guides. (It used to be call Indian Princess/Guides until political correctness ran amok.) Well this past weekend, it was Luke's turn (age 7). The program starts when you are in Kindergarten and goes until third grade. Because of this 3rd grade cutoff, Luke is also in Cub Scouts which goes to 5th grade and transitions to Boy Scouts. At some point I am sure to blog about the Scouting program that is near and dear to my heart.

But for now, I am blogging about how we "rough it" at camping in the Y program. The Y would like to have the "tribes" to have about 10 boys and their dads. Because we have gone RENEGADE and broken off from the Y and because we have such a great time, we now have about 30 boys plus fathers to make 60 people in our little tribe...I mean mob. At this camp out we had close to 54 attend.

With that being said, there is never a dull moment. 26 seven year olds running around with sticks and throwing rocks...and no one got hurt....well seriously anyway. There is a reason why mothers are not allowed to attend such functions.

This fall camp out was to take place at Sky Ranch. A high end camp located in the piney woods of East Texas about 1 1/2 hours east of Dallas. At the camp there are zip lines, a ropes course, horseback riding, water slides that feed into a really nice lake, paint ball courses and a plethora of other activities. Basically you can't do it all in just a weekend.

Luke was limited to NO water activities as he had received stitches above the eye because he tripped and fell while running up our stairs carrying a cap gun pistol. The metal of the pistol barrel implanted a pretty deep cut and on Friday Luke was wearing the stitches above the eye as a badge of honor. Come Saturday when everyone was in the water park...well, he was hating those stitches then. Other than that, Luke had a great time on the Zip lines, horse back riding, jumping on this apparatus they call the pillow jumper and just having an overall good time doing the things boys like to do but cannot be published here for fear of causing premature graying in his sainted mother's hair.

The dad's have a better time than the sons and because we are in the heart of football season, we have to bring a satellite and not 1, but 2 receivers to be able to watch 2 football games simultaneously. One being shown by a projector TV and another on a much smaller Plasma screen. So while we sit around the camp fire, we do what every red blooded American male should do and we watch football.

Notice the projector screen

Notice the Plasma TV

After we put the boys to bed, sometime before midnight...we are not to picky about bedtimes as all the concubine units are unaware of what is actually happening in the camp (refer to my aforementioned comment about why mothers are not present), we break out the dutch ovens and prepare two midnight snacks. One is called GEEZER and the other is cobbler. The recipe for GEEZER will be published in a later blog as it is a snack that keeps on giving...sometimes up to 48 hours.

The Greatness of the Dutch Oven

Sunday morning is the return trip home and some recoup time before heading into work on Monday. Below are pictures of both Luke's camp out and Macy's from 3 weeks ago. ENJOY!