Girl Scout Camp

I have been given more pics of Ryanne at camp. I'll just post them all here. :) I am only posting the ones with her in them. Since I don't really know what was going on I won't talk about them but here they are! :)

Saturday is a special day....

So, this Saturday I did a HUGE thing for me. I let Ryanne go off for the day with out Mom or Dad to a girlscouts campout. Since she is a Daisy she could not stay the night so it was only day camp for her but it was almost 3 hrs away!! Oh my.

All ready to go at the meeting location.

I took her to the place to meet for the carpooling. She was so excited. I drove away and cried the entire way home and then some. I have decided that my children can never go to a brick and mortar school. I will miss them too much. I think I drove Paul crazy with my pitiful mommy comments throughout the day. I just missed this girl.

I wanted to do something special with Collin since he didn't get to go and he and I haven't done anything together for a while so it became an 'all about Collin' day. We decided to call up the cousins and go hiking at the local state park followed by a picnic. :) So, we went....

Here are the kids at the beginning of the hike. Collin and his cousins. :)

Every time they found a log they sat and said, "Take my picture!" haha! I took lots of pictures of them on logs but, don't worry, I didn't include them ALL on here but I did include quite a few. 

Just Collin with his walking stick. 

The only boys. hehe!

Poor girl. There are several boardwalks on this 3 mile hike. On one of them she was reaching for a stick and flipped over into the water. She was not happy to be walking around in wet clothes. He mom wore layers though so she did get a dry shirt. My sister is always prepared and had and extra set of clothes for her in their car. They were summer clothes but at least they were dry. She was able to eat comfortably. ;)

My nephew's arms are outstretched because he had lost his balance. LOL! Silly boy!

My super cute sister and her youngest!!! Are they both adorable?

The bathroom area was swarming with ladybugs. It was crazy. I got really close so you could see them. Now, picture this many EVERYWHERE. I was trying to read the bulletins posted by the bathrooms and had to protect my eyes. When I stepped away I had to remove the ladybugs from my clothing. At least they were ladybugs and not bees or snakes or something like that. I can handle a few ladybugs.

We ate by the pond and then of course played by the pond.

Oh! Did I mention my mom joined us too? That's her in the pink shirt with the water bottle. :)

I am aware this picture makes no sense but let me explain because the situation was funny. There was this BIG bug! It was kind of flat, dark, shaped like a pointed rain drop with cricket like legs and about 1.5-2" long. My sister's second oldest (the one who fell in the water) had walked to the cars to get something and saw it on my sister's white vehicle (pictured). I thought, ooh, let's get a picture. So, she and I got really close and I had the phone ready taking it's picture. I hit the button and in the time it took me to hit the button and for it to take the picture, the bug jumped at my face, my niece and both screamed and leaped backwards. Thus, this picture. It was meant to be a super close up of the bug but I jumped back several feet and no idea where the bug went so my fingers, the keys, my nieces legs, and a shot of the side of my sis's vehicle. LOL!

walking around the pond

The porch of the ranger's office. My sis and I decided we want one like this outside our homes.

The kids sitting on the steps of the porch of the ranger's office. I also like those chairs in the background... super comfy!

After the hike and picnic Collin and I picked up Sonic and headed home for a game of Munchkin with Paul. It's one of Collin's favorite games. Paul and I enjoy it too but Ryanne doesn't so it was the perfect game to play while she was gone. So fun!
If you are curious about Munchkin then here is a review for it. :)

 So, meanwhile... Ryanne was still at camp.

Ryanne and her girlscout troop who went to camp. This isn't all the girls in the troop but all the girls from the troop who went.

Ryanne at camp! :)

On the way back home! :)

 After she got home she had to show me what she made and tell me what she did. Here she is showing off her sit-upon and birdfeeder pinecone for a picture.

So happy but absolutely exhausted! She slept until 8am!!!

So glad she is back home but also glad she had an opportunity to go off and have fun with the girlscouts. :)

Bruster's Ice Cream Field Trip

here's the cookbook.

The girls are slapping the bag to mix the butter fat into the milk so it's not floating on top. 

Then they measured out 2 gallons of milk (they've been learning the metric system so when she asked how many quarts go in a gallon they weren't sure). The boys poured the milk in and Ryanne put the vanilla in.

Then, time to turn it on to churn. She was showing the kids how the machine works in the empty one by it. 

The kids had to check in the machine to see what it looked like. Ryanne's turn!

That had to churn for 10 minutes so the kids got a tour of the rest of the facility. They even got to wear the headset for the drive thru.

They got to help make waffle cones and waffle bones. How cool! I thought this part was pretty neat too. 

Time to check the ice cream!

As the ice cream went in they alternated the crushed oreos with the freshly churned ice cream. 

There is a 5 gallon bucket full of freshly churned oreo ice cream.

At the end, everyone, including the adults, had to go stand by their favorite type of ice cream and she gave us all a cup of ice cream. So fun!!!! Definitely worth the $1/person that I didn't even have to pay... the school paid for it. YAY! :)