Wilderness Camp 2015

K&A always have the best summer.
I try to keep them busy all summer so they don't get bored and
don't just spend every day sitting at home while I'm at work.
Besides, summertime is for making memories.

Last year I sent them to my favorite childhood camp, Lakeshore, in Eva, TN.
They loved it. But they heard all about the wilderness camp and were dying to go this year.
So, I made it happen. :)

When I say wilderness camp, I mean really in the woods.
They stay in treehouses and have no electricity. There's even an outhouse.

I was very nervous to send them....especially since they normally have an
ipad in one hand and a phone in the other.
But they were up for the adventure and I knew it would be great blogging material.

FH and I took them on a Sunday night.
It takes a little over 2 hours to get there and in case you were wondering, an almost
5 hour road trip is not what you want to do when you are huge and pregnant.
Or when it's raining, because rain + the interstate stresses me out.

The girls were beyond hyper the whole way there. And drove me just a little bit crazy.
I would have been pretty excited too though!

When we got there, we had no clue where we were going.
We had to drive down this really long MUDDY gravel one lane road.
I was wishing we had a big truck at the time, and praying that we didn't pass anyone.

And then when we got there, all the people looked better prepared than us.
They had on their backpacks and just looked like they knew what they were doing.
Meanwhile, we had a rolling suitcase......
I was really worried at that point! What was I dropping my kids off to?!

We got them checked in, loaded all their stuff in a truck that would deliver it to the treehouse.
They would be walking to get there......and of course, they made friends immediately.
Not even wanting to take a pic before I left.

I was really dissappointed that we didn't get to see the treehouses.
I even looked online to try to find a picture, but couldn't.
When we picked them up, we were going to walk up the hill so I could see it,
but one of the counselors told me it was a pretty rough walk.
And looked at my pregnant belly and probably laughed inside.
FH offered to walk it and take pics for me, but that just wouldn't have been fair.
But next year, I'm making that walk and taking some pics!

I was nervous the entire week.
Not really because they were away from home. They go to camp all the time and are fine.
But they didn't have electricity!
And I was so afraid that it was going to be rougher than they expected.
And there was a canoe trip down the Buffalo River and a high ropes course....
and of course, they didn't send me any mail.

Finally on Saturday morning, it was time to go get them!
I was so anxious to get there and to hear all about it.
Do you know that when we got there, K was hugging her friends and standing in a group with them......I kept thinking she didn't see me, but she did. She just wasn't running to me like she missed me like I expected. Side note: K is the child who is never embarassed to love on me. NEVER.
A is totally too cool for me, but K could care less what people think.
And she wasn't running to hug me.
I think my heart broke a little.
And then we see Alex, same thing. Way too busy for us.

And this is how they looked after a full week of camp.

Did I mention that they didn't take one single shower?
And they played in a mud pit?
I could literally smell all the campers. It wasn't pretty.
A even bought a hat because she has short hair and it gets a hot mess if you don't wash it.

Side note: when they were leaving, everyone was telling them bye and calling them the right name.
This never happens, especially not with new friends.
I asked if they all could just tell them apart because of their hair and A said:
"Well, I have had this hat on for the last few days......"

They did brush their teeth twice a day, just for the record.
So there's that.
Even if A couldn't find her toothbrush the first two days and thought she forgot it so she had to
use K's......see, it's good to have a twin! But she found it on the 3rd day so they didn't have to keep sharing.

They said that one kid took a shower last year and everyone made fun of him.
#Iwouldhavebeenthatkid
Apparently if you want to take a shower, you have to make the 10 minute walk down the hill
to the showers, it's freezing cold, and then walk up the hill. Only to turn around and walk down
the hill again to start the day. So it wasn't worth it. It would have been to me though!
Oh and the first night, they wrote ALL OVER THEMSELVES with sharpies.
Lovely.

Also, there were bathrooms at the bottom of the hill, but just in case you needed to go to
the bathroom in the middle of the night, there was an outhouse.
Like a real outhouse.
And the girls said it was disgusting.
Their counselor actually got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, and there were
2 raccoons right beside her when she walked outside, and she accidentally didn't need the outhouse anymore. They scared it right out of her. Oops.

Oh and also, there were 2 mice in their treehouse.
This is when I would have called my mom to come get me.

They walked everywhere.
The actual camp, where the non-wilderness people stay and most activites were, was like at least a 20 minute walk. Both of them swore they lost 10 lbs from walking so much.

K had a letter for me in her bag that she kept forgetting to mail.
And A mailed me a letter that I got the next Monday. Fail.
They were both hilarious though so worth the wait.

The ride home was interesting.
These girls were EXHAUSTED.

 

A passed out almost immediately.

 

K was just confused and fighting sleep until she finally crashed hard.

 

I asked them if they wanted to do wilderness camp again next year or regular camp, and they both immediately said wilderness camp.

 

They made tons of friends and lots of memories.

Mud volleyball (which they played without the vollyeball, which I guess is just playing in the mud), ropes course, kiyaking, canoeing, swimming....all-in-all, I'd say it was a success.

 

Surprisingly, they came home with everything they took with them except for one sheet and one pair of shorts. Of course, that was the most expensive pair of shorts they own, but what can you do?

 

Home for 3 days and now they are already gone for their next adventure.

 

One week in the mountains with my dad and stepmom at a horse camp.

Surely they will shower this time.

 

**Please note, they swam every day and still smelled. I can't imagine what it would have been like if there was no swimming.**

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