• Sep. 25, 2009
4H Camp
I just got back from an awesome camp for homeschoolers. It's called Outdoor School and IT ROCKS! I love it!
Anyway, it's only for homeschoolers, so that made it a bit harder for me to find some friends to go to camp with me. I ended up going with two homeschooled friends named Hannah and Chloe. They are awesome friends!
On the first day of camp, I was put in a different cabin than all my friends! Boohoo! It was my counselor's mistake, as she was new and didn't really know what to do. Anyway, the camp leader, Coach (that's her camp name, not her real name), fixed it all so I would be with my friends. They were in cabin 2 (mine) then they were moved to cabin1, then cabin 2, then cabin 1 again! How annoying and confusing would that be???
At camp there was so much to do.
I got to do Wind Energy (where you build a blade for a wind turbine and see how many volts you get),
Drama ( you make different shapes with your group, (waterfall, tomato, etc.) and other fun games, such as Improv),
Nature Hike (we got to go on a hike and identify different trees, etc.),
Wildlife (looking at different animal pelts and pointing out different characteristics about them),
Fishing (Catch and Release, I didn't like it that much because I like to catch and eat fish, but the lady in charge pointed out that to stock the pond with fish was a bit expensive, about a dollar a fish.),
and Dutch Oven cooking (that was awesome! I thought you could only make soups and stews in those, but he said you could make pizza, cake, cookies, anything you wanted! Cool! Then at the end of class, he made some apple-bread pudding that was HEAVENLY!).
They gave you two hours of free time every day, but you had to be with a buddy, or a counselor would pull you out and drag you around camp. I did Archery, Canoeing, Tree Swings (which is a really, really, really, really tall tree with a rope hanging down. You climb into a harness and put a helmet on, then run and jump off the platform and go in circles around the tree. It's really popular, so for a 2-minute ride, you have to wait 15 minutes-half hour in line!), and Snakes.
Snakes is totally awesome. I had that as a class last year, but not this year, so I went there during free time. There is this guy, who is TOTALLY into snakes, as well as his daughter and wife. So they bring almost all their snakes there. Abby is their biggest; a ground boa (not boa constricter!). I think the smallest is a rainbow boa, but I'm not sure.
My favorite snake there was Queen Elizabeth, a King Snake. She was not nearly as large as Abby, but she was still pretty big. She must have felt attached to me because she anchored herself extremely tightly to my arm and wouldn't let go, then decided to go explore me! I held her (or she held ME) for about 20 minutes. It was really fun, but challenging, because all the other people were holding corn snakes in a "corn snake party" or one of a couple other bigger snakes, and King Snakes' prime food source is other snakes. People with Corny's kept on coming up to see Queen and I had to keep telling them (politely with some urgency in my voice) that they had to get away before Queen felt hungry! Yikes!
Another thing they did at camp was games! That was really fun. There was a game called Diamond Smugglers that we played the first night. There were two teams: the Smugglers and the Cops. The smugglers had to hide diamonds somewhere on their person, go across a certain line, and trade their diamonds with another smuggler. Then they had to walk back over the line, and give their new goods to a counter, who would count all the diamonds that had been smuggled across. However, their was a catch: there were the Cops, who would interrogate you and make you do stuff if they thought any of the diamond smugglers were suspicious, but you could lye to them. If they had enough proof (or what they thought was enough proof), they would take you in to the detectives. The detectives would plainly ask if you had any diamonds, and you would answer Yes or No. You couldn't lie to them; they were counselors. If you had diamonds, you handed them over and the Cops team would get a point for every diamond. If you didn't have diamonds, and you'd tricked them into thinking you had diamonds, then you answered No and the cops team would get negative points. It's really fun!
Another game we played was a night game called "Mission Impossible." It was awesome! Last year's was really hard, but this year's was quite easy. You had to take a glowstick and walk down the playing field and drop it in the collection basket without getting caught by one of the counselors, who can make you do anything. Propose to a tree, kiss a tree, run across a certain area screaming at the top of your lungs, recite a bible verse, sing a silly song, anything! And they probably will take your glowstick, too. It's super fun!
I loved camp. I hope I'll see you there next year if you are homeschooled and you live close enough to attend!
Comments
• Oct. 6, 2009
Hmm...
Posted by Rebecca
Well, you live in Oregon, and I live in Kansas. Is that close enough? ;-)
Your friend,
Rebecca
• Oct. 6, 2009
Untitled Comment
Posted by Naomi Marie
Hi, Kelsi! :D
I wish we could have gone to camp this year. But we were to busy.
My favorite class was snakes! :D And Queen Elizabeth was AWESOME. The corns were really cute, too. :D
Do you know that I have a Garter snake for a pet, I'm sorry you had to let yours go. :( Maybe I'll have to also.)
Naomi
• Dec. 13, 2009
Another Comment
Posted by Naomi
Ok, sorry about this comment also, but I forgot to ask you something...Who were your counselors? Did you have Nutty, Lily and...Stitch?
Love Your Penpal & Friend,
Naomi
