swim in a river?

That was the question I was asked by Jaiden when I told him we were invited to join some friends this afternoon and swim in the river. He was a little hesitant about the idea but Alyssa and I convinced him it would be fun. I later learned from Dennis that at Scout camp the boys had been told not to go near the river and the hazards of falling in or swimming. Well, apparently Alyssa and I aren't so thoughtful of these things?! Not really. It just so happens this river can be quite fun to tube and swim on when the snow melt has lessened. It can still have a strong current in places but for the most part at the right time of the year and the right conditions it can be quite safe.

We set out for another new adventure...

 This photo is at the start of where we parked. And yes, that's Jaiden in the middle of the river. This is the biggest drop with a strong current for the area of the river we were in. Ever since the flood from 2012, the city "redid" the river and created a river kayak course that allowed for individuals to kayak when the river is much higher... it also meant they put in a fun, super large and smooth rock that acts as a slide...

Jaiden loved it and so did his friend, Jordan. The water is really deep here and you do go under water for a brief second and naturally pop up just past the white foam. Don't worry, it is super fun and safe! Even I could have jumped in from where I stood and not hit the bottom.

Alyssa preferred starting just below the waterfall (above) on the other side of the bridge and floating this length of the river. As you can see it's really gentle and easy at this time of the year. Most the time, you can stand up and touch too.

Or she preferred just a little further East in another deep swimming hole.

It was a beautiful day... and even cooler at only 88 degrees. In fact, several of us were laughing at how it felt so much cooler than the 99 degrees we had been experiencing the past few days, and how it wasn't quite "hot" enough to get fully submerged in the river!

The kids want to go back but we definitely need a bigger tube like the river tubes we saw so many people have!

girl scout centennial weekend celebration

Alyssa and I went on a Girl Scout adventure this weekend and headed south for the kickoff centennial celebration of Girl Scouts in Colorado! We left super early Saturday morning and arrived to beautiful blue skies and a crowd of Girl Scouts...

 The idea of the centennial celebration was to experience a big gathering of Girl Scouts and work on both new and vintage badges by visiting various tents to learn about that specific badge. It was a kickoff celebration of 100 years for Girl Scouts in Colorado when in 1917 the Wagon Wheel Council first formed.

We were a little lost at the beginning of the event trying to find where we wanted to go. Alyssa had a check list and as far as I could tell no tents were marked and it felt a bit unorganized but we quickly found a few tents of interest. Alyssa made a yarn God's Eye for the Girl Scout Way badge...

 practiced a whip stitch for the vintage Sewing badge and made herself a sit upon...

 ... threw a spear at bales of hay for the Practice with Purpose badge...

 made dippin' dot ice cream for fun...

 learned more about horses... although I think she knew quite a bit about it from her horse camp earlier this summer...

 worked on the vintage Community Safety badge on preparing for a disaster (this booth was awesome! The 3 individuals from Red Cross did an outstanding job!)...

 and tried to stay cool in the heat...

 In the evening, we were to do a campfire but with our usual dry climate and wind, we were already in the red zone for fire activity - no need to risk a fire! They had also planned a super cool re-enactment of Juliette Low... this lady was super entertaining!

 Followed by Miguel Dakota, a local singer and guitarist who actually was on Season 9 of America's Got Talent. He wasn't the winner but he finished 6th place. He sang only with his guitar - really awesome!

 An early bed time - she was so excited about having her own "big" bed to sleep in...

 Day two was much shorter than our first day. We had two badges she wanted to try - Digital Photography and Beekeeping. We started at Digital Photography and this guy was also phenomenal. His presentation wasn't too long and very age appropriate. I was so impressed. He talked about building the composition and then before he'd sign off on the girl's passport books, he told them to each come back with a photo or two of their own.

 Alyssa attempted flowers...

 ... and then me with the flowers. He liked this one the best because it had the foreground of flowers, me as the middle ground and the trees, mountains and sky as background, an example of composition that he had discussed. She was very excited about this badge. Looks like I might need to take her out and let her try her own hand with my camera...

 The vintage Beekeeping badge was also fascinating. I was relieved there were no live bees but the beekeeper did a fantastic job with photographs explaining how the hives work, the various roles of the bees, how they make honey and she had lots of equipment to show us. My photo didn't turn out so well for that one.

Then before we left, we took a short walk/hike over to the historical Girl Scout roundup site. Normally, you can't walk over to this area because it's private property owned by the Air Force Academy and surprisingly, really close to the interstate. However, for this special centennial event, they opened the gates for anyone of us who wanted to visit it. Lucky for us as we were walking over to the place, another family happened to come by so they could take our photo...

 and this is what the property looked like as we set out for the walk to the sign! I can't imagine 8000 Girl Scouts making the trek to this location and sleeping here for 10 days in tents!

and that concluded our own trek for our Girl Scouts of Colorado Centennial celebration!

paddle, paddle board

Yesterday, Jaiden and I tried something new...

 Paddle boarding!

I wasn't sure what to expect so I only had my iPhone for photos so these will have to do. It's hard to take photos when you are on shore and they take off!

It was a beautiful day ... 99 degrees, again! but somehow being on the water versus being in a non-air conditioned school cafeteria felt much cooler!

Jaiden did most the time on the paddle board and I got to hang on the shore with some mom friends, but Ailie and I did take the boards out for a short bit and it was incredible. I would not have thought it could be so fun or relaxing to do.

This morning, Alyssa and I are off for a Girl Scout Centennial celebration weekend... maybe I will be able to check in later or Sunday evening and have some fun photos of the things she and I did together!

crayons to calculators to math games...

Today was hot! 99 degrees hot! 

And we felt the heat for 2 hours as we volunteered for crayons to calculators stuffing backpacks with school supplies in an un-air conditioned old cafeteria. The kids loved it and asked if we could come back and do it again despite the fact that we were sweaty and hot.

I was shocked and sad at the number of backpacks that get stuffed for our area - the goal? 5,032 were requested and the volunteer coordinator said the plan is to stuff a couple of hundred extras.

I have no idea how many we stuffed today, but I grabbed a couple of photos.

This was before Alyssa switched to using a cart and then would fill up 4-6 backpacks at a time. It was an assembly line sort of set up and it worked amazingly well!

Then I grabbed this one of Jaiden...

 but he wanted one for his Boy Scouts volunteer log record, so I took this one...

 And yes, it was his troop that was looking for volunteers and the great thing for the boys is they earn volunteer hours that are applied to their various rankings (he is about to move up to Star rank in a couple of weeks! so he is working on volunteers hours for the next rank, Life!). We go back next Thursday to stuff more bags!

And if that wasn't enough school like activity, the kids played Math Is Fun computer games just before and after dinner!

I wonder if this is a sign that they are ready for school to start?

Likely not!

spotted...

Yes, I know, I should probably stop stalking Facebook and actually do something productive with my time without kids but I can't help it. This evening's stalk paid off... 

Alyssa was spotted this time...

No idea what she is doing or holding but Dennis guessed it was Sunday night as she was dressed in all black... ninja style! 

found!

Yes, I found the CF card reader and what a fun surprise... not only were there photos from Sunday, but also of their early Sunday morning swim meet (Jaiden's first meet) and from the 4th of July! Will have to get those up shortly but for now, the focus is camp...

Dennis captured this photo for me when he went in to tell Jaiden he better get outside or Mom's coming in! I also forgot that he was the second to last boy in his cabin and was laughing because he got the bottom bunk but at least, he didn't get the hospital bed... poor Jett! We saw him checking in right after us.

 His quick pose for me, and then he was off... it's hard to believe that this is his 6th summer coming to camp and even harder to believe how much he has grown at this camp with the support of all his good friends - the ones that know exactly what it means to poke, to bleed, RICE, magic cream and all the other lingo that we use in this small community we belong to. The only exception to that rule is Papi - and oh, how we wish Papi could experience camp and see how incredible it really is to be surrounded by those who get it, who live with it day in and day out. I know he'd be blown away when he saw how they all gather and poke together... it's truly quite a sight. I experienced it last summer and wow! It was powerful, encouraging and so much camaraderie.

 This stinker gets it but in a very different way and I am glad she is surrounded in this community with girls who bleed and girls who grow up with their brothers who bleed... I am sure she benefits more than I will ever know or understand but in the meantime, she's a stinker who is uber excited to be at camp and won't stand still or give me a cute smile...

 ... until I make her laugh and then it's a quick goodbye because she's got things to do, pranking to plan, friends to find and growing her own way too!

As for Facebook, I keep looking today but I haven't seen any new photos or blog posts posted yet. I know they are busy but Amy - our camp director and chapter president - is witty and fun and she knows each and every one of these boys so when she writes, it's from her heart. 

It was great when I saw this photo yesterday night (Jaiden is first boy on left in front of the table with hat and blue shirt)...

 Caption read: 

"Monday at camp means education sessions! Here's the Sunshine cabin right before their education with Physical Therapist Sharon."

Then there was this photo (Jaiden is in bright orange behind the boy with the red hoodie)...

 Caption read: 

"And they're officially off! These goofballs are on their way to rafting! They'll miss all of the other campers at Easter Seals but they'll have an AWESOME time on the river!"

Yes, these boys are goof balls and apparently are wreaking havoc on craziness and interesting skits... although this group of boys has always done really silly and crazy things at camp, and looking back I can't find one serious photo of these boys for the past 6 years. ever. Got to love that! I am keeping my fingers crossed that we get to see some of their rafting photos!

a little behind...

Well, I am a little behind again... but for good reason, I can't find my CF card reader to download the photos I took on Sunday. 

Why Sunday? 

Sunday was when we dropped the kids off for the infamous hemophilia week long camp! Goodbyes were quick... neither of them seem to have any problem leaving us behind. I was quite certain Jaiden would disappear in his cabin as I saw him enter, I heard all his cabin mates shout "Jaiden!" and then lots of commotion, laughter and joking while Dennis poked his head in and said "Jaiden, come out and say goodbye to your mom before she comes in to give you a hug and kiss!"

Alyssa's cabin wasn't all checked in but sure enough her goodbye was just as quick and then she was off with her counselor to go find something to do or trouble to stir or prank someone ... really not sure what but she was off too.

I discovered tonight that our fabulous camp director, Amy, blogged up the past two days and put them on our local chapter website. If you feel so inclined, you can read them there at http://cohemo.org/2016/07/2016-camp-blog-whats-been-happening/ or I will just paste below...

FYI - Jaiden is in Sunshine but he also part of the BOEC group now that he's a middle schooler. Alyssa's cabin is Meadowbrook. 

I did find a few photos on Facebook which I will share tomorrow ...

SUNDAY

Hello everyone!  Camp is off to an amazing start!  Check-In went smoothly and we are so excited to have your campers here for the week.  Leadership arrived from their rafting weekend a little earlier than normal to help with check-in.  Once everyone was settled in, the cabins had their meetings, met their Rocky Mountain Village counselors, got to know their fellow campers, and practiced their skits for the first all camp!  Our first flag lowering, before dinner, was a success accompanied by MANY camp songs. The RMV counselors are putting us to hard work on our camp songs as we have to know all of them for the week ahead!

After dinner we all headed down to the stage and prepared ourselves for what was about to happen… THE FIRST ALL CAMP!  The theme for camp this year is Ninja Week.  As you can imagine, things got pretty intense.  Each cabin did a skit on stage and introduced themselves to all of camp.

MONDAY

The first full day of camp was jam packed with excitement!  The day started out with Leadership raising the flag before breakfast, which as you can guess was quite exciting! They sang the “Little Cabin” camp song which got the younger campers awake and ready for the day ahead.  After breakfast the cabins headed to their first activities.  Some went fishing, horseback riding, AND zip-lining… Oh my!

As the cabins went their separate ways, education sessions were included in their schedules.  This week we have Physical Therapist Sharon and Social Worker Audra here at camp with us to spend some special time with our campers.  How lucky are we?!

After cabin activities were done, we had some very serious business to get to.  The all camp for today was a Ninja Hunt!  Yes, you heard me right.  A NINJA HUNT! There were white, red, blue, black, and yellow ninjas.  Ninjas galore!  Our campers went on an hour long hunt for their color coordinated ninja and the cabin who found the most ninjas won.  Our winners for all camp this evening was the BOEC boys and girls!

Think the BOEC boys and girls were excited about winning all camp?  Well they’re even more excited about joining the Leadership group on a rafting trip leaving bright and early Tuesday morning.  They’ll be rafting, camping, and bonding.  Aren’t you jealous?!

Well, that about wraps up our first full day of camp.  The campers are looking forward to seeing what unfolds tomorrow…

pokemon returns

Nothing like coming home from camp and hanging in the hammock with your Gameboy.

maybe a tween?

One cutie was picked up from camp today! This mom is happy, happy to have her home. She told me about camp on the way home, and it is truly amazing how much she changes in one week. I can't put my finger on it but it's like wow!

When we got home, she was a little hungry. We had a snack. I started dinner and she wanted to relax watching a show. No biggie, right? 

Until we had this funny conversation...

A: I am going to have another piece of beef jerky.

M: Oh I just put it away in the cupboard.

A: Well, that's too bad.

M: Why? Because you can't take it out of the cupboard?

A: Because it's too bad.

M: You are going to be an interesting teenager, aren't you?

A: Yes, yes I am.

I am not sure I am ready... help... please?!