Another Year!

Today was the last day of Camp Sweetie-pie 2012.  The kids are gone and Joe, Anne and I are packing up the tent, rolling up the pool and picking up bits of water balloons.   It's really hard to believe that next year Eliza will be 4 1/2,  Gia will be 10, Ethan will be 11 and Eva will be an official teenager!

The day started with a project called S.O.S.  The kids were told their ship had sunk and their life boat had landed on a island.  They had to work as a team and show us that they could find food and water, make a fire and shelter.   Eva is a girl scout and has learned her survival skills.  She set to work starting a fire with a magnifying glass that is in her whistle that she wears around her neck.  (we stopped her short of actually starting a fire as the fire danger is so high in the canyon).  Gia worked on the shelter and Ethan built snares and traps, all the while complaining that his arms and legs hurt.  (yeah,  yeah - it's just from leaping into the pool and sliding down the hill on his knees on the Slip n' Slide).

A check of the trap lines and the kids discover they've caught a bunny for dinner.  Eva has found a tin can washed up on the beach and uses the sharp lid to take off the poor bunny's head - then proceeds to gut it.  Meanwhile, Ethan's groaning has gotten the best of Sweetie-pie who has ordered him inside to lie down.

 Off with his head!

 Roast bunny for dinner

Gia reinforces the shelter with plastic found on the beach

Eva and Gia show that they've learned their survival skills this past week - though Eva taught us more than we taught her.  Now it's time to fill water balloons for the FIFTH ANNUAL WATER BALLOON WAR!  Ethan drags himself outside to participate, meanwhile Sweetie-pie is thinking, 'maybe he really IS sick?'.

The kids have built elaborate water-balloon resistant bunkers.....

Bombs away!

Ethan rallies!

At the end of CSP, the kids love to empty the pool by collapsing the inflated ring and riding the tidal wave over the edge.  

 

You'd better run fast Poppa Joe, because there are three kids after you, each carrying a bucket of water!  

And so, another Camp Sweetie-pie comes to an end with the lowering of the flag and each kid tracing their hands on the flag and writing words such as "Camp Sweetie-pie is AWESOME"! which makes all the work worthwhile.    If not for three great grandkids, Eva, Ethan and Eliza - and good friends Joe and Anne and their fabulous granddaughter, Gia, there would be no Camp Sweetie-pie.  Here's to next year - the SIXTH ANNUAL CAMP SWEETIE-PIE!!!!   p.s.  I discovered Ethan really was sick.....he has a fever.