Mimi Camp Wrap-Up

Another Mimi Camp is in the books. "It was the best one ever!" declared both little campers. (I think we say that every year.)  Every morning at breakfast, they opened "the box" to see what the day's activity would be. That let me decide day by day—based on weather, how tired this Mimi was, etc—what we would do. They loved opening that box. It was almost like Christmas every day.

Here is a quick recap of the second half of our camp week.

Wednesday was a scavenger hunt. They hunted inside and out. This turned out to be more fun and lasted much longer than I anticipated. When I plan these things I never know what they will enjoy.

Let me say right up front...the secret of a good scavenger hunt is clipboards. (A clipboard at Walmart is $1.88. Buy them!) It makes it easier to mark off items as they found them. And they look so official.

A quick google search for "kid scavenger hunt" will provide plenty of ready-made pages to print. I looked for ones that matched what could be found around our house and ones with pictures so the 5-year-old could work on her own. We had two pages for outside hunting and two pages for inside. They loved all of it.

Finding a pinecone turned out to be the hard one. There are pine trees way over on the edge of our yard that required tromping through tall grass to get there. It's good to have a Daddy-O to help.

They found a beading kit in Thursday's box. I bought a kit ($20 at Target) and added a box of alphabet beads and some stretchy beading cord to the terrific assortment of beads and cords in the kit. Oh, and beading mats...or a towel...is needed to keep the bead from rolling off the table.

 

They made jewelry for everyone. (I wore mine to church yesterday.) And they came back to this day after day. If you do a camp like this, it's good to leave the craft makings out for days if you can.

By Friday we finally left the farm. For one whole week these girls did not get in a car. I have friends who do similar weeks with grandchildren and plan outings for them. But for these little girls, the bigger treat is to stay in one place. We met a dear cousin for lunch and then visited at her house where they got to feed the fish. 

Then it was back to the farm for the final activity. Water balloons! This was so much fun. To be honest the biggest fun was filling the balloons. (This pump, which included the balloons, was from Walmart, $6.)

The pump to fill the balloons worked great. But enough balloons popped off the nozzle as they filled them to soak all of us. They loved it. 

Filling the balloons took about an hour. Tossing them took less than 10 minutes. They made targets in the driveway with sidewalk chalk. And there might have been some "use your sister as a target," too. Keep in mind that all of those bits of broken balloons have to be picked up. When this fun was over, they got on their low riding toys—big wheel and plasma car—and rode around picking up the pieces. I hope you are equally lucky.

Yes. Mimi Camp 2019 was a complete success, even though we had rainy days. What good memories we made.

INDOOR S'MORES

Place a Hershey's chocolate square on a graham cracker and top with a marshmallow. Microwave for 8-15 seconds. Watch it closely. When the marshmallow starts to puff up, they are ready. Top with another graham cracker.

On Friday night as dinner was ending, Little Sister said, "Let's toast!" She raised her glass of milk and said, "To the best Mimi Camp ever!" We all clinked our glasses and declared Mimi Camp officially ended. 

Although "camp" was over the girls were here for a couple of more days. We let them do what they wanted. Bike riding, digging for rocks, swinging. drawing, making more jewelry. It was great to have some winding down time.

And Sunday night when it was only me and Daddy-O here in a very quiet house, we collapsed and gave thanks. Thanks for grandchildren. Thanks for good health so that we can enjoy them. Thanks for cool weather. Thanks for this spacious farm with room to play. Thanks for family.