We should have known.
We have a team of leaders that run our troop - C, M and myself. We all have our strong points, and C is our go-to gal when it comes to trip planning. She faxed in the forms for our camp reservations and horseback trail ride back in February, to ensure the dates, accommodations and programs that we wanted... That the girls had chosen. Funny thing, though... as time went by, we never received confirmation. After she called (several times), we found out that they never got our reservation and not only were our a-frame cabins no longer available for the second night of our weekend, but the horses were booked the entire day on Saturday! As a consequence, we re-sent a new & revised reservation. Actually, our supervisor sent it as C watched. After a few more weeks and a few more phone calls, our camping was finally confirmed. Horses? Well, the lesson was changed to an arena lesson on Friday afternoon, and not confirmed until *that morning.*
Fast forward to Friday. I struggled my way through a morning of work, rushed home to pack and we headed out to camp, only to be greeted with the news that one of the girl's sisters was discovered to have lice. Great! I didn't even dare let myself think, "What next?" because I just had a feeling in the pit of my stomach. All of the girls showed up, and troop mom B and I took them to the stable for their horse adventure. When we got there, the horses were out to pasture and there was no staff to be found. Not a good sign, I'd say! We tried distracting the girls by having them read the barn rules, going over to meet the horses and finally resorting to sitting in the stands and playing games while we tried figuring out what was going on. Finally, a car pulled up. This poor girl had no clue that there was a troop booked for the afternoon! She called her supervisor and we heard her say, "It happened again!" So... No horses. The woman I spoke to on the phone seemed quite apologetic and tried to accommodate us by getting us in with another troop the following day, but here's the clincher: she never called us back.
On to the next activity...
We took the girls back to the lodge and managed to find an unlocked door so they could use the facilities, then let them play and eat their bag dinner they brought with them before we started taking our things down to the a-frames in shifts, as C and M weren't there yet. By the time we got finished with that, everyone was there and it was time to get the girls settled in. In the mean time, we obtained massive bottles of Fairy Tales hair products and contacted all of the parents concerning the lice issue. (Had you forgotten about that??) On the way down into the woods, C got a huge branch stuck up under her van, and none of us could get it out. Thank God for Ranger Rick! He came and saved the day! (OK, so that's probably not even his name...)
After we got the girls settled into their bunks and pretty much forced them all to shower using the Fairy Tales, we had our campfire and sent them all to bed. Holy cow, were we beat!!
Saturday actually went pretty well! We moved up to the lodge in the morning after cooking breakfast on the campfire (we do all of our cooking on the fire), and we had activities planned for the day that included finishing our last Brownie badge, earning a Junior Camper badge together, packing hobo lunches, water fun and hiking. We made pie iron pizzas on the fire for dinner and got the girls all settled in for bed with very little drama. It's amazing what an entire day spent outdoors with no electronics will do for a group of girls! :-)
Sunday morning as we woke up, all Hell broke loose as I watched my Sassypants open her eyes, look at me and utter the words, "I don't feel so good... I think I'm gonna throw up." Commence pukage - on camp bed. I just froze in disbelief... Good thing C was in the room and sprang into action, running to find a dishpan! As I snapped back to reality and gained my senses, I stripped the bedding and got Sass a drink of water. She drifted back to sleep as I tried to go between tending to her, readying for the end-of-the-year ceremony that was to happen (with lunch to follow) in less than three hours' time, watch out for the other girls and physically get myself ready. Needless to say, I was no help to anyone. And in the mean time, my Sass, who could not wait to fly up to Juniors and wouldn't miss this ceremony for the world, asked me to call Daddy to come and get her to bring her home. :-(
After Mr. Sunshine collected Miss Sassypants and the ceremony went in without her (it was very nice, BTW), we cleaned up and parted ways. I came home to find Sass sleeping on the couch, but puke-free, and in between naps we had our own little flying-up ceremony. By around 5:00 she was fine... I think she was just overheated and dehydrated.
Please pray for me that next year's campout goes better! Because yes... We'll be back. After all... We're Girl Scouts!!
