Shop Products
Houzz Logo Print
kriskat30

Summer camp

Kriskat30
17 years ago

I just got back from taking my 9 year old to camp for the first time. She'll probably get a little homesick since this is the first time at camp, but I think it will be so good for her. I miss her already and I am thrilled for her too; I remember loving camp. My favorite was the canoeing and the horseback riding. We get to email her once a day as well as write, so that's definitally different from my days at camp! She's my only kiddo...it's gonna be quiet this week!

Comments (26)

  • jolanaweb
    17 years ago

    Kriskat, bless your heart, this takes me back. She will love it and you will too, if you allow yourself, lol
    After the first week, the girls never wanted to come back home, lol
    They both loved it and still have friends they met at camp.

    Now DS was another story, he said he wanted to go, got to the drop off point and he refused to get out of the car and never mentioned it again, lol
    He would go to daytime baseball, basketball and golf camps but that was it.
    How long will she be gone? Can we have a wilder 40th now?
    LOL
    jolana

  • Kriskat30
    Original Author
    17 years ago

    Bring on the margaritas and mulch boys! Hee hee, she'll be gone just for a week.

  • sally2_gw
    17 years ago

    I went to camp for 2 summers, each for 2 weeks. I had a blast. I was a bit older than your daughter, I think I was 12 or 13, but maybe a tad younger. Anyway, I got a real crush on one of the boys' counselors. Many of us girls did. We sure did giggle a lot. I enjoyed the canoeing, also, and the hiking. And the boys. hee hee.

    Sally

  • Dena Walters
    17 years ago

    Man..that is just not fair....The ONLY kind of camp I ever went to was the GA camp..which was a christian camp and was fun, but we had to learn scriptures and stuff and the only 'fun' stuff we got to do was go swimming once each day....
    Canoeing? Horseback riding?? Man I missed out!! lol
    Dema

  • pjtexgirl
    17 years ago

    I went to horse back riding camp. Learned how to ride,saddle,and clean horses. It was pretty fun but I got homesick a little more than others. I missed my own pets! PJ

  • Kriskat30
    Original Author
    17 years ago

    Well we are almost thru day two, I only threatened to go get her once! LOL. I send her a bunch of silly letters today to make her laugh as that always makes her happy. On one card I just wrote "Don't pick your nose in public!" :) I can see her eyes rolling and the "Moooooommmm" groan from her. Nothing quite as funny as nine year old humor.
    DH and I had a nice dinner consisting of absolutely NOTHING the kid would eat...it was very nice!

  • jolanaweb
    17 years ago

    You and DH enjoy, lol

    Kriskat, my GS just turned nine and here are a couple of jokes he has sent to me, of course boys are a little diferent than girls, lol but she might like them

    Dancing Hanky

    Q: How do you make a handkerchief dance?

    A: Put a little boogey in it!


    what's the difference

    Q: What is the difference between a teacher and a train.

    A: A teacher says, "spit out your gum" and a train says, "choo choo".

    Three Little Pigs

    Three Little Pigs went out to dinner one night. The waiter comes and
    takes
    their drink order.

    "I would like a Sprite," said the first little piggy.

    "I would like a Coke," said the second little piggy.

    "I want water, lots and lots of water," said the third little piggy.

    The drinks are brought out and the waiter takes their orders for
    dinner.

    "I want a nice big steak," said the first piggy.

    "I want the salad plate," said the second piggy.

    "I want water, lots and lots of water," said the third little piggy.

    The meals were brought out and a while later the waiter approached the
    table
    and asked if the piggies would like any dessert.

    "I want a banana split," said the first piggy.

    "I want a root beer float," said the second piggy.

    "I want water, lots and lots of water," exclaimed the third little
    piggy.

    "Pardon me for asking," said the waiter! to the third little piggy,
    "but why
    have you only ordered water all evening?"

    The third little piggy says -

    "Well, somebody has to go 'Wee, wee, wee, all the way home!"


  • Dena Walters
    17 years ago

    Ohhh my miss jolana...
    I absolutely loved all 3 of them...LOL....made my morning!!
    PJ I would have loved to have gone to a riding camp..I love horses.
    You hang in there kriskat!! You enjoy every minute of peace and quiet..lol
    Dena

  • Kriskat30
    Original Author
    17 years ago

    LOL Jolana! I was going to send her some jokes today in the mail, I'll add these to them! You guys are great!

  • jolanaweb
    17 years ago

    Well, how did it go, do we get details?

  • rick_mcdaniel
    17 years ago

    Well now, I suppose that the kids think it is great, since it is something different, not only from the routine, but truly introduces them to something they have never done before, in many cases.

    On the other hand, I am also sure it is nothing like it used to be, and that it is very "civilized" these days.

    At the time I was a camp counselor, many moons ago, we genuinely roughed it, for the most part. Of course, then, you could still find some unpolluted mountain streams to drink from, (yes....real, natural water), and when you camped, you simply spread a couple of blankets under the stars, with small scoops in the ground for your hips and shoulders.

    Today's generation has the idea that if your cell phone won't work, you are in big trouble! Their idea of camping involves color-coordinating their back pack to their outfit.(sigh) It is more about gear, than about the experience of communing with nature.

    Thankfully, there are still a few places where you can send kids to truly experience life where everyone works together to get things done, and where the simplest things can be more than enough.

  • Kriskat30
    Original Author
    17 years ago

    She loved it and hated it both, pretty much as I expected. One minute she's independant and adventurous, the next minute she wants Mom! LOL, I think over all she had a good time, and I know she learned some coping skills she needed to learn and those you can't be taught by your folks..only experience.

    The one really funny thing is that she is now officially wearing a training bra every day....that must have been the big deal with the other girls at camp! LOL!

  • rick_mcdaniel
    17 years ago

    Hehehe. Isn't it funny how teens profess to want independence, and yet they are so into peer pressure, and being totally alike, and end up being so non-independent.

    I guess, we really don't get very independent until about 50! We have to get old enough to know what other people think isn't as important, as we thought it was. (smile)

  • jolanaweb
    17 years ago

    LOL, young girls are so funny.
    Can someone tell me why they call them training bras, lol

  • Kriskat30
    Original Author
    17 years ago

    Well, before camp I thought I was going to have to train her with a whip and a chair to wear one (she didn't like they way they felt under her clothes!) Now, the other kids at camp did the training for me! :)

  • pjtexgirl
    17 years ago

    I practially wore a training bra until I was 15. All of a sudden I hit puberty with a vengance. Nobody had to remind me to wear a bra after that! Mighty uncomfortable with out one. PJ

  • stitches216
    17 years ago

    Rick I like your comments! Looking back, I can say I definitely was NOT independent at 50 - after all, I was married before I got there!

    (She'd send me to camp now, until Christmas, DW I mean, if she could catch me misbehaving as much as I do. Now, SHE is independent! But she ain't 50!)

    My parents "put me out to pasture" a few summers, long ago, at camps that is, for the same reasons DW would do it today if she could. To get me out of the house, to keep me from getting in so much trouble close to home. Camps for boys are GREAT. Or, they were, the ones I went to. My favorite activity there was archery. (Mom and Dad would be dead before they'd let me shoot back at home.)

    I cringe to think of sending a girl to a camp. Especially these days...all that training bra and broken nails and I-miss-my-cell-phone and crushes on counselors stuff, egad!

  • pjtexgirl
    17 years ago

    Hey stitches! I won a prize on my first try at archery! I only complain when my nail breaks below the quick or split in half! Oh yeah and you haven't had a love smitten teenage boy trailing after you(instructor) buster! LOL!
    I think you just posted that to get our goat! I'm gonna tell your DW and she's gonna make you sleep out in the heat! PJ

  • stitches216
    17 years ago

    PJ good for you! I won a prize for archery too! But it was my 2nd year trying it - I remember that like I remember beginning this sentence...no really.

    I remember because my first year, I had absolutely the lowest score of all the boys, and I cried like a baby. The next year, I must have had a counselor who was a better coach. Or maybe God just gave me a steadier hand a year later, because I practically split the rear ends of my earlier arrows shot into the bull's eye with my later shots! (My big disappointment that 2nd year was looking and looking around among the boys, and not seeing another one crying like I did the year before! I knew there were a few that 2nd year who shot as poorly or worse than I did my 1st year. So I was mad that they either didn't care as much as I did, or they were better at hiding their pain. Those are the sorts of things that go through boys' minds, that cause them to grow while at camp.)

    Of course I was totally kidding around about camps not being for girls. But still! A "love smitten teenage boy trailing after you (instructor)"??!!! That's STALKING! I wouldn't send my girl to camp to learn how to handle THAT. Not even if I knew that boy and his parents beforehand and we had pre-arranged for him and my daughter to marry! I'd make sure she was a black belt in Tae Kwon Do before we sent her there. And I'd insist that she sleep wearing night vision goggles and a Bowie knife or a Taser (or two) strapped on.

    The only thing I can say, PJ, if you're gonna tell DW on me, is, she knows it ain't gonna do no good to make me sleep out in the heat, because I AM THE HEAT! I AM THE DEVIL, HAHAAAAAAAA!!!

  • pjtexgirl
    17 years ago

    So YOU'RE the cause of all this heat. Should've known!
    Boys get crushes on authority figures same as girls. The ones that got crushy were my Martial Arts students.They were too short to stalk anyone. As I remember it camp was fine. There were no boys at mine.
    You're such a typical dad! My poor dad still thinks I'm 10 and would probably hire me a personal bodyguard if he could. PJ

  • stitches216
    17 years ago

    Yes ma'am PJ I am a typical dad. We are all devils, so we know what lurks (or can lurk) in males' minds. You can't knock us for being protective, just over-protective.

    I'll confess too, I had crushes on 2 of my 4 high school English teachers - the 2 youngest ones. The other 2 probably had crushes on me, in a mom-ish way. They were lots older, so we related more like a mom and son. I behaved for them, and they gave me good grades, even though I wasn't really a super student.

    But I never had (or received) a camp crush - never had a female counselor or a co-ed camp either.

    This conversation makes me want to go out and buy an archery set!

  • natvtxn
    17 years ago

    The only time I was to go to camp, I fell off my bike, the day before and broke my arm.

  • pjtexgirl
    17 years ago

    Decent archery set ups that don't cost a ton of money are really difficult to find! Maybe I'm looking in the wrong spots. The ones I could afford (praying for the day when DH gets outta school finally!) were so cheesy! I don't like fatigue splotched plastic! What ever happened to matte black? It's a manly color that doesn't look silly!
    Poor natvtxn! You deserve a vacation in Hawaii to make up for it at the very least!Wouldn't it be nice to be able to have someone take care of your garden from late June until the Fall weather hits and go hang out on a tropical island in the shade with an ice-based drink? PJ

  • Jacquelyn8b
    17 years ago

    Guess folks could send their kids here.
    Cell phones don't work and there is no television!

    All kinds of target practice are taught with safety being paramount. They will have to learn about nature and how to treat her with respect. Horses and fishing are a given! The creativity of cooking is freely shared as is geology, herbology, stone carving and sketching. Literary discussions are the norm.

    Wow, I just realized why Elizabeth moved out. It was only way she could smoke 'that stuff' and drink all night while laying around watching tv all day. Thanks, PJ. I heard you but it just hit me!

  • pjtexgirl
    17 years ago

    Poor Elizabeth. Some people just have to learn the extra-hard way. I was a bonehead teen but only had to learn the hard way. My DH was a sensible teen and learned the easy way. If only we could all be so lucky!

    Too bad my DH is so computer oriented. I'd move out to the boonies and have a lot more fun too. He can't do his computer thing without high speed internet and all that. Your place sounds so fun! If I don't end up joining the work week I'm coming down there with the boys! PJ

  • Kriskat30
    Original Author
    17 years ago

    LOL, Jacquelyn, I'd love to come to camp at your place but DD would complain about the bugs! My poor little city girl!