Royal Family Kids Camp

I got back from camp on Friday. It was a great experience. I hope to go again next year. The counselors and staff arrived at 1:30 on Sunday. This year's theme was the jungle, and we had to get the rooms decorated for the kids. Joanna and I ended up in a motel room right in the middle of everything, so we didn't have to walk far. The room had two bunk beds and a double bed. We had to stay on the double together, and our 4 campers were on the bunks. We brought brown and green butcher paper and made tree trunks out of the brown. The bed posts turned into trees. Then we had enough left to make some vines on the ceiling. We used the green to make huge leaves that covered much of the ceiling, and then had some of that left over for vines too, so we first wrapped their beds with the vines, then we put the rest on the ceiling. The girls really liked it.

On Monday, the kids came right at lunch time. We found our girls and got in line for lunch. One of Joanna's girls missed the bus, so we were working with only 3 girls for about three hours. After lunch we had 25/25 time which was rest time. Then we got the girls ready for swimming. The line was long on the first day because they had to take the swimming test. Joanna's other girl came right before swimming, and we were glad for that. All of our girls passed the test, and we went to the pond. There's really not much swimming at the pond, it's just fun rides. It was pretty clear of girls all week, so our girls loved it. They had a zip line that you could do and it dropped you into the water, a trapeese, a HUGE slide, like 50-75 yards long and made out of fabric, and then a regular metal playground slide that dumped out into the water. There were activity centers everyday, and organizes sports too, but swimming was by far the most popular.

The events of Tuesday were much the same, but every night they have an activity. Monday, we watched a guy start carving an eagle out of a huge tree trunk with a chainsaw. Tuesday night we had rootbeer floats and then went down this huge slip-n-slide. It was literally longer than a footall field and went down a huge hill. They had two or three spots where people were holding hoses over it constantly in order to keep it wet, as well as people with no tears shampoo throwing it all of the slide to keep it fast. The kids had so much fun. (We tested it out on Sunday and it was great!)

On Wednesday, Joanna and I began to lose it! We thought everything was funny. One of my girls was a little on the bigger side, and she was African American, so sometimes she talked with her own little slang. We had hotdogs for lunch, and as any of you who have eaten hotdogs before know, when you burp them up, it's pretty nasty. Well, I had burped once in the pool and said, "Ew...that one was all hotdog!" The girls thought that was funny, and later my girl burped a pretty nasty one and started yelling out "hotdog, Hotdog, HOTDOG!" It was so funny. Later, Jo put one of her very small girls on her shoulders, and my big girl decided she wanted a turn. I got her up with a little added flare, and she started calling the photographer over. Ok, so I was already having a hard time breathing because my head was barely over the water and I had a 105 pound 9 year old on my shoulders, but then when she tried to say photographer, I almost drowned! She was yelling "Photobader, phobodater, patopoder!" and on and on. It was about the funniest thing I had heard. It took the rest of the week, but by the time she left on Thursday afternoon, so could say it very slowly. The activity Wednesday night was a birthday party for all of the kids. They brought out a rock wall, a bounce house, a dunking booth, and this other blow up thing with a slide at the end. The kids had so much fun. They could also get a snowcone and popcorn, and get a caricature drawn. After that, we went to the amphitheater where they each got a cupcake and a birthday box. Then it was time for bed.

Thursday was when all the drama began. It turns out that the girl that missed the bus is good at absolutely everything! She can do anything you ask her to. She excelled at every sport, and even learned new things quickly. She never complained, and the only time we saw her without a smile on her face was when we were playing soccer and another counselor kicked the ball really hard and it hit her in the face. She cried for about a minute then. Anyway, she's hard not to like because she's very much of a tom boy, but even when the other girls wanted to play dress up and she didn't, she went there without complaining and then sat on the porch swing and kept herself entertained for 30 minutes, 1/2 of activity time, so that the other 3 girls could do what they wanted to. On Thursday morning, Jo asked them how they slept. This little girl said that she didn't sleep much, and so when Jo asked her why, she said that the other girls had called her a boy all night and were telling her she had boy parts. (Now, you have to understand that from 9:30-11:30 is our time off. There are people outside the hotel rooms who are available if anything happens, but they can't hear what's going on inside, so they don't know unless a girl comes out to tell them.) When we found this out, we discussed punishments for the rest of the girls in the room. We decided that they would not be allowed to participate in the talent show which worked out perfectly because the girl who had been called a boy had no interest in it anyway. For most of the rest of the day, the room was split between the athletic girl, and the big girl who apparently had no part in the events the night before, and the other two girls. They fought constantly. (Well, they tom boy never said another word about it, but the other three girls fought all day.) We had to call in the B-Mod squad, which are the behavior modification specialists. The activity that night was the talent show, and our two girls who were in trouble had to go directly to bed after the show. One of the girls was not happy at all about that, and did everything possible to defy us. We called B-Mod back in, and got it straightened out after a lot of tears. I think the girl finally realized that we weren't punishing her because we hated her, and we weren't mad at her, we were just disappointed in her decisions, and we punished her because we love her and want her to know right from wrong. During all of the excitement, I found out that my bigger camper was going home a day early, and I had to get her packed up and finish her scrapbook really fast. (All of the counselors make a scrapbook for their 2 campers every year and give them to the campers on Friday. I had just lost my finishing time since she was leaving early, so I ran down and finished it up quickly.) Right as she was leaving, I gave her the book and we flipped through it together. It was a lot of fun.

Friday was a busy day. We had to pck up the remaining 3 campers in our room as well as ourselves, and then we had to get out of camp before the busses did because we were supposed to beat the busses home, and they drive about 80mph all the way back. Somehow we lost the race though, and the campers were waiting when my car arrived. We had a quick chick-fil-a lunch at the church and then went in to the Family Life Center 2 to have one last chapel. It was not flowing well though, and the kids were having a hard time sitting through it. Then we sang a song to our kids call "I Will Change Your Name." It is such a sad song that really is appropriate for abused kids, and that made me cry, and last was the slide show. Then the parents came to pick up the kids, and the counselors and their families had a special dinner in FLC1. It was pretty good, and it was good to see Mitch again.

We weren't allowed to take pictures to protect the identity of the kids at camp, so I'll just leave you guys with a random picture of me and Joanna.