Camping Juxtaposition

Last Saturday my family dispersed into 3 different directions to camp out for the evening. I slept in a treehouse with Aubri and 5 of her friends (and a couple of moms) in Southwest Oklahoma.

I think the treehouse camping spoiled us from regular camping...

Scott tent camped with David (and Gracie) and his troop in Northwest Oklahoma.

Practicing their scared faces. (I'm told they had REAL scared faces in the haunted corn maze later...

And Emi camped out at a friend's house in between basketball games.

There was camp food at the lake for David and his friends.

Aubri and the girls sang and cleaned for their Dining Hall meals.

Head protection was mandatory at camp. Not only does headwear protect one's head from things that drop from the trees, it also hides camp head the next day...

Before "lights out" the girls played a round of "Sing a Song or Climb the Wall" like the bigger girl scouts in the Dining Hall. Aubri was trying to show the girls how to properly Whip like her big sister has taught her. Apparently you need to put your foot in it, the opposite foot.

Whipping in the Treehouse

The boys looked like they were enjoying fishing in the lake. I think we would have enjoyed that too. A little looser organization, but more camp activities and not so much singing and dancing.

 Fishing at the lake.

The girls rotated around the campgrounds doing different activities such as hiking and finger knitting and making rockets from empty film containers and alka seltzer. Here they are posing with the capes used in those rockets (which were mainly duds, but the girls got the general idea behind the project).

Sheroes with their Rocket Capes

The treehouse camp experience was quite a bit better than last year.  I felt safer up off the ground even though I mentally prepared for how to position myself and Aubri should the treehouse fall over.

This cabin had two solid doors, while one of the doors in last year's cabin was a screen door so we had to place an unused mattress against it to fend off the cold night air. And the treehouse was equipped with a fan that drowned out all the night life noises; the girls couldn't stay awake if they wanted to ... or maybe that was just me. I slept like a log in my sleeping bag. Last year we had to just take the raucous canine chorus of the coyote and the hooting of the owls and the deer tromping around. Ok, so the deer didn't really make much noise but we could feel their presence all around through the thin plywood walls!

We all had fun at our respective camp outs, but I think we were all happy to get home to our own beds.