Camp Primo

Camp Primo 2008

Well, I just can’t think of much of anything I would rather do than spend two days with our little girls! And now here we are, ready to go! You notice that the car is slightly over-packed?

We drove to Stone Mountain’s campground on Thursday night and set up our tent and equipment- barely in the nick of time before it got dark. The girls really didn’t “get” where we were- but they loved the tent when we got it all set up. We finished out the night with popcorn and blueberries. Look at our cute litle Camp Primo “home!”

Well, next morning, first things first when we got up. Then Papa made us a yummy breakfast.

We also had a visitor at breakfast. Do you see Mr. Squirrel helping to supervise at the griddle?

 

What a beautiful place we camped! Look at the huge bird that liked to hang out near us!

 

 

 

 

Next on the schedule was Nature Exploration and Bible Exploration. We collected nature items and made nature bracelets. We also started looking at the Bible story of Jesus feeding the 5000 with just a few small pieces of bread and some fish. The main thing we learned is that “all things are possible with God.”

Off to Crossroads in Stone Mountain Park. We went to the Great Barn and then the newest atraction, Camp Highland Outpost. There is a very-low ropes course for the littlest of kids. It was really, really fun. Look at Nora’s concentration:

 

Lydia watched for awhile and then decided she wanted to try too!

 

 

 

Next up: a train ride around the mountain while we take a candy break.

 

 

More activities related to our Bible Study while we earn our Fun Foam badges and our Outdoor Cooking badges.

 

                     

We wanted to earn our Sewing Badge too, but Grandmama decided we might finish that at home later!

 

 

Some miscellaneous photos:

 

 

 

 

 On Saturday morning we woke up and let the girls eat breakfast and watch cartoons on Grandmama’s computer. This picture lets you peek into the tent:

 

 Aren’t they cute?

 Once we got up, we got to do what the girls had been waiting for: SWIMMING!

 

 

 Well, even Camp Primo has to come to an end. So, while Grandmama and Papa took down the campsite and loaded the car, Nora and Lydia had to stay on a piece of carpet we laid out for them. However, they had our camera and took a lot of pictures. Here are their self-portraits: 

 

 

I love this picture they took. We had used goldfish crackers in telling the story of Jesus feeding the 5000. I think in this photo, they were “reviewing” the story!

 

 

After leaving Stone Mtn., the girls wanted to stop at Miss Donald’s, otherwise known as Old McDonald’s. Of course we had to spend a little time on the playground.

 

 

When we got home, we still had a couple of hours before the Parent Program. While Papa and I got things ready for the program, here’s what the girls did!

 

 

 

 We had fun at the Parent Program. We sang our theme song, recited our verse “All things are possible with God.” We showed our projects, watched a camp slide show and gave our parents a present we made. Best of all though both girls earned their 2008 Camp Primo badges which were ironed on to their camp shirts. This year’s badges were Hiking, Overnight Camping, Fun Foam Crafts, Nature Exploration, Bible Exploration and Ropes Course.

 

We had so much fun and I hate it went so fast. However, Papa and I are already planning the Camp Primo Fall Retreat. Hooray!!

 

 

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Camp Primo 2007:

Here is a recap of my Camp Primo description from an earlier post.

It’s finally here! Today, our two campers (granddaughters Nora, age 3 and Lydia, age 17 months),  will arrive for two days of Camp Primo* fun!

It’s Grandparents/Granddaughters camp! Hooray!

*Camp Primo’s name in English refers to someone or something of highest quality or value; the best, number one. This of course refers to the most important person in our lives: Jesus! In Spanish, primo means cousin. So, Camp Primo is a camp for cousins that puts Jesus first!!

For those of you who know a little bit of Spanish, I noticed too that our camp which has a masculine name in Spanish seems to only have primas (female cousins) in attendance. However, we are just looking forward to the day that Camp Primo will have boy cousins too!! **wink-wink**

I decided to create a specialized page for Camp Primo so I can just add to it as I want. Some of you may just want to see pictures of my cutie-pie granddaughters (scroll down for photos and videos!) but others of you may want to do a camp like this too for your grandkids or nieces and nephews or maybe even the neighborhood kids. So, I thought I would try to add details and resources- but it’s not all going to happen today! Remember that due to our campers’ ages, all the activities and projects I will describe are suitable for preschool campers. I’ll try to organize this page as soon as I get the basics on it: pictures of Nora and Lydia! First of all meet the campers and directors:

             Nora

            Lydia

           Grandmama & girls

                                    

          Charmin, the Camp Primo mascot

Monday evening, 6 PM; Camp begins

Jason and Brandy dropped off both girls. First thing they noticed, of course, was the big 6-man tent set up in the middle of our living room. They jumped up and down on the inflatable mattress inside and found the flashlights and bubbles we had put in the inside pockets. Next, we went out onto the back deck to blow bubbles and get comfortable about camp. Shortly afterward, Jason and Brandy left and we got started! First up was Arts and Crafts class. We made camp visors. Papa helped Lydia pick out fun foam shapes to put on her visor- and she wanted to push them all “down” herself. Nora picked out her own shapes. She wanted all balls- she is really into circles right now- drawing them, pointing them out and even putting them on her camp visor.

After the visors were done, we of course, didn’t want to wear them. That was OK though, because it was time for a snack and a Bible story. This year, our Bible story was Zaccheus. So, Grandmama had made a big story picture of a tree with some nature items and animals and some Zaccheus figures. The first thing we did was play “Help Zaccheus find Jesus” (sort of like “Pin the Tail on the Donkey.”) It was a lot of fun. We read the story out of the Toddlers’s Bible which has good illustration and girls were very interested in looking at them. Nora especially liked the part when Jesus said, “Zaccheus, you come down from that tree, because I’m going to your house today.” She liked to dramatize it!

At this point, it was time for Lydia to go nite-nite…upstairs…in the Pack and Play. No tent for Lydia. In the meantime, Nora sponge-painted some leaves on Zaccheus’ tree as well as some flowers and butterflies all around it. Then, it was time for the rest of us (Nora, Grandmama, Papa AND Charmin the dog) to retire to the tent. We had a video on tap to help us all get settled down. I had searched Ebay and found a special video (VHS tape version, at that!) for this evening. It was a favorite of mine was I was a little girl: Wonderful World of Disney’s Yellowstone Cubs. It’s a live action story of two litle cubs who get seperated from their mother. Chaos ensues as the mother and cubs interact with vacationers and campers at Yellowstone in 1963!

I’ll be honest, though. When I was 8 or 9 years old, I thought that thing was HILARIOUS. When we watched it with Nora, it seemed kind of slow and boring. The part that was really interesting was the crazy looking campers, trailers, fashions, cars and parents. But from a little kids’ point of view growing up in this fast-paced digital world- it’s not my top choice of a fun camping video anymore. Regardless, as we watched the video, we also munched on popcorn and M&Ms (see my daughter Amanda’s blog for the recipe!) It was really, really fun for Grandmama, Papa and Nora to have a sweet quiet time in the tent with the bears, the popcorn and hugs!

After the video ended, we eventually drifted off to sleep after waving the flashlight around for awhile to see the fun shapes and shadows inside the tent.

Fast-forward to 3 AM: I heard Darrell say to Nora who was sitting straight up- Nora, do you have to go potty? Evidently she did, because she jumped out of the tent with her little flashlight and went straight to the potty chair, conveniently situated right outside the tent! I helped her finish up and then I suddenly felt like I needed to check on little Lydia, all by herself upstairs since 7 PM the previous evening. When I walked into her room- SHE was sitting straight up in her bed!! So, of course, I had to bring her down to the tent with the rest of us. She was so excited- and so was Nora. For the next hour to an hour and a half, we played with Charmin, rolled around the tent, waved those flashlights again and then watched six Mickey Mouse/Pluto/Minnie Mouse cartoons (thank goodness Papa had just bought that video!) Around 4:30 AM- everyone had finally drifted off to sleep in the tent.

Tuesday; 6:30 AM- Lydia is waking up and there’s nothing I can do to prevent it!!! So, she and I got up and had a “snack breakfast” of a cereal bar and a glass of milk. About 7:30 AM, Nora and Papa started waking up, too. Papa made us a really yummy breakfast of egg burritos, fresh berries and hash brown potatoes. After breakfast, it was time for more Zaccheus. This time, Lydia added to the tree by putting bug stickers all over it. We played with our Zaccheus figures again and Grandmama read the Bible story out of a different book this time for a few more story details. Then we cleaned up, got dressed and were ready to get going on a Camp Primo Field Trip!

Chattahoochee Nature Center We drove to the Nature Center which added perfectly to our camp theme. We saw a live beaver swimming in and out of the water, a bald eagle, several hawks and owls, frogs and snakes. We scooped up stuff from the pond to put into our collecting containers. We found sticks, leaves and rocks to use in nature projects we made later. We took a hike down a cool (temperature,  I mean) trail around the pond and we even had a picnic. We had some live visitors to our picnic- Canada geese who wanted a bite of peanut butter and jelly!

We all had a really fun time at the Nature Center. Lydia, who you can tell is a nature girl, never met a critter or bug she didn’t like. Nora, who is Miss Energetic, loves wide open spaces so she has plenty of place to run. The Chattahoochee Nature Center fit the bill perfectly for both girls!

Home again, it was naptime for Lydia. Nora had a combination of Cabin Time and Kick Back Time. In Cabin Time, she played with toys quietly inside the tent and then we watched some of the Narnia movie for a Kick Back time (lying down, no getting up, quiet time.)

Once Lydia got up, it was time for Nature Craft. We made two projects:

Stick Man We found sticks at the Nature Center that we proceeded to paint. Once they were dry enough to touch, we stood up each girl’s stick in a small clay pot and spooned play sand into the pot to help the stick continue to stand. So, at the completion of this step, we had a painted stick standing in a pot! The eventual finished product has the addition of wiggly or fun foam eyes and any other decorations a camper would like to add to the clay pot. Since our campers are so little, our stick men ended up looking more like the underside of a stiff octopus tentacle- but it was still a fun nature (stick, sand) craft project. We wanted the girls to name their Stick Men so we could paint the name on the clay pot. Nora named hers Catween (0r something like that) and for the life of me, I could not get Lydia to utter a single syllable- so her Stick Man remains nameless!

Nature Bandannas For this project, we purchased plain white bandannas at Michael’s (local craft store) and spray dye, located in the tie dye section. We had the campers put the nature items we had collected, plus a few more Grandmama and Papa added, on the bandannas. We tried to make pleasing arrangements of the items. Then, we simply sprayed the dye over the nature items. One method of spraying is to start with the lightest color dye for the first layer. Then, move all the nature items around the bandanna and spray the next color. Continue doing this for a multi-color, “tie dye” look. Or don’t move your nature items at all, spray one or more colors all over the bandanna. Remove the nature items and the result is a sharp, white outline of the items. In our case, we made eight bandannas; one for each of the four parents, one for both Darrell and me and one for both of our campers. They turned out really cute.

Following is a slide show of everything I’ve talked about to this point. If you don’t want to take the time to watch it as a slide show, just click on “View All Images” and you will be taken to a page where you can quickly click on just the photos you want to see. I’ve also added a couple of videos!

Well, it’s  hard to believe, but we’ve still got Tuesday evening, all day Wednesday and the Parent Program on Friday night to go!!