Overnight

Our two day trip to Camp Omega went very well, much better than I expected. It definitely helped having an extra chaperone along. Normally we only have three; this time PTL sprung for a fourth parent. We had two dads, one mom, and me. It was just right. Typically I am stressing out with where the kids are and what they're all getting into and need a break from them around 5:00. This year, even with all my busy students, I felt kind of relaxed and didn't need a break at all. It was great!

The one student who extra misbehaved on our last field trip wasn't able to come. His parents and I decided one of them needed to be along, and it didn't work in their schedules, so he suffered the consequences. His mom said they were able to reflect on the situation a lot yesterday and today, and talk about impulse control, so that's a positive. His classmates missed him. We did 'highs and lows' last night before bed and a few of them said that this kid not being along was their low of the day.

God listened to our prayers and gave us better weather than the forecast predicted! Yesterday was a strange fluctuation of kind of warm, but kind of cold, then humid, then misty, then a sprinkle. We were comfy in sweatshirts and light jackets. It lightly rained on and off most of the day, but we were able to do our outside activities: canoeing, fire building, archery, and an ABC nature hike. One of the parents heard that duct tape wrapped around pine will start a really good fire, so we did that right before supper. We had just gotten it going when it was time to switch to rocket building.

The rockets were awesome! One of the 6th grade girls got hers 50 feet into the woods! It's a new record for my class. (Mine also made it into the woods... about the same distance as hers, just on a different trajectory). She had a ton of fins on the side of hers, and they were shaped like rocket fins. I put four on mine, and mine were just triangular. It was so fun shooting them off! There were a lot of requests to do it again next year, even from the chaperones, so I will make a note to do it!

It was supposed to thunderstorm starting at 6pm, but the forecast pushed the rain off until 9ish. That gave us enough time to do our evening bonfire/devotions. The only thing is... after we sang a few songs and started devotions, it began to pour and we all made a mad dash up the hill to shelter in the Beta Center. One of the dads made the comment, "Man, I've built three really good fires today and every time I had to put them out after only 15 minutes! It makes me want to cry."

We ended our day with games (Connect Four and Uno were the two favorites), then read aloud time, and quiet whisper time in the cabins. I think everyone was on the way to sleep by 11pm. No one got up super early either! We all got up around seven, then packed, and went to breakfast at eight.

Today was much cooler and windy than yesterday. No rain though! It snowed for five minutes during breakfast, but nothing stuck to the ground. A lot of the kids didn't come prepared... thankfully I had stuck my winter emergency bag in the back of my car before we left, so I doled out gloves, mittens, headbands, and sweatshirts. It's amazing how much I can fit in that little bag!

Our activities this morning were a service project (hauling wood down to one of the closer buildings), animal tracking (we made casts of animal tracks we found in the woods, mostly deer), and tree identification (we used a classification system and did bark rubbings). One of the moms is a tree enthusiast, so she taught us a lot about the kinds of plants growing in the woods. She and some students collected some roots that the Native Americans used to make red dye for us to plant at school. One of the kids found Jack in the Pulpit and brought it back to school to plant. We'll see if it grows!

All in all, it was a very good two days. But man, it felt like we've been gone a week!