Grammie Camp - The final day

Sadly, it's the last day of Grammie Camp. Our morning starts out with Yoga as usual. Here Auntie Donna leads us as we perfect our Warrior pose.
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And after all the different yoga poses, we finish off with a relaxing minute in the child's pose.

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Then after a yummy pancake breakfast that Grampie made, we finished up some of the art that needed to be displayed later in the afternoon when the parents came. Here Caleigh is helping Grace to finish her string art.

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And I gave each of the kids their "Grammie Camp 2010" patch to be sewn on their blankets/quilts. They did the sewing themselves and hopefully when they look at it, they'll remember their very first Grammie Camp for a long time .

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Emily sews.

Jessica sews.



Caitlin Sews

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And Grace sews. I'm so proud that all the girls enjoy sewing and are very eager to do the sewing of the patches themselves. It won't be long and I'll be telling you that Aurora sews, but for now, Grammie will sew her patch on.

And so now, here is some of the fabulous art. This is a picture of all the balloon string art. They are in the tree, and it's a breezy day. The string balls gently move as the wind blows right through them.

You saw the tye-dyed shirts earlier in the week but here they are again, all hanging out to dry. Emily is testing them to see if they can be worn yet. You can also see a few of the Balloon String Art drying under the t-shirts.

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This is string art done with a needle and crochet cotton. This is a beautiful and quick craft for 8 - 15 year olds. Everyone enjoyed doing it. Actually, I'm going to give it a try now that Grammie camp is over.

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Jessica had time to do another string art and quickly did this apple. Most fitting because she loves apples.
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Here is the table where their paper mache animals and the great flower pens are. On the table are extra tye dye t-shirts that the kids made for Mitchell.

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I'll give you a close up of the paper mache because they are so great.

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First is Graces creation. It's a cat called Tarlick. Because that's what baby Aurora's cat is called and it looks just like her.

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Next is Susan, the fish. Emily has fish and she did a beautiful job on Susan. Emily even made a yellow stand to put her on because, you know, fish don't have legs. Do you notice the sweet earrings she has on too. She's a real cutie pie, just like Emily.

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And here is Flo the whale. She is the cutest little whale with the biggest smile. She's the perfectly purple, my favorite color.

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Next is Pennie. She's Caitlin's pig. She has the cutest little tail, and Pennie has earrings too. I love her pink color. Caitlin spells her name with an "ie" on the end instead of a "y" because Grammie has an "ie". I'm so honored to have a namesake - sorta.

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And last is Ellie the Elephant. She was made by Jessica . It's hard to tell in the picture, but Ellie has polka dots and flowers all over. She has the cutest nose ever, just like Jessica!!

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So, that's it. Grammie Camp is over. It was a lot of fun for all of us.

A big thank you goes out to my sister, Auntie Donna who help me plan this from the beginning... And to Caleigh who came to help out as a camp counsellor. She was great to have to help out with some of the crafts and the spa night for sure. And to my hubby, Grampie for all the trips to the grocery store, the cooking, the dishes, and for being a good sport at the "All Girl "Grammie Camp".

Grammie camp will definitely be back next year....

Grammie Camp - Day 3

Each day, when the kids got up, they were anxious to see what was on the agenda for the day. You can see from the blackboard, that this Day 3 was to be a busy day.

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On this day, the paper mache animals were dry and ready to paint. The kids couldn't wait to start painting and give some life to their creations.

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Here you can see Ellie taking on a fun elephant personality. Jessica seems to have a thing for elephants lately. Isn't she sweet? Just wait until tomorrow when you see her all finished.

And Susan, the fish ,is sporting a beautiful fan tail. Emily has fish at home, but I guarantee you that not one of them is as pretty as Susan.

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Caitlin and Grace are working on their pig and cat in the shade. It took a couple of coats to get their color just right. You'll get to see all the finished animals in the Art show tomorrow - Day 4.

One of the mid morning activities, was decorating pens. This was a fun quickie activity, and we could have decorated many more pens than we actually had. Here shown with our scavenger hunt list is a pretty one with a purple flower which is mine because it has a flag on it with my name on it... "Grammie".

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After lunch and just before the scavenger hunt, there was some play and swim time. Here are three of the campers just taking a little swim break. I bet they're talking about the scavenger hunt.
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Speaking of scavenger hunt. The girls really surprised us at how resourceful they are.

Here you can see me reading the list of items to them as they wrote them into their camp journals. It was a hard scavenger hunt list. It had things like a beehive, a candle, a birds nest, a bunny, a mouse, an elephant, a nail, a golfer, a screw, 100 mussel shells, a bell and many other things. Since the list was so hard, we opted to give them the list on Day 2, and they would work together to find things on the list. They were not allowed to gather items until they were told, which was after lunch on Day 3.

I think that secretly, they had been looking and making strategies together the evening before. Because when we gave them the go-ahead to start the scavenger hunt at 1pm, they all went off in different directions to gather the loot. Within 15 minutes, they were quite proud of themselves and they thought they had everything on the list.

Here is the loot that they had gathered. We left the scavenger hunt on until 3pm One item on the list was an Elmo dish full of raspberries. The girls discovered that they interpeted a dish full of berries as a few berries in a dish.

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My sister and wondered out loud "Would this be the item that takes them down?"

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The kids discovered that they were short over half a dish of berries. So, just before the scavenger hunt deadline, they all took off in search for more berries.

My sister and were sure they would not be able to get at one thing on the list. We were totally surprised that Grace was the brave one who found the old nest in our upside down canoe and dislodged it. Everyone knew it was there and unused by birds for a couple of years, but nobody wanted to touch it. Grace saved the day.

Then the beehive was the problem. Until somebody pulled out their I spy quilt, and sure enough, a beehive was on it!!! (New rule for next year - No I spy quilts allowed at camp!! :))

Well, the kids presented their items one by one and Grampie and Aurora were the judges. They squeaked by and had everything on the list. hey were ecstatic. They won the scavenger hunt!! Here are the girls presenting the 100 mussel shells to Grampie. They are holding them in the back of Jessica's I spy quilt... the one with the beehive on it.

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Thanks to Aurora's mom who brought a nice treat for the girls earlier in the week, we had a well appreciated prize for these scavenger hunters.

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And can you guess what happened to the raspberries? Yep Aurora ate them all.

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After the scavenger hunt, the kids had a water balloon fight. There was over 100 balloons filled, and here is a great action shot of lots of balloon activity. It was lots of fun.
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We had a corn boil for supper and here is Grampie and Aurora husking the corn. She really liked doing this quiet activity.

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Meanwhile, Caitlin and Grace are preparing strawberry ice cream for dessert! The ice cream maker is on its last legs.
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The last big thing on the schedule for today was a SPA night for the girls. We had peel off mask for tweens (available at Shoppers). We set up stations where Emily did everyone's nails with the buffer, I applied polish to everyone's finger nails. Auntie Donna massaged feet and hands with Oil of Olay beauty cream and Caleigh applied the peel off masks to the girls faces.

Here you can see Caleigh applying the amber colored mask to Emily's face. Caleigh was a real pro, talking the kids through the whole thing.

As the mask dries, the trick was not to laugh because as you probably know, the masks stiffen and make it impossible to move your cheeks. What a strange feeling!
Here you can see Caitlin getting the full meal deal. Emily is massaging her hands, and Auntie Donna is working on her feet.

Here is a group of the spa girls. Grace couldn't stop smiling while the mask was drying, and her mask dried with her smiling... she's such a cutie, mask and all.

Jessica is saying "STOP - Don't make me laugh!"

Caleigh took off all the masks after they dried for half an hour. It's amazing how soft and supple the mask made the kids skin feel. What a fun experience. Do you remember your first peel-off mask?

And what was Aurora doing through all this. Just like the big girls, she got a foot and hand massage from Auntie Donna and I put polish on her nails. And brushing her teeth with her new Cinderella toothbrush was part of her evening as well.

This busy day ended with the campers watching "Finding Nemo" and some popcorn. Whew, what a busy day.

Tomorrow - the last day, and the art show!

Grammie Camp - Day 2

Day 2 started out with a relaxing class of Yoga, followed by a healthy breakfast of yogurt, fruit, cereal and juice.

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It was to be a busy day, so we got right into the activities for the day.

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We moved to the next step of the paper mache. The first step is to use balloons as a foundation for the paper mache and then to add limbs to what ever you were making. Here you can see Grace's cat and Caitlin's pig.

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Next comes the fun part.

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Adding the paper mache, strip by strip, smoothing out the seams as you go. Jessica is adding gooopy newspaper to Ellie, the elephant.

Aurora didn't care much for the goop but loved playing with the balloons. She had everyone blowing them up for her.

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Then after a little lunch break, we had some swim time. Here is Jessica and Caleigh giving us a big wave.

The big feature for the day was the Treasure Hunt. There were two teams and each team had to find 10 clues. Each clue had puzzle pieces that needed to be gathered. Emily is pulling a clue out of my lush Hosta that my friend Linda gave me last year.

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When the teams got back from finding all 20 clues, they brought all their pieces together, and put the puzzle together. Even Aurora helped.

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On the back of the made-up puzzle where specific directions on how to find the treasure. The kids followed the instructions to the letter.

They found the spot and with a little digging, they found the buried treasure in a gold metal treasure chest. It was a Movie night in a box. Movies, popcorn, candy.

This was one of the kids most favorite activities. It was so exciting and a challenge for them too. Some of those clues were hard!! Thanks Auntie Donna and Uncle Terry for developing this really fun activity.

The day went on and we made home made Oreo cookie ice cream, a neat thread art project, and a string ballon craft which you'll see more of. The day continued with play time and a fun Movie night.

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Day 3 - tomorrow...

Grammie Camp 2010 - Day 1

Well, Grammie Camp over. All that I can say is, we had a blast and it's so awesome to spend time with my grandkids. These are the best kids in the World.

I first have to say that this camp would have been impossible to do without my sister's help. She's so organized and resourceful comes to kids crafts. She really helped me plan the activities and all the logistics of the 4-day camp. She also brought along a surprise Junior Camp Councillor - Caileigh, who worked along and helped with the kids on all the projects. She was so fun to have around.

One of the very first crafts we started working on, on Day 1, was tye dying our camp shirt. Here you can see the kids who are holding their tye-dye shirts in the dye solution. After using spiral, squares and elastic techniques to fold the white tshirts, there was much anticipation as to what our individual shirts would look like.

As each child unrolled their crumbled bundle one by one, we all oooh'd and awwww'd at how wonderful the t-shirts came out. They were all different and beautiful. Here you can see the T-shirt backs as we walked up the lane.

And here you can see that we had our "official" Grammie Camp 2010" Photo taken on the cottage steps and we were wearing our camp tshirts.

Also on Day 1, the kids each started a major paper mache project and you'll see some of that tomorrow. It is a multi stage project that the kids would work on for 4 days.

There was also a little time for a swim, a paddle, a campfire with smores, and a late movie - Homeword Bound. I'm sure we had a couple of meals and snacks on that first day, but who can remember that long ago.

Last day of Grammie Camp

Well, it's Saturday. Grammie camp is over today. The kiddo's Moms and Dads are coming today to pick them up this afternoon. We'll have a display of the arts and crafts that they did this week and we may even have a musical performance of a sort.

I stitched out these badges and they'll be sewn on their blankets before they leave.

I never thought of it, but I should have done patches for my sister and Caileigh that said "I Survived Grammie Camp 2010".

Be on the lookout for pictures tomorrow

Grammie Camp

For a few weeks now, my sister has been helping me plan for my first ever Grammie Camp. See, today I go to the cottage and my sister will meet me there around suppertime. We have a surprise camp leader for the kids coming too. They don't know about her. We've got lots of work to do today in preparation to welcome my 5 Grandchildren Campers tomorrow morning.

Actually, we're not camping, but we are roughing it at the cottage. We have 4 days planned for the all girl crew that includes, crafts, games, music, food, swimming, movies, yoga, and a little quiet time too.

Baby Aurora is the youngest camper and she's at the cottage already, getting ready for the other campers to arrive tomorrow.

There's no internet at the cottage, so be sure to watch for pictures from Grammie Camp early next week.