The Barri (more than one Barrus): Day Camp For Girls

By turning eight, Blythe has officially become an Activity Day Girl. Woo whee! She has been asking me when she got to start doing things like Brandt, and I was happy to inform her several weeks ago that just after her birthday, she got to go to day camp, just like Brandt. In fact, it was so much just like Brandt that she even got to go to the same camp today, Camp Jeremiah Johnson. And because they were in need of an additional leader, I got to go too. I'm not sure Blythe was really thrilled with me being there, but she rode up and back with Linda Pugmire, and when she fell and scraped up her knee and palm, I was there to soothe, comfort, and clean up wounds.

It was a fun day. Our ward did the opening flag ceremony, and then we got right into activities. Each activity earned you a colored bead for your necklace, and there were extras to win if you picked up trash, found the Big Dipper, and identified the first teacher to go into space (Christa McAuliffe who was killed in the Challenger Space Shuttle explosion). Beads were highly desirable, and Blythe was fairly delighted she got a red bead for having visited the First Aid Station, even though getting the bead meant she had been hurt and needed to visit the First Aid Station. She got an Otter Pop, too.

Flag ceremony.

The girls stood in a mass trying to look like they were actually doing something.

The first thing was Spirit of the Water, a rafting activity where the girls got to paddle around and try to collect floating balls which they then threw at each other. So fun!

Receiving instruction.

Abbie Drake, Ashlyn Elder, Blythe, Jayne Tayler, Lilly Bradford

Bridie Harkness, Ellen Mason, Anne Madsen

These are the 8-9 year old activity day girls.

From water-ing, we moved on to Shoot for the Stars, rocket-ing. The girls constructed a rocket which entailed gluing on tail fins, then got to shoot it off an air compressed launcher. Blythe's went quite far!

Studied concentration

Next was Astronaut Training Camp, a station where they played a couple of group games, including having to walk on boards in tandem with their partner, and get a whole group of girls across a big field on tiles without touching the ground. It was tricky on both counts.

Blythe and her partner Jayne.

We moved on to Astronaut Archery. It's been a long time since I've done any archery myself, and I forgot how tricky it can be. Almost everyone had a really hard time figuring it all out and getting the arrows to do anything other than flop forward onto the ground just in front of them. But they got a bead!

We took a break for dinner and cold drinks, then continued with Christa's Craft Center. The girls made key chains creatures out of beads. Blythe worked on a lady bug that she didn't quite finish, but which we finished up when we got home. More bead--on the table, on the ground, and on the necklaces. No pictures from the craft center because I was helping girls figure out how to string beads. From there we went to BB Gun Ballistics. Talk about a good time. They divided this time into two, the first part being BB gun shooting, and the second part playing a fun water game. The shooting was great, and I think all the girls felt like they were successful. Blythe thought it was great.

The water game was really fun, too. There were large PVC tubes with holes in them. While one girl ran back and forth filling then dumping a pitcher of water into the tubes, the other girls on the team tried to stop up the holes with their fingers to keep the water from coming out. The team with the most water in their tube won. It was frantic, wet pandemonium and everyone loved it. Blythe's team won!

It looks like Blythe is pouring water on Bridie's head, but she's not.

Well, not exactly.

Blythe is trying to use her foot to stopper a hole.

That brought us to the end of the day's activities. We went to closing ceremony where we sang a silly song, retired the flag, and cheered for a fantastically fun day. Here, here for day camp!