CAMPING BIRTHDAY PARTY

 Normally, right after Trinity's birthday party is over, I start planning on the theme for next year.  This year, she kept saying she didn't want a party.  

But, a week before her birthday she changed her mind!  She wanted to rent a cabin and bring just her closest girl friends for a weekend of fun.

There wasn't much time to plan anything but it turned out to be one of the best parties she ever had...her words, not mine.

Since we were going to be in a cabin, CAMP TRINITY seemed the perfect theme.

This was the cabin we rented.  Just seeing where we were going to staying for the weekend thrilled the girls!

As they got closer, they could see signs were hanging on the door.

Two signs were hung up.  One saying "What happens at camp, stays at camp!".  The girls loved this saying and it was said over and over again all weekend long.

The other sign said "Welcome to Camp Trinity!".  This gave them a hint as to what was inside.

As soon as they walked in the room was full of the girls excitement.  They loved what they saw.

A S'More bar was just waiting for the sky to get dark so they could go out by the camp fire and cook marshmallows to place on chocolate and mashed down with gram crackers.

There were "Camp Trinity" chocolate bars and "Camp Trinity" Peanut butter cups.  

I loved using the covers.  It brought the theme more to life.

 Rather then just having marshmallows, we had "Puffy Clouds".

Multi color marshmallows were called "Rainbow bits".

The "Grizzly Bears", better known as cinnamon bears and gummy bears,  were attacked and eaten up quickly.

We planned to have a scavenger hunt and there were "Camp Trinity" Trail Mix bags made up and bottles of water for the girls to take with them.

I wasn't sure how the trail mix would go over since there was so much other candy, chips and junk food (all not shown here) for them to snack on.  But, I was happy, they all grabbed a bag and a bottle of water to take with them and left the other junk food behind...for now.

Since we were going to have a BBQ, the table where they were going to eat, was set up outside.

 There wasn't much room on the table to do decorating so I just kept it very simple.

Since the color theme of the party was green and brown, I just got plain color plates.  I did get them in square shapes to add a bit more interest to the look.

I got some pretty napkins with a left pattern on it to bring in some of the camping theme.

Since it was outside and there was a breeze, the napkins wanted to keep flying away.  To solve that problem, I just put a cute green and white paper straw on top.  It not worked to hold the napkins down but it added another layer of texture and interest to the place settings.

The use of battery candles kept the danger of starting a fire away but still added a flicker glow to the table when it got dark outside.

Some more printable tags were added to the cups to tie in the theme from inside.

I was happy that even though the decorations were kept fairly simple, Trinity loved the theme and all the little details of her party.

You can read about the fun activities we had by clicking here.

ANOTHER CHEAP BUT FUN OUTING ~ CAMPING

I just got home from a fun camping trip.  It was just my sister, my great niece and me.  No men allowed.

Well, except this big boy, who seemed to love our camp area.  He would come by several times a day.  He even brought his wife and three babies with him a few times.

He was so friendly and tame.  We named him George.

We went to a KOA Camp Ground.  It was the first time I had been to one and I was very impressed.

They have so much fun stuff to do.  Of course, hiking is always a big thing when you go camping.

They had a beautiful river to swim in.  They told us some last year a group of young people came and blocked off some of the stream so the water would go up higher and they could swim there.

A big storm came and all the rocks they used was washed away.  But, the group came back again this year and did the same thing. 

It was a perfect place to go cool off and get refreshed from a long day outside.

They had a big play area with lots to do too.

Tether ball always reminds me of when I was a kid.  I loved to play tether ball on the play ground.

They had lots of bikes you could rent and of course there were lots of trails to ride the bikes on.

You could even brush up on your rock climbing skills if you didn't want to leave the camp ground to rock climb.

The huge chess set reminded me of Alice in Wonderland. 

This was called an Air Pillow.  It was really big and like a trampoline.  Only it has big fans blowing it up. 

Kids loved this...so did some adults.  Plus, it was free!

The camp ground has places for tents and RV's.  They also have tepees and cabins you can rent.

To me, it really isn't camping unless you are in a tent, have a camp fire and cook outside.

Here Trinity is making dessert for us.  Do you have any idea what she is making? 

She made us brownies with walnuts.  YUM! 

I bet you wonder how she was able to cook brownies outside.  Don't you?

We brought a box with us and turned it into an oven.  She figured out how many pieces of hot charcoal she needed to get it to heat up to 350 degrees and about 40 mins. later, we had delicious warm brownies to eat!

Yes, we did make S'Mores.  Only not just the normal S'Mores.  We also made them with brownies rather then graham crackers. 

Warning!  If you try these, you may never want to go back to normal S'Mores again!  They were so good, they should be outlawed.

I think one of the best things the camp ground had to offer was the Zip Line.  My sister and I didn't go on it but Trinity did!  She said it was a blast.

We had so much fun and so many laughs.  We did a lot of things we never have done before and at night we loved looking up at the night sky with all the billions of stars. 

Living in the city we don't really see many stars due to all the light. 

To me though, I think I enjoyed the hours and hours of talking.  Telling stories about the past and dreaming about the future.  Telling scary stores was so fun, we ended up going to bed early just so we could lay in our tent, snuggle up and get scared.

So many memories were made.  It was a trip we will never forget.

SEVERAL WAYS TO COOK OUTDOORS

Being a Girl Scout Leader means of course, taking the troop camping.  Even though I've already taken my troop camping I still was required to take a few classes so I could be sure I was doing things "The Girl Scout Way."

So, last night I went to my class.  It was basically to learn different ways to cook outdoors. 

Since the first thing a cook should do is, wash her hands, they had an outdoor "sink" set up.

Just fill up a large water container with water, put a bar of soap in a clean old sock or nylon and use a pan to catch the water.  After all, you don't want water running through out your camp area.

We all made our own watering can, like the one in the photo.  All it really is is a coffee can with wholes punched in the bottom and attached to a coat hanger.

Keep this near you in a bucket of water while you have a camp fire going and should anything catch on fire you will be ready to put it out.  Plus, when you are finished with your fire, just sprinkle the water over fire or hot coals and it quickly goes out.

Normally, when one builds a fire they would pile the wood to look like a tee pee.  That will allow plenty of air to get to the fire and it will be build a nice high fire.

If you are building your fire to cook over, it's best to stack your wood in a square or "log cabin" style.  This will allow the fire to burn more low and spread out.  Therefore, making it easy to put a grill over the fire.

Once you do this, you can then use your fire like a stove.  Just put your pots and pans on top of and cook away.

Keep your coffee pot full of hot water so you can enjoy coffee, hot chocolate or tea through out the day.

Or just use it to heat up your water to wash your dishes later.

A tip to keep your pots and pan nicer is to rub dish washing soap on the outside before you place them over the fire.

By doing so, it will be easy to wash off the soot that builds up on them from the fire.

Bring charcoal with you when you go camping.  If you do, you will open yourself up to a whole new way to cook outdoors.

Just heat your coals up.  Use one of these charcoal chimneys to get them ready much faster.

While your coals are getting hot, line a dutch oven with foil (to make clean up a breeze).

Mix up your ingredients for whatever you want to make.  We made Apple Crisp.

Then set your filled dutch over over some hot coals and place some more hot coals on top.

There are charts you can find either in your booklet that came with your dutch oven or on line that will tell you how many coals to use on the top and how many on the bottom.  It will depend on how hot you wish to cook your dish as to how many you should use.

The one way of cooking that excited me the most was using a box to make an oven.

Just get a cardboard box and line it with a few layers of foil.  Tape the foil to the outside to keep it attached.  That's it!  You now have an oven to bake whatever you want.

Place a cookie sheet or even a pie tin down first.  You don't really have to do this but it will help to keep your oven clean and you can use it over and over again for many trips.

Put your hot coals down on the pan (or directly on the foil if you like).  Use one coal for every 40 degrees you want to bake your item at.  This means, if you are baking at 400 degrees then use 10 coals.

Then put four empty cans down.  Place a rack (can use a baking cooling rack) on top of the cans.  Place your cake, pie, bread or whatever you are baking down on the rack. 

We made corn muffins.  So we put our cupcake pan down directly on top of the cans.  We didn't need to use the rack as it fit just fine without one.

Put the top of your box on.  Be sure you lined it with foil also.

Then bake your item for as long as the recipe says.

It most likely will take the longer time to cook.   Our muffin mix said to cook 15 to 20 mins.  We had to cook it longer as it was not completely cooked at 15 mins.

Sometimes you may wish to cook hot dogs on a stick or roast marshmallows.  Just make a regular fire and cook away.

In order to build your fire and keep it going you may wish to use a fire starter.  Sure you can buy them at the stores.  But why?  You can make your own for free.

Just use an empty egg carton.  Make sure it's the paper kind and not the Styrofoam ones.

Fill the cups up with lint from your dryer.  Finally a use for all that lint!!!

Melt some old candles, crayons or even purchase some new wax if you like.   Be careful though because it will be very hot!

Then pour the melted wax over the lint.  Fill up each cup with the wax and let dry.

Break or cut the cups apart and light these on fire.  They will burn great and get your fire off to a great start. 

Easy and free.  Now who doesn't like that?

Another quick and easy way to cook a meal is to cut up your veggies and/or meat.   Let everyone pick out what they enjoy and put it on top of a piece of foil.

Add a little butter to keep things from sticking.  Season it with whatever spices you like.  You can even top it with cheese.

Wrap up your meal in your foil.  Be sure everyone writes their name on their own packet so they know who gets which packet.

Be sure your foil is sealed so you don't lose all the yummy juices inside.   Then place your foil packet on top of the hot coals and let it cook.

Once everything is cooked through, pull off the heat, unwrap and enjoy.

This works great on a BBQ as well.

You can cook your marshmallows over a wood burning fire or over hot coals.  I actually prefer to use the hot coals.  I don't like mine burnt like some people do.

Using the coals allows them cook slower.  Then will lightly brown outside but still be all melted inside.

Either way you like your marshmallows, they are yummy on their own.  However, get a graham cracker, some chocolate and place your cooked marshmallow on top then add another graham cracker and you have a wonderful S'More. 

What a great way to end your meal.

I hope you had fun seeing all the different ways you can cook outside.  Now you can eat anything you like while camping.  You are not limited to just a big fire any more.