HEB Family Homeschool Camp

We went to family camp with our homeschool group. Chris was unable to go with us so I went with a friend from church instead. We left Monday and were done on Friday then Chris and my friends husband drove up and met us at a nearby state park and we camped another day. At family camp the kids played in the sandbox a lot. We waded in the river.

They had a Zainy Olympics with silly and challeging events. Events like watermelon spitting aiming for a large bowel. Blowing a ping pong ball through an obstacle course. Balloon Volleyball and Basketball. It was a lot of fun, and challenging because our team consisted of mostly children under 10 years old.

They had a Trading Post where the kids each bring something to trade and everyone lays out their stuff and kids go around trading homemade crafts or old toys for candy or someone else's homemade toys or old toys. The kids bargain, how many star-burst for your homemade mask of Darth Vader as an example. Peter and Sam don't quite understand the concept, but they are learning.

They also had crafts that the kids got to do. One was a photo frame. The little kids painted Popsicle sticks and I helped glue them in the shape of a square and added HEB CAMP in pre-cut letters, later they could add a photo. It was very messy with the paint and Will kept unplugging the hot glue gun. Overall it was a lot of fun.

I was glad that Chris got to meet us and extend our camping a bit. The kids were excited about camp and talked non stop for a couple hours about everything they did. We spent the night Friday at Palmetto State Park and woke up Saturday to a beautiful day. We got a chance to try our hand at fishing. The kids were bored with it fairly quickly, the casting is fun but the waiting for the bit is hard. I got to catch my first fish though! Will got hungry and wanted to eat an apple. I put him in the wagon to sit and eat it. I failed to notice the distance between the river and the wagon, because moments after I put him in the wagon, the wagon started drifting towards the river and he fell in, wagon and all! Scary moments! Chris dove in after him and Will hardly noticed what happened other than he was suddenly all wet! Chris' cell phone is still recovering...


Peter's Thoughts about Camp:

What did you think of camp? It was my favorite camp I have ever been in. At Trading Post we got He-Man, Spider man, and a red Power Ranger. And I even built my favorite things at craft time. And we goed on a hike. And we have walking sticks from the hike. And we have egg cartons. We put tied feathers and beads to our walking sticks and collected rocks and things and put them in our egg cartons on our hike. I do not have to swim at family camp. I can get to the other side of the river without having to swim. I have no floaties at pools. And we goed camping and fishing. And that's all I have to say.


Sam's thoughts about Camp:

Camp was fun. I swam at camp. I made a necklace. I played in the sandbox and tried to dig a well. I saw a raccoon. I ate bacon and eggs. That's it! (time to go play)


Joe's Thoughts about Camp:

Hands raised excited: "Make a mountain!" (out of sand). Joe and Will loved the sand box.


Its a shame I didn't have a video or tape recorder when Chris came on Friday night. The kids chatted non stop and then the next day they talked even more about camp. Now its Sunday and I think they all told Chris (all at the same time) everything they had to say about camp. We had fun and it was a lot like summer camp, what you might picture a week at a camp like in the Parent Trap. We ate cafeteria style with surprisingly lots of opportunities to eat large lettuce salads with all the fixings which made the health conscious adults like me quite happy! It was a really fun week. I wished we could have camped out more with Chris, we only did an overnight stay with him at Palmetto State Park. But the kids were cranky and out of sorts and Chris couldn't stay on Monday, so it was best to leave Saturday evening. The good news is now we know of a nice place to go about 2 1/2 hours from our house--not too bad.