Outdoor Science School

This is the beautiful nurses cabin I had all to myself for the 3 days I was at the Ishikawa outdoor science camp. The camp either has to have either a nurse or a doctor in order for the kids to go. I had to pass out meds and be ready to attend to any number of things that may happen, i.e. accidents, bee stings, cuts, scrapes and puking kids.

I had the cabin all to myself. I had a full size bed as opposed to a bunk bed like the parents and kids had. I also had 2 twin beds and a seperate examining room. Pretty posh stuff for a camp:)

The dining hall where we had homemade food for all meals. What is not to love about homemade macaroni and cheese, homemade cinnamon rolls and homemade bread at every meal? Worth the volunteering for!

These are my infamous "Bee Girls." They somehow disturbed a beehive at 8 pm at night and came screaming into my cabin with pants and shirts full of bees. Their cabin leader and I stomped all the bees, washed them down, calmed them down and then gave them all Benadryl and Motrin. To top it off, I gave them chocolate from my hidden stash. We have a skit night on Thursday night and the sweet little girls chose to parody me and themselves. They first were all screaming "We are going to die, help us, help us!" One of the girls played me and walked around saying "Here, have some chocolate! It cures everything!" The bee stinkers ratted me out:)

Here is Darin's group doing part of the team building skills. Their team did not do so well as 1 minute after this picture they were all on the ground after they fell off the log.

One of the "Devine" volunteers who was a cabin dad, Paul Devine. I am still waiting for him to post the video on Youtube of Allison at the campfire singing the "Weinie Man" song. Soon I am told!

Helen Taylor, one of the volunteer cabin moms. My son is at her house almost every day playing with her son, Geoffrey, and her stepson, Aaron.

Darin doing the spiderweb teambuilding. Happy to report their teamwork was much better here than at the log!

Darin on the log-you can see the boys just starting to fall.

One of the fun parts of outdoor science school is having the Hot Shot firefighters come up and show the kids how they do their job. Mrs. Griego's, the 5th grade teacher who has been organizing all this for many years, has also been able to get the Hot Shot team up to the camp for the past 10 years. Darin was picked to be the volunteer and I was one happy mom!! He only weighs 70 lbs and has on 150 lbs of firefighting gear in this picture. Imagine having to wear this in 120 degree heat and fighting a fire-wow!

Another shot of Darin getting the gear on.

Darin loved this part. He has a chainsaw over his shoulder. This is just part of the equipment that the Hot Shots use to make a fire line to fight fire with. They also use shovels, a special axe/pick, water packs and also building a fire line to keep the fire back. They travel throughout Arizona and the western states. They said they have to be ready at a moments notice to be gone for up to a 2 week stay.

Outdoor school was fun-just glad I have 2 more years until Dylan is in 5th grade before I go again!