Camp Calumet homeschool week

Last year, I heard about a homeschool week hosted by Camp Calumet up in New Hampshire, and I looked forward to it ALL winter and spring. I even recruited our good friends from co-op to go with us, and we had a good time! Excuse me. Sunny says,

"We had A BLAST!!" 

It was so great getting to know our friends better and building our little tribe relationship. Being in the outdoors for an entire week is really something else.

We spent a lot of time time at the lake - every afternoon (except when it rained). There was a roped-off swimming area, canoes and kayaks, rowboats, and sign-ups to ride a pontoon boat to the other end of the lake and back. The kids spent hours just digging in the sand at the edge of the lake. Our girls loved the big boat ride, mostly. Azalea screamed and fought putting the life jacket on, until one of our friends came and took her back to the beach - they sat in the shade with a towel over A's head and she napped the entire time we were gone. Birdie hated the boat ride - it was "scary" - until I pointed out the colorful sailboats. Then she was fine. The other three girls LOVED it. We had to keep Magnolia sitting down because she was trying to lean out over the edge. She would have gone flying out of the boat for sure - we were going pretty fast.

Day 2 of the trip, it rained all day. We had thunder and lightning and even tornado warnings. It was a crazy day. Fortunately, there is a lodge there - we found a small lounge area with a TV/DVD player, and let our kids watch a couple of movies. They also had some painting supplies for the kids to use.

The camp provided some activities. There was a ropes course that wasn't open very long so we missed that, but will make sure to get to it next year. Sunny got to learn the basics of archery. There was a tiny miniature golf course. Azalea insisted on deliberately throwing her ball into the little "water hazard" so she would have to get in the water and fish it out. The kids spent some time at the playground on the swings - hooray for Birdie and Magnolia recently learning how to pump a swing themselves, so I didn't have to run back and forth to push everyone!

We also brought our own entertainment - AC had some large slingshots to launch tennis balls that he made for a Scout activity. It took 2 adults to hold the cords while the kids pulled back for the launch. One of the other families has a teenage son (as opposed to all the rest are little kids), and he rode his bike around so the kids could try to hit him. One of them actually did. We also brought our hammocks, and our girls don't go anywhere without books!

Thursday was AC's birthday so we made ice cream in a bucket filled with ice rolled around on the ground. Sunny and Aunt T got it started, and then a few of us took turns rolling it up and down the road while pushing it with a large stick. It didn't get frozen all the way through the center, but it was a good attempt! And very tasty! AC made himself a pineapple upside down cake in the Dutch oven - wow. His Dutch oven cooking was - admitted on the last day - entirely an experiment. But boy howdy, it was a successful one!

The last day, we hiked up the ridge to see the view of the lake - the trees blocked most of it, but we could see a lot of the White Mountains around us and it was really pretty. Even Azalea at age 2 made the hike all right - I don't think we had to carry anyone until the final stretch.

Our camping group was really great. My sister, Aunt T, was with us and apparently acquired a couple more nieces and nephews for her "collection" - neither child on her lap in this picture is actually related to us.

Homeschool mom power!! SP, AS, and me.

Why, yes! Yes, we did camp with 11 children! And they LIKED it!

And the adults are even willing to do it again.

It's like the beginning of a bad joke: 

An engineer, a lawyer, and a doctor walk into a ... campsite.

We're already talking about next year. AC and AS scouted out the campground to find some campsites in a good location so hopefully we can get a bigger group next year and camp together. SP and I are talking about contacting the camp about providing more activities, a longer time slot for some things, and some other suggestions tailored to the homeschool visitors for the week. This could be a fun annual thing for us - it was a good first year!