It was hard camping without my sweetie. My boys helped load and gather the camping stuff, so it wasn't that. It was just his presence that I wanted. I wasn't the only one. Most of the kids mentioned him at some point or another. He was larger than life! Without him and without possibilities of a campfire because of the drought, as well as a misunderstanding about the date; I was worried that everything would fall apart, even at the last moment.
I made our traditional chicken stew before we left home because charcoal was also banned, so we couldn't use the dutch ovens. We brought the propane stove and the new propane firepit that I bought for the girl scout campout. I also had the stew in our roaster, so the only thing we needed to cook was breakfast and s'mores, of course.
We started out with games and dinner. The kids love to play spikeball or volleyball or whatever is going on. I love that they are joiners and they don't have a problem with helping the little ones to learn and play along. After dinner, we worked on a birthday party for Skittles. He opened his gifts and then we did a pinata. That is almost a tradition now. I think we have done one pretty much every year of the campout. After all the kids had a swing at it, Burrito smacked it wide open! Besides the candy, I had little flashlights and gliders for each of the kids.
I was really glad I had a craft planned when Duchess sweetly asked me about one. We used fabric markers to each do a quilt square and when everyone was finished, we drew one out to see who got the finished quilt. One of our littlest guys was the winner! Carnitas!! More games and s'mores, plenty of love and laughter. Even without my sweetie, we enjoyed each other's company, but I missed his stories.
After a while, Dog Walker put up the blow-up screen and the kids watched Moana. As it was getting dark, Little Squire started screaming! He had run into a wire while playing hide-and-go-seek with some of the other kids. Beauty and The Beast ran to him and brought him back to the pavilion. His face was all bloody. I pressed the paper towel to his eye socket to staunch the blood. He screamed louder. The pressure was so painful, but necessary. We could already tell that it missed his eye, but not by much. Someone got him some liquid Tylenol. I asked Bossy to look for a closure in the first aid kit and between the two of us, we carefully put two of them in place. It was poking really close to his eye, so I grabbed my tiny scissors, handed them to Bossy and she carefully cut off the ends of each closure. My hands were shaking so badly even though I felt like we had the situation under control.
Beauty and The Beast packed up not long after that and headed home. The boys were supposed to stay with us, but given the situation, plans changed. A half-inch closer and Little Squire might have lost his eye. It was serious, but not stitch-worthy. The wire also cut his nose, but much less than near his eye. We would see them again on Monday, but I will leave that post for tomorrow.
Almost all the kids in the valley had come to the campout, but only Bossy's family, me, Dog Walker, Curly, and Baby Doll spent the night. Maybe it is time to come up with a new tradition. Just a cookout?
Guess I don't have to decide today.
