# who's a good camper??



## debbie5 (Mar 2, 2007)

Please save me HOURS of internet research, I beg of you.

Camping....end of August. Nine 7 year olds and 2 leaders who have *never* set foot in the woods before. We are only staying overnight one night, and it's in a posh cabin that has a full kitchen and fridge. However, I want them to have CAMP FOOD. No food-prep skills have been taught to the girls, so there will be no major food prep by them (this year, anyway). One meal will be weiners and grilled veggie foil packets over a campfire that they will make (I am training them in that in a few weeks..also doing a fire safety training in my backyard, which I'm sure my neighbor will crab about, seeing as he was a DEPUTY FIRE CHIEF). .

---I need a quick, one pot meal for when we arrive (my only idea was goulash??with pre-boiled noodles? ).

---Mid-morning & mid day snack..I'd like at least one snack to be over the fire...(toasting potato rolls & rolling them in butter & cinn/sugar?)

---Hearty lunch (this meal can take longer)

---some type of quick snacks to have on hand...hummus/chips, peeled oranges, carrot/celery/ranch, chowmein noodles & pumpkin seeds??

One girl cannot have a lot of dairy, otherwise, no allergies. I was thinking of meat hand pies (we have an oven)...I would like to get some things that they can at least partially make. I don't want to keep them in the kitchen for an hour when they should be out in the woods. Maybe cookies baked in a solar oven?

Also, any good rainy day activities you have found to be awesome would work. I know there are resources out there, just wanted to avoid reading more pages & pages worth of stuff. (I have spent about 30 hours so far !) I need a craft from sticks or toher natural items. Family Fun had a nice craft where you can make a "bird's nest"...maybe we can make a chick out of a pine cone. We are gonna have sleeping-bag-rolling relay races and shoe tying relays. I am LOVING planning this. I really love organizing stuff like this! The group is such a bunch of nice, funny girls, too. I dunno how I went from hating kids in my 20's to being a Girl Scout assistant leader. I just hope we find one of those amazing, fluroscent orange wood salamanders under a log. They are like rare GOLD in the woods! or a Trillium!


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## debbie5 (Mar 2, 2007)

Oh crap- wrong section. Hey haunti- can you move this to unstructured thoughts? Sorry but thanks.


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## Hauntiholik (May 17, 2006)

Moved


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## debbie5 (Mar 2, 2007)

Meh- nevermind. The Girl Scout leader is too scared to go camping, so we can't go. In a cabin. Full kitchen. A couch. Heat. Indoor toilets and shower. "Camping". Her main fear is that her kid will get bedbugs or lice. 
OMG.


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## TheOneAndOnlyKelly (May 7, 2009)

Lice is highly unlikely, especially if the girls being their own pillows, unless someone within the troop is already infested.

Bedbugs is a *slight* chance, but as long as everything is throughly washed afterwards, that drops to nil. Bedbugs don't live on people like lice do, so they'd have to be carried within clothing back from the camp.

Camping with kids that young can be a challenge, especially with homesickness (been helping out with Cub and Boy scouts for 8 years now). You might try an afternoon "camp" in someone's yard, and preparing a camp lunch that way with a dutch oven and a fire (if someone has a firepit) or in a local park. That way you don't have to deal with the whole "overnight" issues and still get to introduce them to camping.

Setup a couple of tents for an afternoon quiet time and organize a bunch of camping-related games. It will be lots of fun!


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## jdubbya (Nov 6, 2005)

I've been a scout leader (Pack and Troop) for several years and we've taken kids that young tent camping for close to a week. Sleeping in a posh cabin would make it as close to home as possible. If your leader won't go, maybe enlist another parent to go along for the fun. I won'
t get into the whole boys vs girls thing but our Cub Scouts and younger Boy Scouts love the experience for the most part. There are a few who are a little skittish but they normally get over it. Nothing like camping in a dark woods in an old canvas wall tent at 3:00 a.m. and hearing a screech owl let loose or have a racoon rifling through your garbage!


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## Lunatic (Oct 3, 2006)

debbie5 said:


> Meh- nevermind. The Girl Scout leader is too scared to go camping, so we can't go. In a cabin. Full kitchen. A couch. Heat. Indoor toilets and shower. "Camping". Her main fear is that her kid will get bedbugs or lice.
> OMG.


OMG is right! That cabin sounds great. Too bad, it sounds like a wonderful experience for the kids. Bedbugs are nasty but it shouldn't be a deterrent for enjoying the wild. Sorry Debbie.


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## Adam I (Jun 16, 2007)

Debbie,

Don't worry, have fun and plan for rain,scrapes and no toilet paper. 
Visit the campsite ahead of time, prepare busy work like coloring pages you'll need a break, premeasure dry ingredents for recipes.

Here is a website I found for my wife when she was a GS leader

http://www.scoutorama.com/recipe/

Some hits were

Breakfast in a bag
Biscuit on a stick
Pie iron pizza
Hobo dinner in foil


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## autumnghost (Sep 12, 2009)

debbie5 said:


> Meh- nevermind. The Girl Scout leader is too scared to go camping, so we can't go. In a cabin. Full kitchen. A couch. Heat. Indoor toilets and shower. "Camping". Her main fear is that her kid will get bedbugs or lice.
> OMG.


I think I saw this on Troop Beverly Hills. What kind of Scout leader is afraid of camping anyway!

Bedbugs or lice - not likely. {pssst - don't mention ticks and mosquitoes - she'd freak!)


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## randomr8 (Oct 24, 2009)

Doubt I can be of much help here. Our camping always started with a round of Cosmos...


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## Jaybo (Mar 2, 2009)

Adam I said:


> Debbie,
> 
> Don't worry, have fun and plan for rain,scrapes and no toilet paper.
> Visit the campsite ahead of time, prepare busy work like coloring pages you'll need a break, premeasure dry ingredents for recipes.
> ...


Breakfast in a bag and the Hobo dinner's are great! Our family still make these when we go camping.


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## Lunatic (Oct 3, 2006)

randomr8 said:


> Doubt I can be of much help here. Our camping always started with a round of Cosmos...


Cosmos...Me likey!


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## spideranne (Jul 17, 2006)

Ooh, I hope you go anyway.

English muffin pizzas and banana boats are two of my camping favorites, and easy.


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## Dixie (Feb 18, 2009)

Ohhh, camping! I'm in!  Just in case somehow you DO get to go (since it sounds like you want to if you could)...

If you are doing breakfast, we have also done the Ziploc Baggie Omelet - boil water in your stock pot, take a freezer baggie (one per person) and put some pre chopped toppings of each persons choice (veggies, pre-cooked bacon, or breakfast sausage, cheese, etc) crack two eggs into the bag, and seal it up. put in the boiling water for something like 5 minutes (you can tell by looking at it as its in the water - and how you like your eggs). When its done it slides right out of the baggie onto paper plate. No clean up - kids liked making it them selves.

Tin can cobbler is good too -if you need an easy after dinner dessert - the recipe is on the scout site, I'm sure. 

My favorite random tip - Freeze 1 gallon water bottles to use as ice in your cooler - (if you take one) it melts slower, wont get water all over your food wrappers, and you will have extra water to drink. (don't use the fridge - ROUGH IT! it's a whole different feeling of "getting away"!!)

Second favorite tip - if you are in a windy area AT ALL - Clamps for the tablecloth. Cant say enough about it. Nothing worse than the wind grabbing the edge of your tablecloth and hurling everything on the table. Oh, and eat on a state park picnic table without a tablecloth? Only if birds NEVER fly over that area. (as in... not likely!) if you are eating outside - tablecloth, and clamps 

Favorite thing to do - Scavenger hunt. Give them a list (that you make) and a trash bag. Have them put items in the trash bag. (Items like a Y shaped stick that fits in your hand, a gray rock, a piece of litter, etc. I also have been known to "plant" items in the woods for them to find - a yellow flashlight, etc. Gives them the feeling of adventure, hope (to win a prize), individuality and competition. Also has them picking up trash - gotta love it.


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## Adam I (Jun 16, 2007)

Another recipe: Fudge in a bag

http://parentingteens.about.com/od/recipesforkids/r/kids_recipes21.htm

Best done just before you return the girls


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## debbie5 (Mar 2, 2007)

You guys rock! Thanks, everyone. I never knew about a lot of these!

Yeah- I'm gonna leave the beyotch Ghoul Scout leader at home to take her anxiety medicine while I take my family to the campsite. Yay me!


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## pensivepumpkin (Mar 27, 2011)

*oh mercy, do I have recipes for you...*

some of my all-time favorites from camping at that age:

foil meals: hamburger patties, cut up potato onions and carrot. all wrapped in a sheet of foil and just left to cook over fire. take forever, but do not require much help from the munchkins. they can, however, put them in foil themselves and season to taste. don't encourage too much variety, as no one will remember which is which after you've scooted them around over the fire. unless they make foil animals with their packets. 

no bake cookies are a great snack with some (some!) redeeming qualities, in the peanut butter. they do melt in heat, though.

as a grown up camper i am partial to the backpacking kit of foods sold at REI stores. it has ziploc baggies of various veggies, dried to make storage easy. for hikes and camping i just throw together the ingredients of a stew, burrito, whatever into another ziploc bag so i can just throw them in boiling water. easy peasy.

oh- and stock up over the summer on little packets of soy sauce, tobasco, mustard, and the like whenever you see them. i have the tiny tobasco bottles, and they make everything taste good.

pm me if you wish- i still have all my cookbooks from being a scout leader years ago, and i cook on the trail every summer. sorry if i went overboard here...:jol:

ps: cosmos in a mouthwash bottle- the kids are interested in a thermos, but not in mouthwash. and the adults should have fun too. i was the bad camp counselor.


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## debbie5 (Mar 2, 2007)

Yay! The NICE other lady who ran the troop with me is gonna bail on the beyotch leader and help me run my own troop next year! No one likes the mean leader, even the moms! 
Winning!

And fudge in a bag? What really could be better than that!!??


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## Bone Dancer (Oct 7, 2005)

You just have to report back on this camping trip. Good luck.


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## debbie5 (Mar 2, 2007)

It's cancelled. She sent me a note saying she would not attend..too scared. What an idiot. 
I cannot bring the girls alone per G.S. regulations. The leader is a total BOOB!


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## beelce (Jul 21, 2007)

Aww man...
I wanted to know how y'all did...sigh
At least your heart was in it Deb....


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## Sinister Sid (Aug 27, 2010)

I thought camping required tents??? Not cabins and kitchens??


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## debbie5 (Mar 2, 2007)

Agreed Sid. But the girls r only 7..1st trip, and ladies in troop had never been either...I didn't want to give them an outdoor latrine & spidery big canvas tents on their 1st time out! LOL. Im SO bummed. I really wanted to go and train them. I seem to have a knack for lil kids..who woulda thunk? I wonder what Mrs. Nutjob is gonna tell them as to why they aren't going....I better not hear my name brought up.... 

I'm going back to hide in my cave. Where there are no mean women.


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## Sinister Sid (Aug 27, 2010)

Cabins or no cabins, it sounds like it would have been fun. To bad it got cancelled.


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## fick209 (Aug 31, 2009)

Debbie, sorry that this got cancelled, but who's stopping you from packing up your family or your daughter and some of her friends and still do the overnight camping trip. Who cares if it's spending the night in a cabin or a tent, it's still about just "getting" away and doing something different. Some of my favorite childhood memories are of our family camping trips. You just can't beat sitting around a campfire making Smores!


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## debbie5 (Mar 2, 2007)

@ fick- we went as a family this past weekend! had a BLAST!


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## Bethene (Jan 19, 2008)

it's too bad that the "boob" canceled, that would of been a experience they would of remembered for a lifetime!! and that cabin sounded great too! maybe next year , you guys can ditch her, and have your own troupe and take the girls next year!
Glad you had fun on your own, I do love camping, in fact am leaving tomorrow for 12 days, YAY!! if course at my age we have a fifth wheel,


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## debbie5 (Mar 2, 2007)

Holy crap..LOTS of info & suggestions here I never knew about!
http://thefrugalgirls.com/2011/03/camping-tips.html


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