You may recall Brynn attended her first Cousin Camp at my sister's back in 2015 (revisit that post here). They were all so little then. More cousins have been born in the past couple of years and this year more cousin campers were able to attend, so Tessa and I teamed up together as co-camp counselors. If you follow her blog, sorry; there will be a lot of overlap in this post.
Anyway, the girls and I drove to Hurdsfield on Thursday night. Tessa and I stayed up too late doing the iron-on transfers for the campers' shirts. They turned out cute, though. Tessa was also busy making signs.
Camp didn't start until 2:00 pm on Friday and in the morning Tessa kids had their last swimming lesson, so we tagged along to the Fessenden pool with them. This is where I learned to swim and took lessons growing up, so it was fun for my kids to come back and swim here too.
Clara was able to swim in the baby pool during the lessons in the big pool. Brynn swam in here a bit too, played in the park and then did a little free swim after lessons.
Ready for the campers to arrive!
Tessa had the great idea to buddy up the older kids with the younger to help with getting dressed, eating, going to the bathroom, etc. The older kids did a great job with helping their buddies, so this system really worked out well.
Clara going out to greet the first campers arriving. We had 12 campers in total including Tessa's and my kids, ranging in age from one up to 10.
First they decorated the backs of their shirts with fabric markers. Creative juices were flowing and it was fun to see their designs.
Pool time! The kids had fun swimming and trying to squeeze as many as would fit onto this water mat.
After supper was the talent show. We had an array of talents ranging from basketball to gymnastics to magic. Very entertaining! Brynn and Reagan teamed up for one interpretive dance-type number.
Clara and Brynn each did a solo gymnastics routine. Well, Clara did a somersault. :-)
I think this was the group finale.
The next morning they got started on a frame craft. Each family of campers received one frame to decorate in which Tessa will insert their group photo.
The whole crew of campers!
Then we played a bunch of games which was super hilarious. First up was the shaving cream/Cool Whip shower cap game. The campers partnered up with their camp buddies and attempted to get as many Cheetos to stick to their buddy's shower caps as possible. Brynn and Ben won that one.
This was also a highly entertaining game: Fear Factor/Food Challenge. The idea was to start with the most palatable food items which were lentil crisps, lemons, black licorice and move on to grosser stuff like hot tamales, tomato juice, bleu cheese stuffed olives. It was completely voluntary to participate and the campers knew in advance what they would be eating. They needed to eat the entire portion of what Tessa gave them to move onto the next food item.
The lemons produced the most hilarious reactions. :-D
Even Clara tried some black licorice.
We had a bunch of takers for the tomato juice!
Down the hatch! Sadly, that's what took out most of the contestants.
We had a sibling pair remaining for the bleu cheese stuffed olives.
Caden had a good strategy of plugging his nose and emerged the winner!
Dinner time! Tessa had thoughtfully planned out awesome kid-friendly meals.
Some of the campers with Counselor Tessa.
Prairie (She is only a week younger than Clara and they are the same little size. So cute.) was trying to put her swim suit on me. So silly.
Brynn traded Caden for his Fear Factor prize (with her shower cap game prize) and landed this pack of Lip Smackers.
Tessa had plenty of yummy ice cream treats.
Sadie dog wanted some too.
Head Camp Counselors! We survived! Haha.
Camp ended at 2:00 PM on Saturday and after the last campers had left, we headed to Harvey to meet up with my mom and grandma for supper at the Tastee Freeze and swimming at the public pool.
Cousin Camp 2017 seemed to be a success! There was even another cousin born during cousin camp as Chad's brother and his wife welcomed their fourth child, a baby boy, in Fargo on Saturday morning.
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