Fizz, Bang, Pop!
pamelamyers | August 19, 2017
Sam just finished her last week of camp this summer, this time at Tyler Arboretum. The theme was Fizz, Bang, Pop! and it was supposed to be a week of potions and experimentation. Her counselors were Alex and Kerianne and she seemed to like them. The week started out a bit rocky, unfortunately. There were a few issues that took Mark and I aback, and we spent the first few days of the week going back and forth on email and the phone with the woman who runs the camp program. Basically, some of the kids were a bit rough at recess and she got shoved around a bit. We weren’t too happy about that. We absolutely LOVE Tyler and Sam does too. I didn’t want her experience with the place ruined because the counselors weren’t supervising the kids properly.
We did get it worked out, and Sam enjoyed camp a lot. She made friends (Emma and Taylor and another random girl whose name she never did find out…oh, Sam, when are you going to get better at asking people’s names!?) Most of these photos are not ours, obviously. We do love our daughter, but we don’t stalk her at camp! The camp counselors post photos on a closed Facebook group and we downloaded them. 🙂
On the first day of camp, Sam was super excited to make slime! She has been begging me to make slime at home and I keep saying no. Why this is a thing now, I have no idea. But alllll the kids want to make slime.
On the second day, it was a bit rainy, but the kids did get to the stream to catch bugs and minnows. Sam’s favorite part of that day was making out crazy contraptions to keep an egg from breaking when thrown off of one of the treehouses!
Mark did drop off and pick up Tuesday through Thursday while I was working, and Sam dragged him around to find the last bug sculpture that we hadn’t seen when we were there biking this summer. It was the only bug that we never did see and since her camp group found it, Sam knew right where it was. She took me to see it too, on her last day. She almost got lost, but eventually found the right path. She’s quite the little tour guide!
Later that week they made balloon rockets, watched the counselors try to make a watermelon explode using rubber bands, and, Sam’s favorite part, they went to the butterfly house.
Sam loves the butterfly house. On the last day of camp, when I went to pick her up, I asked her if she wanted to go again before we left. It was actually pretty awesome. There was no one in there but us, not even a Tyler person, and it was full of butterflies!
In the tiny pond inside, we found this little guy! How cute!
The butterflies were plentiful…
…as were the caterpillars!
Sam told me that a butterfly landed on her when her camp group was there and she showed me just how friendly some butterflies can be. She just held out her hand in front of a butterfly, and it went right to her! That totally made her day.
On one of the last days, they made ice cream, which Sam did NOT like. I mean, I personally have never had homemade ice cream, and I’m sure it’s good, but I don’t know how great it can be being made in a ziploc bag.
As a side note, the little boy who has his arm around her apparently had a bit of a crush on our little girl. Sam told us he was stuck to her like glue the whole week. There are a bunch of photos that we were able to get from the Facebook page that I didn’t post here, and it every one of them it seems, that little boy is right next to Sam. It cracks me up. It’s not the first time that some little boy has seemed to like her, and she has no idea why. Oh, Sam. One day, you’ll appreciate it. Not one day soon. No. Not anytime soon. NO.
