Space Camp 2011

Flying saucer treats

Constructing the shuttle

Budget cuts and the heat made simple suits a must!

The Alien (aka Grandpa) offering krypton (home made slime) to power the shuttle back up.

Lunch(ables) in the shuttle

Emergency shute! Cardboard covered stairs and a cot cushion were a highlight.

weightlessness training

Shuttle races (note protective eyewear) with the children's hot air for the power supply.

We had so much fun this year! We went into space after building our own shuttle (named "RESCUE"). We gathered soil samples from the moon (moon sand), rescued rangers from an asteroid field, and met an alien (Grandpa) who gave us slime to fuel our ship. We also made our own patches, shot off rockets, raced mini shuttles, and the food was everything from a pouch. We even had Tang!

Book sales so far

I love to read everyone else's blogs but I am obviously not into blogging myself! Here's a little catch-up:

I have had a second batch of books to sell. I have done a Relief Society demo in a ward across town and received some very fun ideas from the women who attended and they were very fun to spend an evening with. I had been very nervous and had prepared for weeks in advance. My display was fairly extensive, but generated a lot of interest.

On June 4th I will be doing a 2 hour class at the Utah County Women in the Outdoors gathering. I am worried as to how I will fill a 2 hour span of time, but since I will be talking about something I enjoy and the children I love, it should be okay. I am sure that I will get a lot of great ideas also.

I will be showing some of the crafts and ideas that I have used like the one pictured.

This is a picture of the grands and my daughters doing a very time consuming but adorable craft from Safari Camp. They are making jungle animals using water bottles and tissue with a few embellishments. I was soooo glad the girls could stay to help!

Family Pictures 12/18/2010

We had family pictures taken as part of the annual Christmas Party. This is by far the best gift I could receive! It was cold, but all were present and cooperative most of the time. Each family did their own group shot aw well as each individual and couples. We all had red noses by the tie we were done but it was wonderful. I m so proud of my family and pictures are a great way to show them off! I am grateful to my son-in-laws sister who took our pictures.

I did it! I just printed my book Grandma Camp On A Budget. It turned out great! At least my children will have a legacy of me and know that I enjoy the times we have together. I just took it to a local printer for printing and binding. I am trying to sell the 25 copies I ordered and then maybe self-publish. This is a test to see if it is a good idea to self publish, I am not going to lay out a few hundred dollars to self-publish and then find no return.
I was able to cross this off my "bucket list".
What will you do this year to accomplish a goal?
I don't want to leave a mess for our children, so we are doing wills and organizing the paperwork that is important into a "family info" binder. Each of my children have been given one of their own binders to fill out as well as a copy of the location of the important documents of ours that they may need in case of death or emergency.
Hey, that's 2 things off my bucket list!

2010 GRANDMA CAMP-UNDER THE SEA

The theme this year was "Under the Sea". I'm sure you can guess which movie we watched! There are alot of food options for this one, fish sticks, Goldfish crackers, gummy fish, Swedish fish and fish shaped pancakes to name a few. We mostly used the candy options as prizes for the activities.

We attended the fish feeding at Cabella's store. We had a 'fish pond' with not prizes, but numbered fish cut outs. The number corresponded to a "Fin it to Win It" activity. If the activity was done in a minute, the child was given a baggie of Swedish Fish". If the task was not completed in a minute, the prize was a gummy shark!

Of course we went swimming at the local reservoir and built sand castles. Did you know that if you mix sand with cornstarch and water, the results is a sand castle that will stay together?

I had decorated the basement family room as if it were "under the sea". We hung crepe paper streamers in a wave pattern and then hung fish cut-outs from fishing line. You don't see the fishing line so it looks like the fish are swimming.

We had a coin dive in a wading pool using some cheap snorkel sets that I bought at WalMart.

We made water globes in baby food jars using florists clay as the base for the plastic plants. This is done on the inside of the lid since you will be turning it upside down. We attached a colorful fish brad to the plant and then filled the jar with water, glycerin, and a few pinches of course glitter. but the lid on and add a bead of silicon caulk around the edge of the lid to keep it water tight and it's done!

The invitations were layers of paper that included sandpaper for the beach and blue paper for the water and lighter blue for the sky. A sticker of a sand pail and an umbrella were added and the info was written inside.

Candyland and Cooking School

2009 Theme was Candyland and cooking school. I was afraid there would not be enough activity associated with the theme that my assistants chose, so I added the cooking school.

The whole Camp was a sticky mess, but it was fun. The tour of a local candy company proved frustrating and time consuming. There was no production going on and the tour ended up being a 30 minute movie and a sample piece of candy! We drove 50 miles and needed an extra car for seat belts and it was not as fun as I had hoped.

At the end of camp the parents were taken on a tour of the board game activities that we had and got to load a bag with a sample of the candy and cake balls that we made.

The cake pictured was an adaptation of a sand castle one featured in Family Fun Magazine.

The children made their own pasta and sauces, sandwiches, etc. Making taffy would have been more fun if we had not been on a tight schedule. If I ever say "taffy" again, I'm sure the kids will run! We even made our own "gum drop" pinatas!

GREAT LINKs!

For a ton of fun ideas check out Grandma Nina at grandmaideas.com
Grandma Shelly has great ideas on her web site! grandmaslittlepearls.com