Camp Crestridge - Cheyenne and Chickasaw

Nothing says "welcome summer" like going to camp!  The girls were so excited to return to Camp Crestridge for the fourth summer in a row.  We drove up to Asheville the day before and enjoyed some time in the city.  We always love visiting Malaprop's Bookstore and doing their "blind date with a book."  Books are wrapped in butcher paper and given staff reviews; you don't know what book it is until you unwrap it.  It's such a fun surprise!  Of course we also stopped by The Chocolate Fetish for some of our most favorite chocolates anywhere.  Then we did some window shopping before enjoying a fabulous dinner at Tupelo Honey.

The next morning, it was time for drop off!

 This year, Lily moved into the Cheyenne village while Mia became a Chickasaw.

 Lily loved her cabin, cabinmates, and counselors (Sydney and Rumbi).  

 Mia enjoyed meeting her new cabinmates and her counselors (Elise and Charissa).

 I love checking online each evening to see what's been going on at camp.  I get so excited when I see a picture of the girls; these two were great!

 It's always fun to see them with friends, participating in all the fun activities, and learning new skills.  This year, Lily took cooking, crafts, walk 'n talk, sewing, jewelry making, and woodworking.  Mia took needlecraft, health and fitness, horsemanship, crafts, archery, and a new skill being offered this year: puppy skills!  Here's lots of pictures that we saw during the two weeks.

 

 Meet Ivey, one of the six puppies Mia got to work with during puppy skills.  How adorable is she?

 This picture absolutely thrilled my heart when I saw it!

Finally, after two weeks, it was time to pick them up.  It's always so good to be back together again!

We enjoyed getting to hear tons of stories about all the fun they'd had and all the new friends they had made.

After the closing ceremonies and lots of hugs with friends, it was time to head back home.  Until next summer Crestridge!

End of May Fun

Well we've only been out of school for a week.  We've already had fun at Candytopia, Canoe, and Great Wolf Lodge.  This past week was definitely a slower pace, but that's wonderful this time of year.  A few miscellaneous things that have started our summer off well...

Lily cracked us up with this joke one day.

 Lily received a Duff Goldman "mermaid cupcake" baking kit in her summer basket.  They were so pretty with their tie-dye twirls of teal, light purple, and dark purple, topped with vanilla frosting and dusted with gold sprinkles.  Seriously, I think these are the best cupcakes she's ever made.  Delicious and beautiful...win win.

 Lily has recently rediscovered her love of actually playing with Legos and not just building.  She has been creating a huge scene in the playroom.  This just shows the amusement park she has set up, but she's since added Mia's racing sets to it and is continuing to work and play with it.  Love it!

 She has plenty to choose from...

 Mia made this cool dragon with wings and stand out of her new summer basket Perler bead set.  Oh, and she loves her wolf ears that they give each kid upon check-in at Great Wolf Lodge.  Such a cutie.

 For Mother's Day, the girls gave me a subscription to Piquant Post.  It's a subscription box that sends you spices and recipes from around the world.  I love this!  It will help us step out of our comfort eating zone a little to try something new but without having to spend a ton of money on unusual spices that I may never use again.  My first box came recently, and this particular one focuses on Mexico.  There were four spice blends along with recipes included.  It was a tough choice but I picked the "Adobo" mix first.  The recipe called to use it with scallops tostadas, but we decided to go with skirt steak instead.  You use the rub on the steak and also to make a sour cream sauce.  You top the tostada with the steak, sour cream sauce, cheese, cilantro and tomatoes.  Lastly, squeeze a little fresh lime juice on top.  I'm not kidding, this is one of my new favorite meals.  We all four loved it so much, we actually went back to the grocery store the next day and made the exact same meal again tonight.  I don't think we have ever done that before.  It was absolutely delicious.  Now I'm so excited to use the other three spice mixes and new recipes along with getting a new box next month!

Welcome summer; we're glad you're here!

Start of Summer Getaway

The girls and I have been wanting to visit Great Wolf Lodge and Lagrange since it opened a couple of years ago, but man, it seems so expensive.  I was stoked when I found a Groupon good for the week before Memorial Day!  The girls and I went down after church on Sunday afternoon; we were excited for a girls getaway!

I bought each girl the "Wolf Pass" which was one discounted price for all the cool things to do at the Lodge instead of paying for everything individually.  By far though, their favorite part of this was the Magi Quest.  They got magic wands and ran around the Lodge looking for clues on several different quests.  It took hours of time (and burned tons of energy as they ran from one end to the other) over the two days, but it was so much fun.  There were adults and kids of all ages participating; they loved this.

They (and two other girls) were rewarded just before we went home on Monday because they had completed all of the quests; it was hard work but they did it.  They went to a knighting ceremony and were given the rank of "Master Magi."

Yeah, they were excited about that!

Other things included in the pass that they girls enjoyed:

A cup of candy from the mix and match machines in the gift shop.  

Unlimited access to the ropes course.  I actually bought myself a ticket to do this once with them.  It was a really cool ropes course.  Challenging but not overwhelming.

A round of putt-putt.  Lily proved herself to stay on as the Hooks Champion.

A certain number of points at the arcade.

I told them I was spending more money at the arcade.  Mia won about 30 tickets from her game choices.  Wouldn't you know on her last game Lily won the jackpot with over 1,000 tickets!  She really only wanted this huge inflatable dolphin, so she bought Mia lots of things with her remaining tickets.

Each pass also game with four climbs up the rock wall.  Mia was all about that and loved it.  She was able to succeed at most of them too.  She's always been a good rock climber.  Since Lily isn't a huge climber, she let Mia use her pass too for extra climbs.

This pass also gave them each a scoop of ice cream from the on site Ben & Jerry's store which of course they loved.  I think the only thing we didn't do with the pass was bowl.

Pass or not, everyone can use their water park.  The park itself is completely indoors.  There are lots of fun slides, a good wave pool (wolves howl to let you know the waves are starting), and a little lazy river.  They also have an outdoor pool which was open since it was such nice weather.  I left my phone in my bag most of the time but I threw it in the waterproof case for the pool time.  I loved this sweet picture of Mia that she took of herself playing in the pool.

On Sunday evening, we actually met another mom and daughter (she was 8) who were there for a girls' weekend.  We really all kind of connected with one another, so we met back up on Monday.  The girls played more together, and then we all went to the water park together.

Finally, it time to head home.  The girls have been asking for months to try the Coolata drinks at Dunkin Donuts.  Well, this one was running a special of a medium for $2, so I surprised them with those for the ride home.  They were thrilled and loved them.

I have to say that I was surprised at just how much fun we had here.  We knew it would be fun, but we had no idea all the cool things to do.  I know it helped that it was not peak travel time and that we made new friends while there.  I love making memories together, so this was a definite win!