Camp Tee Tee - Day One

The boys and I have the privilege of sharing this week with their cousins, Carter and Ava! They are spending the week with us rather than attending the day camps they normally attend while their parents work during the summer. This week has been in the works for a while and somehow got dubbed "Camp Tee Tee." (Carter and Ava call me "Aunt Tee Tee.")

We have lots of fun things planned for the week and today we got off to a good start!

The day began extra early (thanks to my always-early sister Reenie!). I hadn't even showered when she arrived, but I forgave her because she brought me a giant bag of awesome treats! I wish I had taken a picture of all the loot it held... but here's the bag ---

My sisters went together to make me this great camp kit! It had sunscreen, matching t-shirts for me and the kids, tons of snacks and drinks, Bath and Body Works stuff for me... a grocery gift card. What a great way to start the day!

When I sat the kids down to talk about the week's activities, Carter and Ava cracked us all up by explaining how camps run. Ava declared herself to be a Camp Counselor and Carter quickly promoted himself to Counselor in Training. Then they explained their roles to us. Their enthusiasm and leadership has actually been really helpful to me and a good example to Ray and Adam.

Our main project for the week is preparing a backyard theater production of "The Three Little Pigs." I sneakily wove this into the plans to fulfill some homeschool objectives for the boys. ;) Fortunately, the kids are on board and excited.

Today's task was painting the scenery. We all worked hard, had a lot of fun, and made lots of messes in the yard and on ourselves.

The lunch menu choices were discussed at length and an agreement was reached.

Today's lunch choice: pigs in a blanket... supplemented with lots of fruits and veggies of course.

 After lunch we headed to the pool.

Although I THOUGHT I had sufficiently tired them out with 2+ hours of swimming and diving.... they were ready to plunge into some of our craft projects for the week.

Apparently they had not had enough painting. They chose to paint birdhouses this afternoon.

 And then they headed out to add some details to the scenery.

 We even had a fun visitor at the end of the day ---

Ava's dad brought their dog Poppy when he came to pick Ava up for the day!

Carter is spending the night with us tonight. Everybody's sleeping and I need to get to bed too so I can be ready for day two of this great adventure!