Tales from the Hill's Country

Quips, stories and observations from our adventures in marriage and parenting (as told by Katie).

Thursday, August 8, 2013

Everyone Has Fun at Cousin Camp

On Thursday of our Great Alaskan Adventure, Alison and I rounded up the kiddos and had a day of "Cousin Camp".

All of the other adults went deep sea fishing. And since that's not really a place for children, Alison and I volunteered to take them on a "land" adventure. So we had three babies: 11, 18 and 20 months and three kiddos: 5, 10, 10 years. Yikes! To be honest, I was a little nervous going into that day. We had the kiddos from 7am (when they woke up) to 6pm that evening. To add to the challenge-- we were in hotel rooms that needed to be vacated by 1pm!

But, for all my worrying, it actually ended up being one of the most fun days of the trip! I should have known... I love Cousin Camp!

I slept in the room with all three babies the night before, so it was a quite a morning:
Maria kept walking to the different pack-and-plays, wanting to get in. She'd spend some time in hers, ask to get out, walk to Bradley's, ask to get in, spend some time there, then it was off to Lucy's. Then Lucy started the game. Then Maria wanted to be in the pack-and-play with Lucy and found that hilarious! I love baby giggles!

This all went on for quite a while.
Meanwhile Alison was in the room with the older kids. She came down a few times so I could run and get breakfast... and shower! It wasn't too long before all three babies started to rub their eyes. So we had nap time! (Me included!)

Once the babies were awake it was time to pack up and leave the rooms. It was like the old challenge of getting the fox, chicken and corn across the river (seen here). The babies couldn't be left alone, but we needed to get the stuff to the car and the car couldn't be under the port-a-cache for too long... oh! And did I mention that Alison is preggo! So I was very sensitive to not letting her carry anything.

Thankfully, we have great problem solving skills and we got the fox across the river! I mean... the rooms unpacked and the babies/kids securely in their seats.

We headed to subway to pick up some lunch, then had a picnic by the water. With five hours to go and no room to escape to... it was time for some activities!

We headed to the Seward Sea Life Center. Each kid was paired up with a "baby buddy". This was a HUGE help in getting them to stay engaged with us. And it was SO cute to watch them take care of their baby buddy (pushing the strollers, pointing out the various sea life and making sure they had snacks).

The Seward Sea Life Center is great! We played at the boat for a while:
And I got to get up close and personal with a puffin!
(Yikes! I look like I slept in a hotel room with three babies... check out those bags under the eyes!)
(Actually... don't check those out... just ignore them...)

But you can check out these two "buddies":
Love it!

After a few more stops checking out the sea life,
(The girls were NOT impressed.)

we went back to the boat and stayed there for quite some time!

Maria caught fish:
And Lucy handed them to the "boat captain":
At the end of the day, we were all tired (and had the "Cousin Camp Song" stuck in our heads) but it was a good kind of tired. The kind that means you played hard.

Here's our Cousin Camp Alaska 2013 Camp Photo (minus Cousin Counselor, Alison, who was taking the photo). 

And even though we had a blast at Cousin Camp... I was SO happy to see this sight:
That's the boat, with all the parents, coming back to relieve this Cousin's Camp Counselor of her duties! Woohoo!

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