I Survived Week 2 of Camp T!!

Note: Instructions to make a mask are published below in the post after this one.
(Click on any image to have a better look.)

Alrighty then -- on Tuesday, I met my DIL and picked up the granddaughters, Carly 8 and Korie 4 years old. Gee, girls have lots of "need-to-have" stuff -- especially stuffed animals! So, off we started for this great camp week. On the way to Huntsville, we stopped at Jack-in-the-Box (AND Burger King 'cause Carly doesn't like Jack's chicken but she does like Jack's fries.) Hmmm, maybe it's gonna be hard to spoil these two? But I know we can do it.

The first day was all the usual camp stuff - the girls picked out video movies for the night and then went grocery shopping. This week we shall have Spaghetti Os, Lunchables, Gushers, Fruit Roll Ups, -- well, you get the idea. When asked by her mom what she liked best about Camp T last year -- she said, "Grocery shopping!" Well, hey, I like that too 'cuz it's fun and it means I don't have to sweat meals. Hopefully, they won't be hurt by a few days of eating junk. (My apologies to Mom and Dad!)

That night we saw Barnyard (Korie's pick) and Cinderella III (you know, where the ugly stepsisters plan their revenge.) --- yea, a chick flick -- I think I'm going to like this week's movies - at least checking the ratings won't be quite the hard task it was last week.

On the second day, Papa T picked up McDonald's breakfast. While the girls ate, I went into their bedroom for some reason -- GUESS WHAT??? Those little angels had cleaned up the room, made the bed, and put out their PJs! Amazing! (Mom, aren't you proud?) I told them how different the boys left the room (Duh!) and thanked them for the awesome job they did. Then the girls and I went to the studio to plan our project. Against my better judgment, I agreed to do masks with them, too. Oh, my. Next, a trip to the video store to get new movies for the night.. . Tonight it will be The Wizard of Oz (Korie's pick), Wallace & Gromit-the Curse of the Were-Rabbit, and The Last Mimsy (Carly's pick.)

Papa T took the girls to lunch at King's Candy Store while Mimi had lunch with her old art group (The Monday Night Football Art Group that started meeting together on Monday nights way back when Monday night football started!! Yes, over 30 years ago. We met every week for 30 years!! Yikes.) When I got back home, the girls and I started our masks.

Now, Carly and Korie were a little nervous about the process and frankly, so was I - because of their young ages. I assured them that if they got uncomfortable and wanted to quit (or if I did!) -- we could stop at any time. With that, Carly went first. To my surprise, she did very well. Because I was trying to hurry, I forgot all about taking pictures. But here is some I manged to get of them with their finished masks two days later.

(Click on any image to see a larger version.)

After Carly encouraged her, Korie was now pretty sure she could do it. I thought I could talk her through it. Since I had some inquiries last week from my blog buddies about this mask making process, I enlisted Carly to take pictures of us as we built the mask. Check out the post after this one for the steps in the process and the pictures.

Meanwhile, as we put our masks aside to dry overnight, we watched two of our movies. Korie didn't like the Wizard of Oz -- it's too scary for a 4 year old. I mistakenly thought she had seen it before and liked it. I told her that her dad felt the same way about that movie when he was her age. In fact when she told him about it, he said he doesn't like that scary old movie to this day! LOL. I've now managed to take away two possible fans of that classic. I'm sorry for that.

Thursday morning, we had a chocolate doughnut breakfast! And Hot chocolate, too! Then it was off to the studio for painting of MASKS!!! We did lots of searching for just the right things for decorating the masks. Between layers of gesso and paint -- we set them aside to dry while we did other drawing, coloring, etc. It was a full studio morning.

Finally, it was time for the big trip to Conroe for our afternoon at Incredible Pizza (I.P.) We ate a little lunch from the I.P. buffet - pizza, spaghetti, salad, cookies, cobbler -- etc. -- you know the drill.

The first thing was miniature golf on Route 66 by black light! Carly's first ball on the hole #1 was a HOLE IN ONE! Yippee! Forgive me for the horrible black light picture (needed a tripod!) but I couldn't resist showing you the ambiance of that golf course.

Next, bowling on the small lanes. (You can see the longer lanes behind the girls in two of the pictures below. I thought it was so neat that they had short lanes for the younger kids. Each of the girls managed to get a strike.

Now on to the bumper cars. Bummer, Korie was too short and wasn't allowed to ride. Never fear, Carly, Papa T will challenge you to a bumper car duel. (Sorry 'bout that flash in your face, Papa T.)

Now Korie was too young for the Go Karts but Mimi agreed to drive her and we would race Carly. That was a blast! I'd do it again with the slow cars -- you have to be 14 years old to drive the fast ones and I'm not ready for that.

Mimi and Korie get the winner's ribbon while Carly came in second place. And they said this was a boy's sport! Harrumph!

The afternoon was rounded off with more food and lots more games:

Friday morning we put the final touches on our masks. Before we left town to meet Daddy for going home, we went shopping for clothes. Now, these girls are not the clothes hound their brother is which is evidenced by what they picked out. Carly got a fantastic pajama set with leopard print accents. Glitz girl, Korie, selected a purse bedazzled with giant sequins! Yes!

Papa T and I felt a little weird about that shopping trip because the girls probably could have used some real clothes - for wearing. What they got was frivolous, we know, but we decided that the girls got some things they were very excited about and that their parents would never have allowed them to purchase. In fact, we agreed that if we were their parents, we wouldn't have approved of it either. It's so cool to be the grandparents. I'm finally at the place in my life where the rules don't apply to me. Yippee.