BEACH DAY!

Our actual plan for the day was to go to Roger's Gardens for a children's gardening day.  But, we found out that it was for kids 9 and under.  Since all of our girls were older then that, we couldn't go.

Since only three girls signed up to go, I let them all pick what they wanted to do instead.  All three wanted to go to the beach.  So, that's what we did!

They even brought some friends along.

It was a perfect day for the beach.  Hot but not so hot you couldn't stand to be outside.  Plus, we had a great location (thanks to Maureen) that wasn't very crowded and close to where we were parking.

Once we hit the sand, the girls quickly got everything set up and was ready to get into the water.

Some ran right into the water.  Yes, it was a little cold at first but they didn't care.  Once in, they warmed up quickly.

Some preferred to go in slowly.  Getting a little bit wet at a time.

It wasn't long before they were all in the water having a blast.

 I loved seeing them holding hands and getting along so well.

Even when a wave came, they didn't let go.  Together they stayed strong and didn't get knocked down.

They worked on building a sand castle but it turned into a sand chair.

Then they decided to bury one of their own.  This is all that was left of Diana.  We all got a good laugh at this.

Then it was Trinity's turn.  Soon, only her head was left for all to see.  Nikki made her a mermaid tail out of sand.

We took a break for lunch and then the girls ran back to the water.  These girls are a bunch of fish.  They could stay and play in the Ocean forever.

The loved jumping the waves, splashing around, body surfing and zipping around on the body boards.

I think the day at the beach turned out to be much more fun then doing the children's garden would have been.

They all want to go several more times before the summer is over.  I'm hoping more girls will get to go too.

HUNTINGTON BEACH DAY CAMP 2012

This year the theme of the Day Camp was IT'S EASY BEING GREEN!

Girl scouts are always doing their part in recycling and helping the plant so this was a great theme!

This year we had four of our girls go to Day Camp.  Verenice, Diana, Trinity and Nikki.

They were all in the same Unit.  Turned out they loved their camp counselors and everyone in the unit got along great!

Everyone got t-shirts and got to color them.  So, even though everyone had the same shirts, they all looked different.  It was fun looking out and seeing a sea of girls all in the brightly colored shirts.

They learned a lot of camp songs.  Every morning and just before we left for the day, everyone got together and sang songs.  Some of them were really funny and made everyone laugh.

I'm not sure about the girls but every night I went home with silly songs stuck in my head.  I would go to bed singing them in my head and wake up with them still there.

Every morning, the girls would walk through the "Bridge of Silence".  Here a group of girls would hold up their arms and sing a song.  As the other girls walked under, they were no longer allowed to talk.

Once everyone was through, all the girls gathered around,  and without making a sound, stood around the flag pole.  The color guard would bring the flag out, rise it up the pole and everyone would do the flag salute and then say the Girl Scout promise.

They would then go back under the "Bride of Silence" and was able to talk once again.

I think the thing the girls loved most was making lanyards.  That is what they all wanted to do, every day and even when they went home they would make them.  Some even went to the store to buy their own supplies to make them at home.

They played different games every day but this one cracked me up.  They would try to knock each other down as they ran and slammed, pushed and bumped into each other.

I think these things are a great way for kids (and adults) to work out a disagreement with someone.  You can't help but laugh before someone is knocked down and no one really gets hurt at all. 

They did tons of crafts, joked around, ate snacks and lunch as well as made new friends and shared in lots of laughs.

Every day, each girl told me how much fun they had.

The girls loved getting to spend one on one time with the older girls (counselors) and they all want to go back to camp to be counselors too. 

Next year, our older girls (Cadettes) will be able to do so and are really looking forward to it.

It's always fun to be able to sit back and watch the girls all mingle together and have fun.  This is what girl scouts is all about.

I wonder what next years theme will be.

4th of JULY PARADE 2012

Not only did we get to celebrate the 4th of July by walking in the Huntington Beach Parade, we also got take part in the 100th Anniversary of the Girl Scouts.

In this picture you can see the "birthday cake" float and "Juliette Low" the founder of girl scouts.

This was taken before the parade started so not all the girls had shown up yet.

They had the girl scouts walking towards the end of the parade this year.  In fact, we were 3rd to last.  So, we had a lot of time to check out the other floats and people walking in the parade, before it was our turn.

We had brought small flags to carry but some man gave us bigger flags to use.  How nice.

We even ran into Abe Lincoln!  He was nice enough to take a picture with us.

Finally, everyone showed up and we were ready to go!

They called us to line up and start walking.  We tried to stay in a straight line.   But, of course at times we got distracted by the crowds and got out of line.

The girls all looked darling in their matching parade shirts. 

There were so many people watching us.  They would wave, cheer, yell and clap for us.  It's fun to be in a parade.

This parade was a pretty long one.  There were a lot of stops and we started to get hot and tired but, thankfully, everyone made it.

It was so exciting to see our family and friends towards the end of the parade watching and waiting for us. 

We were very happy they all came out to support us!

Since our troop has been in several parades now, we decided that we will get together as a troop at the next parade and rather then walk in it, we will all watch it together. 

That's the bad thing about being a parade, you miss getting to see it yourself.

THE LAST DAY OF OUR SAN FRANCISCO TRIP

The morning of our last day in San Francisco came all to fast. 

We got up, got dressed and finished packing.  Checked the room and then checked it again.  We didn't want anyone to leave anything behind.

Then it was time to go.  We said good bye to our hotel, got in our car and headed for breakfast.

We went back to Fisherman's wharf and enjoyed a hearty breakfast to start our day.

After our tummy's were full, the girls asked if they could do some last minute shopping.  What could I say?  It was their trip and shopping was what they wanted to do.

They picked up some last minute items.  While Nikki looks darling with her mustache bling bling, she didn't buy this.  Thank goodness.

Once place they just "had to go back to", was the candy shop.  Seems they ate everything they purchased already and wanted some to nibble on while we were on the plane home.

Michelle bought a package of jelly bellies to share.  However, these were not the normal tasty jelly bellies we all love.  They were a mix of rotten flavors (things like moldy cheese and bugs) and good flavors.  Let me warn you though, the "good" flavors still were not good.

She made us all try several of them.  Nine out of 10 times the flavor was the yucky ones. 

I think Trinity's face explains how they tasted.  However, as bad as they were (no words can describe how bad they were) we all had a lot of laughs.  It was very funny when someone else got the yucky flavors.  Not so funny when it was you that got it. 

OK it was even funny then. 

After we all had our fill of the shopping and fun candy treats, we walked down the street and came across the old Cannery building. 

It was tempting to stop in Ben and Jerry's for a cone.

But, we were able to stay strong.  After all, we were headed to something even better!

We made our way to Hyde Park.  Across the street there were fun street vendors.  Liz wanted to get her portrait done.  She was happy to find it was only $1.99.  Much less then the other places we came across.

While Liz was posing, we all waited for her.

Finally, we saw it!  Off in the distant the big sign.  Calling our name.  Ghirardelli! 

We picked up our pace, climbed the stairs, made the turns and then soon, we were there.

We made a super fast stop for a photo at the water fountain and then we practically ran over to where the heavenly smell was coming from.

I'm not sure but I think I heard angels singing as we got closer.  I know I heard happy girls being excited about what they were going to order.

Everyone picked out what seemed like it was the best thing on the menu.  Since they all ate everything I think they made good choices. 

With a sugar high going on, we made our way back to Hyde park to run around a little and enjoy the sunshine.

Then they crashed!  They couldn't go on any more.  They conked out.  Ya right!  These girls never got to tired to have more fun.  They are just so silly and always looking to make us laugh. 

As we were going back to the car, we had one more stop at a vendor selling bracelets with names on them.  You could get any color you wanted and any name you could think of.  A few of the girls bought them. 

We got back in the car and I had one more stop I wanted the girls to see before we headed to the airport.

On the way we passed some lovely "painted ladies".  Don't you just love the colors these houses are!

Our last stop was at The Golden Gate Park.  This park is so big.  It's even bigger then Central Park in New York.  So much to see and do.

We came across a super large windmill.  It was so big I couldn't get a picture of it.

We saw beautiful gardens. 

Over in the Japanese Garden we saw a bridge and the girls quickly reminded me they were on their Bridging trip so they ran over and cross this bridge.  We had lost count on how many bridges they cross on this trip.

We then made our way over to the kids play area.  Here they have the old antique Merry Go Round. 

They also have the first Public Children's Playground in the United States.

So of course they had to spend a little time there playing.  After all how many people can say they have been to the first playground in the Unite States?  OK, since it's here in Golden Gate Park and there are thousands of people who go here every year, I'm sure a lot of people can.  But, our girls are now included in that group.

They climbed up to the sky.  By the way, isn't the sky a pretty blue?  Such clean air!

They slid down the slide.  You used a piece of cardboard to sit on as you go down the wavy concrete slide.  How fun!

They played in the sand.

They held on and flew across the bars.

Then they did it all over again and again. 

What seemed like a blink of an eye, it was time to go.  We had a plane to catch.  In fact, we had spent a little to much time having fun at the park.  I was a tad bit worried we were going to be late.

But, we were closer to the airport then we thought so we were on time.  We checked in only to be told our flight was delayed.  We had to wait a few hours. 

We used that time to go have pizza for dinner.  Then we went to our gate and used the extra time we had to start working on our Journey we had to do as one of the requirements to get their Silver Awards down the line.

By the time we made it home, it was late and we were tired.  We all said good bye and found our ways home.

The trip was a blast.  Everyone got along so good.  Lots of memories were made and we all agreed it was worth every minute of hard work to sell the cookies and the other fund raisers we did in order to go. 

We are already planning our troop trip for next summer.  The girls all want to go on a cruise.  So it looks like we will be going to Alaska in 2013.