Photo Shoot

The kids and I had a unique afternoon yesterday. We went to a photo shoot for Girl Scouts (yes, even The Youngest, my son) at their local camp. Our council is entering a photo contest that carries a hefty cash prize hoping a win will let them use the money to revitalize our camps. I had to reshuffle our schedule to clear the way but I'm glad I did since we all had a lot of fun. One of the Girl Scout employees brought her dog, a Yorkie named Latte, to participate and the kids fell in love. Another family brought a Bearded Dragon named Zippy, also a big thrill, but ultimately not as interesting as the dog. (Lizards don't do much.) There were a couple of boys there about the same age as The Youngest, and just as rough and tumble as he is, so he was in heaven. Lots of room to run around, other boys, a campfire, all the marshmallows he could eat, a Bearded Dragon, AND a dog; it was about as good as it gets for him.

The girls enjoyed themselves, too. There were other girls there for them to hang out with and, like The Youngest, they loved playing with the dog. Every now and again all three of them would be called over for pictures, but that was a minor disruption to the fun. ;) I got to be a pyro-maniac for the afternoon; I was the only camp trained person there so it was up to me to get the campfire started. Luckily a fireman arrived later (one of the dads) with all of his gear. He took one look at the pathetic excuse of a fire I'd started (with the help of one of the other dads) and said well, we can fix that, and pulled on his fire gloves. He got in there and shifted some of the logs around and had a gorgeous roaring fire going in about a millisecond. He said if you need a good fire, call a fireman!

He got geared up to get into the pictures, too. The Eldest got to catch a marshmallow on fire and he put it out with his extinguisher; it was foggy and stinky, but very cool to look at. I think that picture is going to be really cute.

We were there for about three hours all told. The kids had so much fun but I'm wiped out! I tried to help out as much as I could with the fire and clean up and so forth, which meant lots of walking from the camp house to the area where they were taking pictures, plus it was hotter than blue blazes. It's a good kind of tired, though since it came from a day well spent.