Camping Trip, Day Three

Friday, May 29:

We were up by 7 a.m., and had a breakfast of toasted bagels with cream cheese and jelly, and fresh fruit. While I got ready for the day, Hubbie and Mother chopped bell peppers, onions, and celery for potato and macaroni salad.

It's my job to put the potato salad together, but in so doing, I noticed that there was an inordinate amount of the chopped veggies, but I went ahead and mixed them into the boiled, chopped potatoes. Just as I finished, Mother asked if I had saved some of the veggies for the macaroni salad. Well, no, I hadn't, since it hadn't been mentioned that I should. So more veggies had to be chopped for the macaroni.

Once I had the salad dressing, mustard, dill pickles, and spices mixed into the potatoes, I separated two generous portions out...one for Sis, and one for me. For Sis, I skipped the boiled eggs, because she doesn't like them, and for me, I added no pickles or salt, but added no-salt seasoning, pepper and dried dill.

Macaroni salad is Mother's specialty, so she made that.

Afterwards, Hubbie and I went to the WDCS for last-minute groceries for the Saturday family gathering. At the store, just inside the door, a young man wearing a tiara, was seated on a toilet (a marble throne) up on a platform that was banked by flower arrangements. It was a fundraising effort for an organization serving children.

Sis came by before lunch, and she, Mother and I sat in the yard for a while, then went into the camper for a lunch of pimento cheese sandwiches and cottage cheese, plus pudding and cookies for dessert.

After lunch, Hubbie and I went to Older Son's place of employment to get a large cooler of crushed ice. Son, a supervisor, toured us through the plant, which manufactures industrial trash compactors. There was no one working today, since the business was having a week's forced vacation, due to the economy. It was an interesting tour...I'm amazed at how computerized and sophisticated the shop part of the business is.

Back at camp, I showed Sis a slide show of our Texas trip, and then completed a couple of days worth of blogs on my laptop. At 4:30, we put microwaveable potatoes in the microwave, plus meatloaf, and had this with salad.

Later, we went to a school program that Great-Granddaughter performed in with her preschool class, along with several other preschool classes. These three and four-year-olds were so cute in their colorful t-shirts. Each class wore a different color...red, orange, green, yellow or blue.

The children performed six songs, including "Itsy Bitsy Spider," and the "ABC Song." They played to a packed house (the high school gymnasium) and each song received thunderous applause, of course.

Before the performance, Great-Granddaughter was so overwhelmed by the large audience that she clung to her father and cried. I feared she might opt out of performing, but her teacher talked with her and cajoled her into going with her to be with the other kids backstage, and then if she decided she didn't want to perform, the teacher would bring her back to her parents. Backstage, her classmates surrounded her and hugged her, so she braved up and marched out with them. Once they got started singing and she saw how receptive the audience was, Great-Granddaughter warmed to the whole thing and enjoyed herself.

The performance lasted about 10 minutes, and afterward, we all went to the lunchroom for refreshments of a variety of fresh fruits, including chocolate dipped strawberries, watermelon, cantaloupe, pineapple, grapes, and blueberries. There were also cookies and juice.

Each student received a "diploma" and a gift bag containing a bottle of bubble liquid, some stickers, and a little bead bracelet. The teachers had also put together a memory book of the children's drawings, their footprints, and their hand prints, which the moms, of course, were delighted with.

I took lots of pictures of the event, of course.

Sis had stayed at camp with Mother, who didn't feel up to going to the performance, since she began having symptoms of a cold today. It's a good thing she didn't go, because she never would have been able to manage the steep steps going down to the gymnasium seating area, or the walk down a long hallway to the lunchroom. Mother gets anxious in crowds, too, so she would have been very uncomfortable in the crowded lunchroom.

We arrived back at camp around 8:30 p.m. Sis left to go home shortly thereafter, and we got ready for bed.