camping prep: pre-made s'mores, angry bird acorns, and is this a porta potty or have i just stumbled into a field of orchids?

We spent the weekend camping at Enchanted Rock near Fredericksburg and had a truly amazing time.  My limited experience with camping has taught me that preparation is everything.  Efforts spent in pre camping planning pay huge returns on the actual trip.  A few things I did to get ready for this year's trip...

Because of the drought we knew that campfires were out of the question, so I made s'mores at home the day before we left.  I used chocolate chips and mini marshmallows, and toasted them in my toaster oven. 

After smashing the lightly browned marshmallows together with melted chocolate chips to make s'mores sandwiches, I dipped each sandwich in melted chocolate and topped with Halloween sprinkles.  The result - bite sized, easy to pick up, s'more treats that didn't require a fire.   

The chocolate dipped s'mores were a hit with everyone. 

I also wanted to come up with some kind of camp appropriate craft for the kids.  Something easy, fun, outdoorsy.  Something that the kids would actually enjoy doing.  After much thought, I decided painting giant acorns would be perfect. 

The kids and I had recently gathered tons of giant acorns for just such an occasion.  I pried their little acorn hats off and sprayed them with a coat of primer for easier painting.  I thought pumpkins would be seasonally appropriate and easy for the kids.  But then, what would we do with the pumpkins?  I thought long and hard, trying to figure out something the kids could "do" with their painted acorns. 

That's when I decided we should paint them like angry birds and angry pigs.  That way, after the acorns were dry, the kids could play angry birds at the campsite.  I painted these two guys the night before we left but didn't take their picture until after they'd been beaten up quite a bit at the campsite. 

The kids loved the idea!  They all jumped right in and started designing their birds. 

Even our youngest camper was excited about making an angry bird. 

As soon as the acorn birds were dry, the boys ran up the hill and started chucking their angry birds around. 

The boys threw their birds so hard that a few of them lost their hard shells right away, leaving a much lighter walnut looking acorn nut behind.  Even though the bird shells had been lost, the kids thought the naked acorns were very cool too. 

Later, when the dads took the kids on a  hike, the moms stayed behind to get lunch ready.  The moment our campsite was quiet and kid free, squirrels appeared.  They were extremely interested in our freshly shelled acorn nuts.  They carried away all of the naked acorns, then tried to break into the egg carton holding our freshly painted angry bird acorns.  Later that day, they actually managed to steal my green pig acorn. 

Grace loved feeding the squirrels.  In this pic, the squirrel's little claw is holding on to Grace's finger. 

The squirrels turned out to be very friendly and we happily fed them our angry bird acorns whenever they lost their hard shells.  When we didn't have any acorns available, the squirrels were thrilled with peanuts. 

A few days before we left for this year's camping adventure we discovered the park restrooms would be closed for repairs, leaving us with porta potties.  The thought of using a porta potty for all of my restroom needs ranked right up there with having multiple root canals sans Novocaine. 

So, I put together a porta pottie survival kit complete with antibacterial wipes, Lysol, disposable latex gloves, hand sanitizer and emergency toilet paper. 

As luck would have it, the latch on one of the porta potty doors was broken, making that potty look like it was occupied, even when the door was unlocked and the potty was empty. 

Because it looked like it was occupied all of the time, it had been used far less than the others.  Far less.  I knew this broken lock was a golden opportunity.  I went in wearing gloves, doused the thing with Lysol, wiped down all of the hard surfaces with antibacterial wipes, then Lysoled again. 

The result, a semi "clean" potty that didn't make you want to hold your breath upon entering.   

 

My finishing touch was a solid air freshener.  Our secret potty actually smelled good inside.  It wasn't as good as a functioning restroom, but it definitely took the edge off of the usual porta potty foulness.  And, because the lock was broken, our potty was alway empty and stayed much much cleaner than the others.