Cub Scout Fall Campout

We went camping this weekend at the Guadalupe River State Park with Davis' cub scout troupe. We had a good time last fall at Inks Lake with the scouts, so I figured this would be fun too.
We arrived Friday afternoon and I was in a terrible mood. I had been solo parenting (and packing for a campout) all week and Michael had just gotten back in town. The packing of my parents truck took so long that we were late to pick up Davis and I was all out of sorts about that. And Sam asked how much farther it was every twenty seconds the whole way there. It was also hot. Really hot. And then they told us that we had to fit eight families in three tent spots and we had to fit all our tents onto the tent pad because we weren't allowed to put them elsewhere AND our tent took up three quarters of the space. It had said on the handouts, no alcohol and I had followed the rules, but then I found out that all the other parents brought some and they weren't sharing! I begged Michael to call room service and order us a fruit platter and bottle of pinot grigio, but he said no. I was all done.
It got better though.
It cooled off and I had a snack and the kids started playing and I started to find my groove again. A fellow scout leader took my kids on a hike to the river for an hour and we were able to get dinner made on the fire and relax a bit. We ate bowls of sweet potato, onions and peppers with a home made cilantro pesto and some vegan italian sausages. We finished our meal with banana smores. They were excellent! I went to bed with the kids in the tent at nine and we all fell asleep quickly.
Saturday was a great day. The weather was perfect. Kids woke up at 5:30Am but played quietly in the camp till seven. We made breakfast and played till mid morning. We did a neat bird tagging lecture at the discovery center and Sam got to release a cardinal! We explored the discovery center and then played on the playground. I made Pbjs for everyone for lunch and then the campout really geared up. Lots more people arrived and squished onto tent pads overflow sites and we figured out we could put tents on the car parking spots if we moved the cars off to overflow parking. We worked it out and people were all pretty cool about it. The kids did some scout activities with Michael and I made several new friends! We actually found some really neat, liberal, cool parents to hang out with at cub scouts. Yay! The kids had a blast too, riding bikes, having nerf wars, searching for bones and playing Kan Jam. Sam had a little trouble with being bullied, since he's so little, but Michael and I put a stop to that and soon Sam had a whole posse of big kid friends.
We went on a 2.5 mile hike with the Wolves (our age group) and I ended up carrying Sam the last half mile. We all got a work out! Then I took a shower while the kids played some more and then I found a vicodin in the bottom of my purse! Hooray! I lounged around the campsite chatting with new friends for the afternoon and Michael played with all the boys and the other den leaders made all the wolves and their families dinner. It was great. We had veggie burgers and baked beans and chips and the kids were thrilled.
After dinner we all hiked to the ampitheater for a really interesting bat presentation. Then we did the evening program with each den doing a skit and yell. Michael led a song which was a huge success and then we all hiked back to our camps to have cobbler and ice cream. It was 9:30PM by now and Sam had been begging me to go to bed for an hour. We skipped dessert and I put the kids right down. They fell asleep instantly. Michael and I then stayed at the camp on fire duty while most of the parents took the other scouts on a night hike. It was cold Saturday night! It was down in the 40's and we all huddled in our sleeping bags.
Sunday dawned bright and cold, but the kids slept in till 7:30 so we were pleased. The den leaders cooked us a huge breakfast of migas and breakfast tacos and the kids played some more. Then we broke down camp and drove home stopping on the way in Canyon Lake for lunch and a glass of wine!
Sunday afternoon we unpacked and did three loads of laundry. Then we showered, put on our jammies and spent the evening with a movie and a fire in the fireplace. It turned out to be a great camping weekend. The kids had an epic good time. I am already looking forward to the spring campout and we have tried to convince our new friends to come to the Friday night part of that campout as well.