Camp Loma Mar

My beautiful little 10 year old left me for a whole week to go to Outdoor Ed at Camp Loma Mar. It's a fully-staffed science camp with their own naturalists, cooks, medic etc... The counselors were local high school students who volunteered to help.

emery is like her mama and loves checklists- we were busy getting all the items on her list and she wanted to be sure she was fully packed within a couple days of getting the list.

 emery is the play-time ringleader of the kids. She comes up with the fun and imaginative games and make-believe. While she was gone it was mostly unorganized noise. They're very glad to have her home!

 Most of the kids were bustling around the gathering area. You could tell the teachers had been doing this for years- they were efficient and got those kids and their luggage loaded on the buses in a jiffy.

 She got a little mud spa treatment while out hiking by the creek

 emery's favorite counselor- also covered in mud

 emery joined lots of clubs while she was there. She joined the "polar bear club" by dunking her head in a freezing creek for 10 seconds. She also joined the helicopter club, the hard core club (eating an apple- core and all), the banana slug club (pictures below), the deer club (eating off the ground), and a few even more random ones.

 redwoods

 You've gotta kiss a banana slug if you want to be in the esteemed banana slug club.

 This is what deer eat... now she's a member of the deer club.

 This tree is called "Dead Fred" and emery is as small as a forest critter.

Her counselor put ash on her face so she could join the Ash Club. Whaaat?

And this is what my little girl looked like when we went to pick her up. A little bit fuzzier and definitely more tired.
She slept on the top bunk the whole week, showered twice, LOVED the food, went to the medic for a cough drop, had beautiful weather, brought home a raccoon bone, and made a lot of memories.

She didn't bring her camera to beach day where they looked at tide pools. I'm glad she was busy having fun even if I didn't get any more pictures.
We missed this girl!