When Leigh and I were discussing doing a Summer Camp theme I told her I wanted to make ice cream in the ground. I knew I had heard of this and was going to try it. I looked it up online and could not find it anywhere! That’s when I remembered…it wasn’t ICE CREAM in the ground…it was jell-o in the ground. Jell-o, ice cream—whatever! (I still can’t find the jell-o in the ground recipe, but I KNOW my mom did it at camp one year!)

However, I know of another fun way to make ice cream. Not in the ground. Not with an ice cream maker. Just a few basic ingredients:

4 quart sized plastic zip bags
4 gallon sized plastic zip bags
2 cups half & half
2 cups heavy cream
2 tsp vanilla
4 cups salt (rock salt is suggested but if you use regular salt, just use a little less)
1/2 c sugar
ice
gloves (for your sensitive kiddos!)

Instructions:

1. Whisk sugar, cream, half & half and vanilla together.

2. Pour 1 cup of liquid into each quart sized bag.

3. Put sealed quart sized bag inside gallon bag. Add ice–enough to fill gallon bag about halfway. Add salt.

4. Shake the bags for about 5-10 minutes. Asa was our muscle man and did 2 at a time. Lydia used gloves to keep her hands warm!

5. Grab a spoon and eat out of the bag!

This was so fun! I love making food in unconventional ways. This would be so fun to make on a hot day…bring the bags outside, shake ‘em up and eat it all on the porch!

Thanks so much for coming to our 2 Weeks of Summer Camp! Hope you had a great time! Don’t forget to write!

Hiking is a huge part of summer camp!  I remember hiking every day it didn’t rain… and I loved every minute of it!  We currently live in central Virginia, and we are only an hour or two away from some fabulous hiking trails that I can’t wait to explore.  I also grew up in a pretty rural area with a lot of forests and a lot of time to explore them.  But how do you share that experience with a 4 year old and a 2 year old in a fully developed urban/suburban area?

Hike your city’s parks!

Armed with our sit-upons and some creative hiking ideas, and accompanied by a friend, we visited a park in Richmond, VA that we typically don’t get to visit.  It’s a lovely park that’s a bit further away from our house than our regular park - and because we don’t typically go there, it was fresh and new!

About a hundred feet in to our hike, we were greeted with a fabulous bridge…

…that took us deeper into a little forest.  It is wonderful how cities can carve out pieces of land in the middle of all the development so people can still escape to the woods if they’d like.

There were so many things to explore in our little city park adventure that we didn’t even have to pull out any creative ideas for our hike.  They boys were fascinated by everything we encountered and asked plenty of questions without any prompts!

The little creek that the bridge crossed was easily accessible from the other side of the bridge, so we had to go visit the creek and have some fun…

There were several downed trees along the way – so the boys got a quick lesson on the rings of a tree…

…And there were these tree identifying signs along the way that helped us know what we were seeing.  I love that – I can tell what an oak tree and a pine tree is, but that’s about it.

The paved sidewalk ended, and we chose a dirt track that I thought would take us around the park in a big circle – and we ran into the creek again!  This time, we got to hop over rocks to cross the creek.  It was easy to forget that my boys had never done that before – they talked about the creek for the rest of the day!

The trail wandered along the side of the creek for a bit, and we hopped over a couple downed trees until we got back to another paved track…

…that brought us back to the beginning of our hike again.

Another bonus to hiking a city park?  The playground awaits you at the end!

I clearly remember the year my mom helped me make a sit-upon for my Brownie troops’ camp (I remember it as well as I remember the smell of the ancient canteen I used to have to take with me to camp…. but that’s a story for another day….).  What’s a sit-upon?  Well, it’s… something… you sit upon.  Hmph – that was easier to explain in my head.  Here, let me show you…

Back in the day, Mom and I made my sit-upon out of a black plastic garbage bag and newspaper.  I wanted to improve on the design a bit, because while I remember making it and using it, I have no idea how long that black plastic sit-upon lasted, and I remember not enjoying it being tied around my waist.  I was told that it was to be worn around my waist so all I have to do is sit down and it would be in the right place, but even then I thought that was silly.  Maybe I don’t sit down like everyone else, but that sit-upon was too tight around my middle and always had to be adjusted when I sat.  So here’s what I came up with…

Gather your supplies:

• an old vinyl tablecloth or a shower curtain (the dollar store has shower curtains a-plenty!)
• newspaper
• a hole puncher
• large plastic needle
• heavy duty string or cord
• ribbon

Using your newspaper as a template, cut out a rectangle (or two or three – however many you will be making) on a fold of your vinyl tablecloth/shower curtain.

On a fold?  Fold your tablecloth/curtain in half and use that fold as one of your edges.  You will wind up with a 2 layered piece of cloth/curtain, and you will only need to sew up 3 sides instead of all 4!

Take a hole punch and punch holes spaced evenly around the 3 cut edges of your cloth/curtain through both layers.  You will be whipstitching the sides shut – see the picture below?  You just “whip” your needle around the back of the cloth/curtain and bring your needle and thread up through a set of holes, repeating the process over and over.

And I did say “you” will be stitching… Elias gave it his best shot, and did pretty well for his first time sewing anything by hand.

He wasn’t too interested in doing it “correctly” – so I just had to back up and let him do his thing.  He “finished” one side, and I finished it from there.

So I mentioned I never liked the sit-upon being tied around my wait – I wanted to make these so they slipped easily over a shoulder and could be plopped down on the ground wherever needed.  I used a length of ribbon for each sit-upon – and look!  My hole puncher could punch through ribbon!  Who knew? Punch 2-3 holes in your ribbon (depending on the width of your ribbon).

Sandwich the ribbon in between the layers of your cloth/curtain before you sew up a corner, then sew the ribbon in with the sides.  I added extra stitches around the ribbon so it would be reinforced, since that part of the sit-upon would potentially take more stress and strain than other parts.

Once you have 2 sides sewn up, stuff the sit-upon with newspaper.  My one from back-in-the-day only had flat newspaper layers in it, and I never thought that gave any cushioning for a little hinder.  So I just added some fluff to it – sandwich some crumpled up newspaper in between 2 layers of flat newspapers.  Sitting on it will flatten the crumpled layers out anyway, but in the meantime it will be a bit more comfy.  After stuffing, finish stitching up the sit-upon and tie off the end of your string, clipping any loose ends.

This step is optional – and can also be easily done before the sit-upon is sewn and stuffed – let your little ones decorate their sit-upon!  Super fun, and one thing I never got to do with my black plastic one.  Use permanent markers – you don’t want marker or paint coming off on little hind ends during your hike.

Here are ours, all ready to go!

This really was a walk down memory lane for me, and the boys have already had fun with the sit-upons… well, sitting upon them, amongst other things.  I wonder how long these will last…

linked to WFMW at We are THAT Family, Creative Share at Trendy Treehouse, Hoo’s Got Talent at Night Owl Crafting, Show & Tell at Blue Cricket Design, Gettin’ Crafty on Hump Day at Nikki’s Nifty Knacks, We Did It! Wedensday at Sew Much Ado and Idea Sharin’ Wednesday on Women Who Do It All!