A Weekend Trip Was Planned in Community By Many Teenagers, and It Went Great!

The rule is that when you see your name in the wild, you take your picture together.

I have a folder where I keep TikToks that remind me of myself, and this is one of them:

To be fair, I can make a 17-page Google Doc for a weekend trip, but travel planning IS a lot! Budgeting, transportation, reservations, lodging, food, parking, wi-fi access, juggling the preferences of various travelers... yikes! 

Travel planning is a skill that my Girl Scout troop practices regularly, and it's been wonderful to watch how they've grown in this ability. Complicating the planning is the requirement that they also plan in community, taking into consideration each of their preferences, working through disappointment, developing their willingness to compromise. It's also really fun to see the kinds of things that they plan, because it's often stuff that wouldn't occur to me. Axe-throwing as an activity was an idea only very narrowly defeated when they planned a recent weekend trip, and only then because we can apparently throw axes more cheaply in our hometown--who knew?

So we didn't throw axes, but we DID do just about everything else that's fun to do on this recent holiday weekend trip.

FRIDAY

My Girl Scout troop has done our fair share of camping, but somehow we've never gone cabin camping... and it turns out that I LOVE it! Indoor toilets and showers! Hot water! Central heating! A refrigerator! A stove! Long tables to spread out across! There were something like 36 mattresses awaiting my six campers upon our arrival, so the kids immediately occupied themselves with creating an elaborate fort wonderland with elevated platforms to lounge on and private sleeping cubbies for each person. 

Seriously, it was epic. I NEVER sleep during troop camping trips, and yet this trip I slept all night, every night! Turns out all I needed was a mattress on the floor in a warehouse-looking group cabin.

The only downside to cabin camping is that I. Packed. EVERYTHING. I packed the crockpot. I packed the electric kettle. I packed cutting boards and knives and mixing bowls and measuring cups and parchment paper. I packed the beeswax crockpot and five pounds of beeswax and a jar of coconut oil and the teacups in case kids wanted to make more teacup candles (they did), and the rolled beeswax sheets and x-acto knives and cutting mat and heat gun in case they wanted to make taper candles (they didn't), and all the Model Magic and Sculpey clay in case they wanted to make clay pendants (they did), and watercolors (nope), and greeting card blanks and markers (yep), and the woodburner and wooden spoon blanks (also yep), and the hot glue gun and paracord and large-format drawing paper. I packed so much in the car that I could barely transport actual Girl Scouts--I MISS our giant minivan that could seemingly hold an infinite number of kids!

For Friday night dinner, I pre-made a double batch of my favorite pizza dough, then divided it into plastic baggies so each person could make their own personal pizza on site. The kids were supposed to each bring a favorite pizza topping to share but most of them forgot, so it was cheese and/or pepperoni pizzas for everyone!

In the evening, the kids worked on the Outdoor Art badge at their level (Theme: Christmas crafts!), while we listened to music and chatted. They prepped a breakfast casserole for the morning and put it in my crock pot, then hung out, gossiped, played games, and just generally had themselves a lovely evening together. 

SATURDAY

We were up and at 'em early on this morning, eating crock pot breakfast casserole and packing up for a day out and about. 

First up: a glassblowing workshop!

Each kid and both chaperones got to make a blown glass ornament from scratch:

I took OMG SO MANY photos of each kid making their ornament--because come on, how many times in your life are you going to go glassblowing? You need a full record of the occasion!--so then when it was my turn, my kid took my phone and made a full record of me, too!

I am very proud of my beautiful handblown glass ornament!

After glassblowing, we took the amazing opportunity of most of the troop being in the same place at the same time to get most of the shopping done for the four children we'd adopted for Christmas. The kids paired up and did the shopping for each of the older three children, while my co-chaperone and I had an absolute blast shopping for the baby. We consulted with the patrols pretty often to help them stay on track and make sure everything was about even for the recipients, but the kids did an awesome job with the shopping. Each child received a warm blanket, a complete outfit including socks, shoes, and undies, several toys, including some of the things they'd specifically requested, a book, and some snacks. The next week, another Girl Scout shopped for a car seat for the baby and I made each kid a personalized stocking. 

It was a whirlwind and not gonna lie, my nerves were a little frayed by the time we sat down in the ramen and crepes restaurant that the kids had chosen for lunch, but OMG was it a huge relief to have that HUGE task mostly taken care of! 

The Indianapolis Zoo has a yearly display of Christmas lights, so after our very late lunch, we spent the rest of the afternoon and evening at the zoo:

We left the zoo late, then went back to the cabin to have snacks/second dinner. The kids wrapped all of the presents they'd bought, discovered that we still needed to buy batteries for a toy and shoes for one child, did some more crafts, listened to more music, played more games, and had, I hope, as lovely a time as I did reading my book and hanging out peacefully.

SUNDAY

We got to have a leisurely morning on this day, and that meant waffles! Because yes, I did pack three waffle makers... The kids were also supposed to bring a favorite waffle topping to share, but again, most of them forgot. But fortunately, everyone likes blueberries and/or chocolate chips, and waffles are also delicious as-is, so it was fine.

The Girl Scout camp where we were staying has an old historic cemetery on site, with an accompanying fun patch program. You KNOW how I feel about old cemeteries, so indeed, I dragged all the kids on a hike to see this one, while the kids who were there the last time I dragged us to an old cemetery told everyone else horror stories of cemeteries under the lake and how long it takes bodies to decompose and the absolute lie that is "moving" a cemetery.

Gravestone rubbing is somewhat controversial, but this Girl Scout camp encourages it here, so my large-format drawing paper and my block crayons came in handy:

I think this was each kid's first time trying this activity, and they all seemed to enjoy it!

The other downside about cabin camping is that thanks to all the crap I brought, packing and loading the cars and cleaning the cabin took a LONG time. It wasn't hard, though, with so many hands to make the labor light. 

And once everything was squeaky clean and everyone had eaten their second and third lunches of sandwiches and chips and fruit (teenagers eat pretty much constantly, I don't know if you know), we were off to our reservation at a nearby cat cafe!

I REALLY want another cat, you guys. Can you each just please text me and tell me that I don't need another cat?

There had been a bit of controversy about our destination after the cat cafe. We knew we'd have about an hour-ish to kill before our dinner reservations, and I was a little reluctant to encourage the kids to plan another money-spending activity, but the kids couldn't seem to agree on what they wanted to do. Some kids thought it would be fun to wander around the art museum's outdoor campus, but other kids thought that would NOT be fun, ahem. Fortunately, that need for batteries and one more pair of shoes saved the day, because the bougiest Target I've ever seen was located just a couple of minutes from the dinner theater. So we went to Target, the kids finished their shopping, and then my co-chaperone and I let them wander around however they wanted for a while. Some kids finished up their personal Christmas shopping. Some kids hit up the in-store Starbucks. I, personally, browsed all the toys, because toys are amazing.

Our final event of the weekend was a genuine, honest-to-god dinner theater! This was another brand-new activity for some kids, and some kids even got to sit at their own table without chaperones, an activity some of them were well used to thanks to our troop trip to Mexico. Will and her personal bestie deigned to sit with me and my co-chaperone so we wouldn't be lonely, and for me it was a very precious chance to spend one last occasion with these two sweet kids together before Will leaves for college. 

Is there anything more exhausting than a weekend spent with teenagers? Probably not, but it was also an incredible amount of fun. And look what a wonderful job everyone did shopping for and wrapping all those gifts!

I was VERY excited to get all of that porch-dropped to their recipients so we could walk across the floor again!

As a whole, the weekend went great. The kids had a wonderful time together, a majority of kids loved each adventure, we had plenty of food, we didn't get snowed in, and there were absolutely no disasters. I barely had to get out my first aid kit! Next time, I seriously am going to print out that 17-page Shared Google planning doc, though, as even though most of the kids participated in planning the weekend, and some kids worked quite hard on the plans, nobody could seem to remember what came next on the itinerary. I was quickly so very over answering questions about what came next/what time some event was/when dinner was/what dinner was/where dinner was that I just kept the planning doc pulled up on my phone and anytime someone asked me a question whose answer was revealed within, I handed them the phone with the doc pulled up and let them research the answer themselves.

Next time I will print everything out and hand everyone their own folder with all pertinent information inside!