No Girl Left Inside goes to the Lake!

It’s 5:00am, the alarm is going off and it’s still raining outside. We have a paddling program today… this is not good. We tell ourselves its going to be okay- the sun is going to come out, everyone is going to show up and it is going to be a fabulous day! And you know what? We were totally right. As we were hooking up the canoes at 6:00am, the sun started peeking through the clouds. The drive down the beautiful Sonoita Highway exposed more and more blue skies. The landscape was lush and green from the rain. We couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful day! We arrived at Patagonia State Park at 8:00am, right on schedule. We dropped some Girl Scout cookies with the Rangers and then headed to the marina. Having not hauled anything behind my truck in several years, Gerry and Dan had to coach me on how to back up the trailer. (Slightly embarrassing moment that ended with me beaming with pride because I actually did it.) Good skill to master! Already waiting for us at the water were our Southern Arizona Paddling Club volunteers Jack and Christina and their 2 kids Nicole and Ray. They helped us unload and tow the boats to the beach. It wasn’t long before a mass of girls started gathering under a nearby ramada. In fact, there was a mass of about 60 girls, their troop leaders and parents. What a turnout! Once we were able to verify that everyone was wearing sunscreen, shoes and had water with them we jumped right in! Literally. The first activity was a tip test! The girls floated out in the water and had to tip their canoes over, get back in and then paddle their swamped canoes back to shore. There were definitely some terrified faces on the way out, but only grins on the way back in.  The girls also learned how to do a canoe over canoe rescue and the capistrano flip- all important skills to master before we set them loose for a paddling adventure on the lake! Once they were on the lake, everyone learned the importance of teamwork and communication- sometimes the hard way.

Big Thank You’s to our volunteers Christina, Jack, Ray, Nicole and our Girl Scout Troop/Crew 643! Also a big thanks to all the staff who came out to help me make this program such a huge success: Courtney, Gerry, Dan, Kat and Rachel! You guys rock. And last but certainly not least- thank you to the troops and individual girls who were willing to drive an hour and a half to experience something new and learn new skills. You guys are all truly amazing!

Our next scheduled paddling trip is an overnight on the mighty Colorado in April! If you or your troop are interested in earning the Small Craft or Paddle, Pole and Roll badges, feel free to contact us. You can reach us at kpallack@sahuarogsc.org.

We Found Water in Tucson!

It wasn’t hard to find really… You just get on the highway and drive until you see a bunch of water slides! Those dark cumulus clouds were making me worry a bit on the drive to Breakers but it turned out ok. We had a few sprinkles here and there throughout the day but no thunder and no lightning. That meant more slides and more time in the wave pool! Everyone had a super great time and I think I’m the only one that got a sunburn so that’s awesome! I wasn’t able to take very many pictures… camera and phone in the wave pool = not such a great idea, but I was able to snap a few from dry ground.

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Monsoon Madness Inspires Engineering

Armed with duct tape, cardboard and wild imaginations, the girls set out to construct a boat that will float under the weight of one person and win a boat race. (How cool is that?) Check out theses pictures during construction this morning:

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If you were stuck in a monsoon do you think you would have what it takes to construct a boat to keep you afloat?

The girls will finish their boats this afternoon and then race them across the pool on Thursday at 3:00pm. Of course I will post pictures of the final products and the boat race on Thursday!

I Crown You… Rock Princess!

Have you ever stood at the bottom of a mountain and said “I can climb that”? Chances are, you probably haven’t. There’s a pretty good chance you’d never even consider climbing that mountain. It’s no secret- with your feet planted on the ground, your head craned back as far as it will go, eyes squinting through the rays of sun trying to find the top- It’s a little terrifying to picture yourself clinging to the side of that rock. But even more than it is terrifying… it’s exciting! You strap your harness on, clamp your helmet to your head, tie into the rope- and even with all that protection, all you can think about is you and that rock… and falling. You take your first step and you’re off the ground. Your blood starts pumping a little harder. You can feel the shape of the rock on your finger tips. It’s warm. You feel like you’re going to fall but you stick to the side of that rock like duct tape. After that, it’s just a few series of hand and foot moves and you’re nearly at the top. You can see it. A few more moves and you’re there. You’ve done it. You’ve made it to the top! You not only defied gravity but you conquered your fears! Not just your fear of heights but trying something new. Dude. You did it! It’s a rush. You’re breathing a little hard. Did you breathe at all on the way up? I can’t remember. Your blood is pumping even more. You can feel it. Your muscles are burning. There’s sunlight in your hair. Your friends are cheering you on from the bottom. You want to go down. But to do that, you’ll have to release your death grip on that hand hold and lean back in your harness. You’ll have to have a little faith and trust. Trust your harness. Trust your rope. Trust your belayer. Trust yourself. That’s a lot to think about in just a few seconds. You lean back a little and your foot slips out from under you and its terrifying. All those fears that you left on the ground have found you again and you cling to the rock. You lean back a little more. A little more and from the ground it looks like you are lounging on the beach. You take another step back, tears welling up in your eyes. You took another step but you didn’t slip! You take a couple more steps back and start thinking that this is a piece of cake. You lose track of how many steps you are taking and pretty soon your feet hit the ground. And you’ve done it. There’s not many people who can say that they’ve climbed that mountain. But you can. You go girl.

As of today, 37 of our girls have gone rock climbing. During the approach, the majority of them thought they couldn’t do it. They were super nervous, even scared. But with the encouragement of our Inner Passage guides and our Summit Hut volunteers, all of them gave it a try. And all of them made it to the top and back down again. There have been some tears shed and some scraped knees and elbows…but there have been 37 accomplished smiles seen from the top. The girls all tried something new, conquered their fears and encouraged their friends. It has been an AMAZING experience and I can’t wait to take our last two groups climbing tomorrow. Matt, our Inner Passage guide asked the girls to sum up their experience this afternoon in one word and here are the ones that I could remember (tomorrow I’ll have to write them down!): Scary. Fun. Amazing. High. Supercalafragilistic. Exciting. Cool. Awesome. Spectacular. Rocks. Super. Incredible. Isn’t that fun? We had a lot of awesomes and cools. Matt crowned them all Rock Climbing Princesses

Big thanks to our Guides from Inner Passage, Matt and Sam and to our Summit Hut volunteers so far- Allison, Frank, Meagan and Jeff!

The Creativity is Flowing at Express Yourself!

Well, Day 1 of art camp is done and gone and it was a seriously GREAT day! We did so many awesome projects and the girls were so creative and fun. I think everyone’s favorite project today was painting ceramics with the nice folks at Color Me Mine! The younger girls got to paint an ice cream bowl so that it looks like it is full of ice cream and the older girls painted pizza plates! SO COOL. We also made sculptures, mixed media collages, wrote and started to illustrate stories, made button mosaics, learned about shading and perspective techniques and were very very silly.

Since we had SO many girls register for Express Yourself Art Camp, I get the pleasure of having a group of 1st grade girls this week! We are the purple group, aka the purple people eaters This afternoon, while the girls were writing their stories, I started my own story about my group of purple people eaters. It’s kind of a tongue twister! Enjoy

Once upon a time at a Girl Scout Camp not so far away, there was an 8 eyed, 8 horned, flying purple people eater! This purple people eater was no ordinary purple people eater. This purple people eater wanted to be an artist! The purple people eater thought about being a sculptor and made mini aliens, flower pots, bugs, balls and even some animals but the purple people eater was not satisfied. Next, the purple people eater wanted to paint! The purple people eater walked all the way to the other end of the Girl Scout Camp and painted some pottery. The purple people eater painted a bowl that looked like it had ice cream in it and secretly wished that it really did. All that ice cream dreaming made the purple people eater hungry!! For lunch, the purple people eater ate a ham and cheese sandwich and some yogurt. The purple people eater was still hungry so the purple people eater ate a pizza, apples, cherries and some cookies! But the purple people eater was STILL hungry! The purple people eater thought maybe some chicken nuggets would be more filling but they weren’t. The purple people eater was STILL hungry!! So, the purple people eater ate a turkey sandwich, cow cheese, pepperoni, salami and some pretzels. But do you know what? The purple people eater was STILL HUNGRY!!! The purple people eater ate some eggs, peanut butter, celery, carrots, noodles, chicken, broccoli, and another cookie and FINALLY the purple people eater was full. After lunch, the purple people eater thought it was time to get back to artist training. The purple people eater thought maybe that if you combined a whole bunch of different types of art it would be really really cool, so the purple people eater made a mixed media collage with fabric, stamps, ribbon, magazines, stencils, brads, markers and lots and lots of glue. The purple people eater was right! The mixed media collage turned out AMAZING! All that art though, made the purple people eater HOT so the purple people eater decided to go swimming!! Part of the purple people eater didn’t want to get in the water because it was a little cold and another part of the purple people eater didn’t have a swimsuit on. So, the purple people eater had to compromise by keeping two legs out of the pool. After all that swimming, the purple people eater was hungry again, but this time some yogurt and some applesauce filled up the purple people eater’s tummy all the way to the top! Then, the purple people eater sat down and wrote a story about how hungry the purple people eater had been all day long. To be continued…

Super Summer Heroes to the Rescue!

Storm and I are going to be filming Episode One of our new mini-series “It’s Your Summer- Love It!” Tomorrow. If you’re interested, stop by the office and help us out! It is going to be a fun super hero type series with awesome villains like Evil Dr. Boredom, Heat Wave and Mad Monsoon! Sounds fun right? And the super heroes (Storm and myself) fight to save girl’s summers. Pretty awesome if I do say so myself! Come out and help, it will be super duper fun!