Maxx's Maine Camping Blog at Poland Spring Campground

Adventurer Weekend 2011

Posted on August 30, 2011 by Maxwell Moose

Grrrrrrr! That, Tami! She didn’t take very many pictures this weekend . . . she was too busy getting ready for Hurricane Irene. Debbie had lots and lots of great things to do all week long, too! Things like ice cream making, scavenger hunts, a campfire with scary stories, sandcastle building, horseshoes, parachute play, water balloon volleyball and much, much more!

Friday recreation began with story time and ME!

There was bocci and bubble play and bug catchers too!

When Tami heard about the bug catchers, she shuddered. “Why on earth would you catch bugs!?”

To race them of course!! Sheesh. Doesn’t she know, you have to like bugs if you’re going to be a super agent or an adventurer. I mean, you never know when you might get stuck while hiding from the bad guys and you find yourself in this tiny little space, listening carefully for that big, bad guy, and then you see ~you’re surrounded by BUGS! Lots and lots of bugs!

Maaaaaybe, if you’re lucky, you’d get stuck with this guy -

but c’mon! What are the chances of that? With Tami’s luck she’d get trapped with a bunch of spiders. She hates spiders. They make her scream like a little girl. I’ve heard it.

Friday ended with Family Bingo in the rec hall. Debbie plays quick stand-up games, long cover-all games and all kinds of games in between. Lots and lots of people were winners!

On Saturday my little adventurer campers tried making cups from plain paper, then they drank from them. After that we designed paper airplanes to test fly.

Of course we had to have adventurer training! Duh! Over 20 kids came to practice lassoing, running the obstacle course and of course to practice sling-shotting water balloons. I mean, what kind of adventurer would you be, if you couldn’t toss a water balloon right where you needed it most??

There was jewelry making, a knot tying contest and an adventurer hayride too!

Debbie handed out compasses to everyone so they’d know which way David was going . . .

I wanted to ride on the wagon too, but Debbie and David wouldn’t let me. They didn’t want me to knock anyone off with my antlers. So I tried to get in the passenger seat to co-pilot David, but my antlers wouldn’t fit through the door!

Sigh.

So I had to stay behind and wait with my faithful, moose-loving bodyguard, Joey.

and we waited.

And we waited.

Until finally, the hayride came back!

Here I am with some of my little campers

And here’s some more!

I’m so glad you all came in spite of Hurricane Irene! I had an awesome time and I hope you did too.

Posted in Camp Activities, Camp Scenes | Tagged Adventure Weekend | Comments Off

Halloween Too ~ 2011

Posted on August 25, 2011 by Maxwell Moose

I’m very sad to say, Tami fibbed to me.

Yep. She fibbed big time.

She told me Halloween Too was exactly like Halloween One.

WRONG!

I mean, suuuuuuure, we had horseshoes and a scavenger hunt and story time and jewelry making and Halloween relay games. I’d argue they were the same ~ but different too!

We had a mummy wrap contest:

and a witch’s stew eating contest!

Those were NOT on the schedule last week. Uh-uh. I checked. Twice.

This week, we made ghosts at Arts and Crafts for the campers to hang at their sites.

My little camping buddies went on a hayride too!

and I hung out between hayrides with some different campers . . .

than I did last weekend.

I suppose there was one thing . . . make that TWO things, that stayed the same.

One, the wait to trick or treat was just as looooong, if not longer! It’s a good thing my little camping buddies and I had lots and lots to do. Maggie and Debbie worked really, really hard all day to keep us busy!

and two, Tami gave the same booooooring, blah-blah-blah rules as she did last week. The whole time she was talking, all I could think about was candy, Candy, CANDY!!

I bet that’s what the rest of these trick or treaters were thinking too!

This time, the party was up at the office!

Every single game was different from last week

Halloween Too blog 183 Halloween Too ~ 2011

K with Shoot the Jack-O-Lantern's Nose

Halloween Too blog 173 Halloween Too ~ 2011

K2 with the Balloon Walk

Halloween Too blog 165 Halloween Too ~ 2011

Maggie with the Sponge Toss

Halloween Too blog 160 Halloween Too ~ 2011

Alex with her famous Tattoos

Halloween Too blog 158 Halloween Too ~ 2011

S with the can pyramid

Halloween Too 159 400x300 Halloween Too ~ 2011

J with Spider Fishing

and then there was Trina and Joanne with the treat . . .

Fruit Kabobs!!

There were cool prizes – but my favorite was . . .

vampire teeth!

Sally ran the office

while Tami, Debbie and I circulated, checking out all the awesome costumes.

and the smiling faces

But you know who wasn’t smiling when it was time for the haunted house??

Tami.

As she cowered behind the reservations desk, I asked her, “What’s there to be afraid of anyway? I mean, it can’t be all that scary if the campers are lined up way to the back of the playground . . .

All she did was show me this picture.

Hmmmmm . . . I think maybe Tami needs a helping hand closing up the office. I’ll just get busy sweeping the floor . . . .

Posted in Camp Activities, Camp News | Tagged activities, halloween, theme weekends | Comments Off

Adventures Around Every Corner!

Posted on August 24, 2011 by Maxwell Moose

Adventurers go searching for treasure, right?

Ohhhhh I can’t wait! We’re going to follow the clues to find the Treasure Chest of Poland Spring. But before we do that, we have to prepare ourselves.

We gotta learn how to lasso…

And targeting any enemies…

And running away from those enemies…

THEN we’ll be ready to find our treasure! And then after that is Labor Day weekend, and then … and then after that … is … is …

AH! Labor Day Weekend! Do you know what that means? Thatmeansitsthelastweekendforrecwhichmeansthesummerisoverandallthecampersaregunnagohome!

You just gotta to come for Labor Day Weekend, so we can ride the hayride one more time, and play games together, and you HAVE to walk the parade.

We’ve gotta make sure it’s LOTS of fun!

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One Halloween!

Posted on August 17, 2011 by Maxwell Moose

Wow!

What a cool Halloween Weekend! I mean, there was sooo much stuff to do, and it was all Halloween-ish! I swear, even the bubbles at bubble play looked ghostly!

On Friday, some of my little camping buddies met with Debbie to take a nature walk. They gathered all kinds of sticks, bark, pine cones and other nature things to make Lake Monsters! Check these out!

On Saturday morning the kids made jack-o-lanterns for the campers who wanted to give out candy. Whenever anyone asked for a site marker, Tami sent them to the “pumpkin patch”.

I picked this one. What do you think?

Of course, all we could think about was trick or treating and the costume party and the haunted house . . . but no matter how many times I asked Alex and Maggie . . .

they wouldn’t start it any earlier!

The little campers and I filled our time with the waterballoon slingshot, halloween games, horseshoes, jewelry making, a scavenger hunt, and a watermelon eating contest!

Finally, it was time to trick or treat. Of course, Tami makes us all meet at the office for a group photo . . .

and the ruuuuuuuules. Sheesh. Trick or treating rules? Who ever heard of such a thing?

But we had the best time going site to site

Getting candy . . .

lots and lots and lots of candy.

And then, we were invited to a party by the LAKE! How cool is that?

I got lots of kisses . . .

and played a bunch of games for prizes!

Evan with the bean bag toss

Halloween One e mail 043 400x266 One Halloween!

Maggie with Fred for the lake ring toss

Kate with the Tick Tack Toe Game

Debbie and Ernie ran Pumpkin Head Dart Game

Joanne and Terry served pretzels with frosting and punch

Sam ran Yolf

and Caitlin ran the spider ring toss

Sooooo many of my friends dressed up too!

and then there was the haunted house.

I don’t have pictures of that for you. Partly because David is very, very secretive about his house.

But mostly because Tami is afraid of it. Once again, she hid in the office; all the windows closed . . . and the doors . . . listening as her campers screamed their way through the house. How silly is that? Alex, who monitored the front door, said even a very, very brave three year old went through.

That Tami. She’s such a scaredy cat.

And you know the very best thing about Halloween One?

I get to do it all again this weekend at Halloween TOOO!

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Trick-or-treat!

Posted on August 17, 2011 by Maxwell Moose

I loooooooooooove Halloween!

We’ve been having such a good time! Debbie comes up with all kinds of fun ideas, like dressing up as mummies…

And trying Witch’s Stu…

And awesome games to play at the Halloween Party…

And once Halloween is all done, we’ll start activities for Adventurer Weekend!

Is that theme music I hear…

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Medieval Weekend 2011

Posted on August 10, 2011 by Maxwell Moose

Wow! There was so much fun stuff going on during Medieval Weekend, I almost couldn’t do it all!

But my little campers did!

We had ourselves some target practice with the catapult Ben built in Boyscouts. That was lots of fun!

There were viking ship races, a treasure hunt, ferrier fetching (which is a very fancy medieval way of saying “horseshoes”) and a scavenger hunt.

We also played a bunch of medieval field games . . .

like jousting with noodles!

You know what? Tami wouldn’t let me try the porridge eating contest. I stamped my foot (hoof?) and crossed my arms and pouted for hours and hours. She only shook her head and said, “You’ll never get it out of your fur.”

Maybe she was right. But don’t tell HER, I said that.

Debbie and Maggie had the campers make Robin Hood hats and princess crowns at Arts and Crafts. There was shield making too! Isn’t this one well done???

He looks ready to march into battle!

And speaking of battles, this group of five put on an awesome sword fight performance, right before the hayride.

First, Bryant arrived, telling Maggie he was back to claim the recreation program as his own. Of course, Maggie refused . . .

Just when it looked like Maggie might lose the battle . . . Ben rushed onto the scene and it became 2 against 1.

As you can imagine, that didn’t sit too well with Bryant! So he asked for volunteers. After turning down a dancer (who I thought might have been a good distraction), he found a willing participant

who just happened to be dressed in medieval garb, and be carrying a couple of daggers. Gee! Bryant was lucky to find him, huh??

They battled long and hard . . .

aaaaaand . . .

you’ll just have to watch for the YouTube link we’re gonna post here soon, if you want to see how it all turns out! We’ll show it start to finish! It was awesome! Bryant choreographed the whole thing! Thanks a bunch Bry!

I practiced my sword fighting skills too, you know. Still, this guy beat me with one hand tied behind his back. Sheesh! I’m gonna have to ask Bryant to give me lessons.

You never know when I’ll have to rescue a damsel in distress!!

Although . . . you know . . . now that I’ve seen Maggie’s sword fight skills . . . she’ll probably be the one saving ME!

Saturday night, Markus and Angelique from The Magic of the Steelgraves, performed some amazing magical tricks for the whole campground! They juggled . . . they lit things on fire . . . they made a chicken appear . . . they ate doves . . .

No wait, that last one was just a trick. Honest. They didn’t really eat them. It just looked like they ate them. Aw geez, you’ll just have to see it for yourself next year! You’d never believe it!

Posted in Camp Activities | Tagged activities, medieval weekend | Comments Off

Boo!

Posted on August 10, 2011 by Maxwell Moose

Guess what we have coming up this weekend? Halloween!

And after that? More Halloween!

I can’t wait for a WHOLE WEEK of Halloween! There’s trick-or-treating, and a Halloween party, and even a haunted house! But I think I’d rather go in with Debbie, she makes sure all the monsters are gone…

Last year, we had a great time dressing up. And we made site markers for the people who wanted to hand out candy, and you should have seen how many candy bars we had for Candy Bar Bingo! Also, Debbie helped us make boats and try them in the lake!

Oh, geez! I gotta start working on my costume!

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Maracas and Sombreros

Posted on August 3, 2011 by Maxwell Moose

Wow!

What a fabulous ending to Fiesta Weekend . . .

The big party had five carnival games, 1 tattoo stand, five pinatas, one bouncy house, sopapillas and ME!

But wait! I’m getting ahead of myself here. I should start at the very beginning . . .

Last Friday, Debbie read some South of the Border stories, played Bocci, helped the campers make giant bubbles, decorated pinatas at arts and crafts, hid pennies for a penny hunt and called numbers for Family Bingo!

Bright and early Saturday morning, everyone gathered in the playing field for South of the Border games! Then they shot Water balloons for ice cream prizes. I wish Tami could’ve gotten pictures of that! Balloons were bursting all over the place.

After lunch, we all made sombreros and maracas at Arts and Crafts!

We wore them on the hayride, too!

Some brought their own sombreros and maracas and mascots . . .

Wait a minute . . . you don’t think that cute little pup is trying to take my job, do you?

After supper, it was time for the big party!

WAKE UP! It’s FIESTA TIME! Not Siesta Time!

There was pin-the-tail on the donkey

The Mexican Hat game . ..

Tattoos!

The bouncy house . . . which I couldn’t sneak into again!

That David keeps too good an eye on me.

Debbie and Ron made us sopapillas . ..

which is a like a fried bread dough. They were soooo yummy!

I tried the ring toss

and the quarter toss and the dart balloon game

but I didn’t win any of them. Sigh.

I did get prizes just for trying though!

And the biggest, bestest game ever???

The pinatas!!

When those homemade pinatas opened up, pouring candy all over the place, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven!!

Campers kept stopping Tami, to tell her how wonderful the party was and how much their kids loved it. I begged her to do it all over again this coming weekend!

Please . . . PLEASE . . . PLEASE!

“What about Medieval Weekend?” she asked. “We can’t cancel the giant, four man sword fight, can we?”

No . . . No we can’t!!

Posted in Camp Activities | Tagged fiesta weekend | Comments Off

King Maxwell Awaits!

Posted on August 3, 2011 by Maxwell Moose

Medieval Weekend is coming up! Wield your swords for this awesome weekend! I know I’ve got mine all polished.

I can’t wait to watch the jousting, and the porridge eating contest, and see the fairy houses!

Do you remember last year when the Red Knight and the Blue Knight fought? They had an epic battle on the hayride – all over a googly band in the shape of a crown. If you don’t believe me, see for yourself by clicking on this photo.

In the end the Red Knight won!

This year, the Steelgraves are coming Saturday night to perform some magic. I can’t wait to see them! Last year, I heard he tried to eat a dove!

The weekend after, is Halloween Week! That’s right! Week! I can’t wait for all the candy, and the costumes, and the candy, and the parties, and the candy!