Sleepover in the Mall

I had a great Guiding weekend a couple weeks ago.

My Guide leader daughter Alicia, Guider Christie and I took a group of girls to Dauphin, a town about 4 hours from Winnipeg for an overnight trip.

Stop drop and Roll at the fire station
 

We drove out using 2 vehicles on the Saturday morning and met at noon with about 200 girls ages 9 to 14 and their  leaders from all over the province.

The afternoons activity was to do a scavenger hunt around the town.  I walked around with the kids for the first half and then I went to get the car and caught  up with them at a couple of further spots.  The whole things would have been about 4 km one way. not counting all the twists and turns going back and forth finding our clues or getting back to the hall again. I am glad I drove for the last part. I am learning to save my energy for when it counts.

Read a book at the library

There were about 40 locations around town were they were to either record some information or to take a picture of their group in that location.
It was fun... Things to do like find the fire station and do a stop drop and roll for a picture. They were to get a picture of themselves at the one drive through bank in the town. Pictures with green vegetables .. mainly done in grocery stores. The girls were to go into the local community pool and count how many sea creature shapes were hanging from the ceiling. They stopped at the war memorial and were to count how many people died in the first and second World Wars.
A fun stop was that they were to get their group picture taken with the Wal-Mart Greeter.

Dinner was in an old theater and it was very well managed tacos in a bag dinner and veggies dinner with cupcakes for dessert. The volunteers pulled it off so smoothly for such a large group that it was very impressive.

Where we had lunch.

Next we went to the swimming pool for the evening. It had a wave pool and lots of room for the girls and a hot tub. I was a little stiff after all the driving and hiking the scavenger hunt so I really appreciated the hot swirling water,

I was kind of surprised at how few leaders got in the water. We didn't need to because their were life guards but really .. the ladies should have got in the water and had some fun too. I kind of  think that some women are hesitant to get into a bathing suit. Maybe they just wanted to have a chance to sit at the little tables and chat. Personally I liked chatting with the couple of other Guiders in the hot tub.

Old Train Station

Pool time ended and we moved into the Shopping mall.  The mall was closed for the evening and the stores all closed but the center part was all ours. Giggling girls were running all over the place in their jammies and funny slippers. We set up our sleeping bags and in my case ... my camp cot, all around the walls and shop windows.  We had a snack time... more like a feast with fruit, meat, cheese and  when that was all finished we gathered in the center for a campfire. The ladies running it took the unusual approach of doing all actions songs. I didn't realize I knew so many action songs!

There was a screen set up and all the pictures from the scavenger hunt were loaded up and we viewed them as a slide show. It was fun to see all the different ways groups approached the challenges.

I slept just fine and actually woke up quite well rested. My daughter kept waking up and listening for the girls but I  was comfy in my sleeping bag. Breakfast and then we were on our way back to Winnipeg. The girls had fun and want to go again next year.

I did crash on the couch when I got home and I needed a bit of pain killer for all my sore muscles and I was too tired to get any homework done.  I felt good about going, and spending time with all the other leaders and girls. I would do it again in a heartbeat.