girl heroes and camping

I'm currently leading a group of 4-5th grade girl scouts at a local elementary school, until I can find some volunteers to replace me. Last week we talked about women they see on TV and in movies, and what role or what jobs those women have. I even had them list their favorite women in media. When I asked them what jobs women have in TV and movies they said things like dancer, cashier, waitress, singer, teacher, nurse, and 1 girl said doctor. Their TV heroes were Rihanna, Beyonce, Selena Gomez, some cartoon characters, and one girl said Amelia Earnhardt. I don't know what I expected. I hear all the time that girls have a lack of substantive women to look up to in their world, and this confirmed that. If you can't see it, you can't become it. I realize that girls will grow up and probably expand their knowledge of what women are doing in the world, but I still found it kind of sad what I heard that day from such young girls. I guess I shall try to do what I can to change that. I wonder what would happen if I asked them what the women in their lives do for work, and if that list would be much different. That may be an exercise for another day!

This weekend we went camping at Olive Creek campground. It is slated to close today for the season due to budget issues within the state, which is a major bummer. Olive Creek is an excellent campground because it's so quiet and private. Not many people camp there. And maybe that's why they want to close it, but our group of friends has grown quite fond of it. We had a neighbor at the campground this time who had a pontoon boat, and we took 2 rides on it Saturday night; one at sunset and one in the dark. It was lovely. We also played fireball, which is a very fun game that Jovi invented. At night, there were storms, but Kurt and I stayed warm and cozy in our tent. I was very happy with the tent's performance. We've only camped in it during good weather without the rain fly, so this time we staked all the stakes and properly secured all the flaps and the tent was warm, yet well ventilated and dry. I enjoyed waking up in the night to hear the storms and the rain on the tent. Also a bonus, our air mattress hardly deflated at all. Usually, we wake up with our butt and lower backs hitting the ground, but it was not so this night. It was an excellent night of camping.