wahsega

Ever since Gehrig and I went to Jekyll for the 3day field trip at the 4H center three years ago, Greer has been anxiously awaiting her turn to join us.  This time, we went the mountain way to Wahsega in Dahlonega and both bigs were super excited!

Mammaw came to hang with Garner for a couple of days and we left lots for them to do if they got bored.  Garner has loved all of her "tray" activities this year and we figured she'd be asking Mammaw for them if we weren't prepared :).  So thankful for her help and for our friend, Melanie, covering the last day...

Jenn and Madi got to go with us too...SO fun!  We rode together and stopped in Gainesville at Matt's parents (Grama & Grandpa's) to drop off Sam and Andrew to stay with them.  It was the Gs' first time seeing the awesome treehouse that Grandpa just finished.  It's amazing!

We arrived!  It ended up only being 5 families from co-op.  We would've loved for more to enjoy it with us but had a great time with our crew there too.  We started off with a quick meeting with some of the staffers to go over the plans for the next couple of days...

Soooo beautiful!  Our cabin was right next to this gorgeous stream and bridge...

Jenn, me, Stephanie and Kelley

We had amazing fall weather the whole time...perfect coolness in the morning and plentiful sunshine and warmth during the day :)

Our first class was on pioneer life.  We learned to make candles, make cornbread over the fire, use tools that were used way back when and pan for gold :)

We had a class lots of classes on animals, which were perfect for these kiddos...they have no qualms about holding any of them!  This class specifically focused on nocturnal vs. diurnal animals.  Greer is holding an owl claw here...

Playing "bat-moth" to demonstrate the bat's echo-location skills :)

Morning of day 2 outside the cabin :)

Sweet kiddos

After breakfast, we went on a nature hike and scavenger hunt...so beautiful and good exercise too

They made it to the top of the mountain trail!

Next, we studied entomology (study of insects)...and dissected a giant grasshopper ;)

We grabbed our boots afterwards to head to stream ecology...we caught and identified different wildlife and then let them go back into the stream

Herpetology is always a favorite!  Reptiles and amphibians ;))

We were fortunate to have the campus to ourselves and enjoyed some free time between classes too...

Native American games :))

Bunks :)

Final day...we had one class on survival skills and it was great fun.  The crew separated into guys and girls to work on building themselves a shelter...

 Such a sweet group!

We really loved our time there and look forward to doing it again.  There's just something wonderful about spending most of your days outside, learning while you're there and spending great quality time together.  4H does such a great job with it all :))