With Samantha and Amelia starting kindergarten, a whole new world of activities opened up for them this year. A few different moms from their school and from our neighborhood suggested checking out their Girl Scouts troops, but I was hesitant to make that time commitment considering Meredith was too young to join and I had a baby at home.

Enter Adventure Guides.

Formerly Indian Princess Guides (I personally don’t see anything wrong with this name, but I’m sure it became too un-PC to keep around), the Adventure Guides is a camping and adventure program for dads and daughters. Perfect! It’s only for kinder through 5th grade, so much to her chagrin, Meredith couldn’t join, but we decided to give it a try with the twins.

The Adventure Guides is a popular program in our area, so there are tons of dads and daughters that make up the troops in our town. The twins’ Expedition, made up of several “troops,” is the Rainbow Sky Expedition and the troop the girls joined is the Pink Panthers. It’s the smallest troop out of the expedition, which is perfect for them since they tend to get overwhelmed in large groups. They have a camp-out or activity each month, as well as a planning meeting before the campout where the dads divvy up who is in charge of food/activities, while the girls eat snacks and do crafts. Basically, it’s the twins’ dream activity!

At first, I was a little skeptical of the program, considering dads are in charge of all the planning, but wow, do I stand corrected! These guys are uber-organized with spreadsheets and calendars listing all the activities, campouts, prices, and who is responsible for what a year in advance. My dream! Every troop has their own themed gear and banners and the events themselves have been really organized and fun so far.

At the beginning of September, the twins and Jake went on their first campout to Camp Surf down in Imperial Beach, San Diego, as close to the border of Mexico as you can get.

It’s fun to stay at the… YMCA!

The leader dad of the Pink Panthers troop is awesome at video editing and takes awesome photos with his drone/creates fun videos! I was so happy the girls had joined his troop because obviously I’m a sucker for proper documentation of events! It’s mostly his two daughters in the video, which is why you see the same dark-haired girls all the time, but there are some fun shots of the twins boogie boarding!

Grooving to the music and stuffing their faces. 

The twins’ favorite activity at the campout was learning to surf and boogie board! I didn’t think the girls would be brave enough to try it since they don’t even like swimming in the ocean when we go to the beach here. Jake reported back that they were completely fearless!

Meanwhile, back at home, our cousins were in town, so they came over to swim with Meredith and hang out with Elle!

Hailey mostly hung out on the perimeter. 

Back at Camp Surf…

At night, the dads put on a legit skit night, complete with professional sound and lights. I was very impressed with all the planning that went into the campout– and all by dads!

While waiting for the skits to start, they had a little dance party. 

Samantha and Amelia loved their first campout experience with Jake and the Adventure Guides and Jake said it was like the summer camps he always wanted to go to as a kid! More than just all the fun activities though, the twins really just enjoyed spending quality time on their own with Jake and came back with their little love buckets full.

Lots of love,