We sent out 'recruitment notices' to each of our 24 guests along with a dog tag with their rank and name on it. Private Bobby:
This notice is to inform you that you are to report to Basic Training dressed and ready for Boot Camp at Smith Military Base on Saturday, February 28 at 1300 hrs(that's 1:00pm to you civilians). Special ceremonies will also be conducted at this time to commemorate the 8th birthday of Private Logan Smith. If you need further assistance, please contact Drill Instructor Smith at (phone number). I pasted Uncle Sam's "We Want You" photo onto it and bordered the letter in stars and stripes. (All on computer). We went to the local military recruitment center and decorated the house with their recruitment posters...lots of military men and helicopter pictures. Every child arrived wearing camo, it was great! I painted each child's face with camo paint and wrapped their heads with camo bandanas. I bought a camo tarp from Walmart and made a tent in our house. We made an obstacle course (board across the kiddie pool, running through tires, climb over a few bales of straw, swing on a rope, climb over our backyard fence, across the monkey bars, up the clubhouse and down the slide, then into the house under the tarp). While each child was catching his breath, I talked about Survival Training and served them gummy 'worms', chocolate covered 'ants' (raisins) and chocolate covered snake eggs (malt balls). I won 24 snack cracker MRE's off of eBay and put it into a camo drawstring bag for each soldier. We then had a grenade toss (raw egg toss) and a water balloon war. We had a tug of war, parents vs kids (since they outnumbered us by far) and we played "soldier down". Have the kids break into teams. Have them choose their biggest member and have those kids lay down in the grass 'injured'...they cannot offer any help. The rest of the team has to cover this soldier in toilet paper, then lift him/ her onto a beach towel and drag him back to the starting point. It was hilarious! At the end of the day, each child was given a certificate of completion of bootcamp and I tried to give each child a new rank. We had 24 kids ranging in ages from 4-14 who enjoyed this party.
