A Camping We Did Go

Last weekend, my family and I had the awesome adventure of going to our church's family camp together! Since it was an hour or so north of here, we got to enjoy a taste of greenness once again. The best parts, though, were sharing a cabin duplex with Perry and Tyler (and the BABIES!!!!!!) and getting to know our church family better.

After packing way too much clothing; gathering card games; baking and popping food (I made these cookies and popped four huge batches of popcorn. I even used up all the coconut oil and melted the lid just to make it more fun.); finishing up the sermon (Dad did that part. We only pack things and melt things.); collecting random forgotten things; and smashing it into the back of the van (Paul saying his typical, "Hey guys, don't open that one door. Everything will come out.), we started off on our adventure. Wow, that was a run-on sentence if ever I saw one!

Some of my lovely road-trip buddies. (My angel mother is in the passenger seat, but since she is shining like the sun you can't tell she's there.) We are veteran road-trippers now from our move down here last winter, so an hour doesn't feel like much. ; ) Dad had an awesome time pointing out real and imagined landmarks to us, and we kept ourselves clapping and bouncing with the PianoGuys.

The rest of my lovely (????) buddies. Weird angle because I'm sharing a seat with them, but you get the idea that it was pretty fun. ; ) (Oh, is Paul an angel too? I'll leave that for you to decide... No, he is an angel for sharing a seat with all the copious amounts of bedding we brought.)

 A little while later (we used to drive this far to go grocery shopping). we arrived at Friendly Pines just in time to throw everything into the cabin and run off to the cafeteria for dinner. After that came a chapel session, organizing our cabiny-messy-thingy, and games in the cafeteria until the wee hours of the morning.

Next morning we all walked to church. (It should always be this way, shouldn't it?) It was beautiful outside!!! At just about every session of chapel our family enjoyed mixing with Perry and Tyler's little family and the H. family as well.

Our fantastic little neighbors. They were the best thing about the weekend!! Unfortunately, they were so cute that we had a really hard time not laughing out loud during the sermon.

Especially when this one sneezed so hard he almost fell over...or when his older brother dumped a toy dump truck load of dirt into my lap...or when the camp cat startled one of them out of their wits when it came scampering by. Yeah, pretty cute. ; ) Don't you just love those funny eyes???

The theme of the weekend was revival, and Dad chose a really amazing aspect of the whole topic for his sermon Saturday morning. I HIGHLY suggest you listen to his sermon "Don't Lose Heart". It was very encouraging!!! (Special thanks to Anna for taking the picture because I couldn't see Dad very well through some people's heads.)

Saturday is probably everyone's hands-down favorite day of camp. That's because of....

FIELD GAMES!!!! I watched the first few games from the sidelines, but after a while I wished I had joined in. ; ) This game was a crazy relay race of trying to bat a balloon down the field without popping it. Add to that an ornery breeze and some surprisingly sharp grass--you get the picture. ; )

Another great one was passing a hula hoop around a circle of people without letting go of each other's hands. That was pretty crazy, but a high-five to everyone who managed it especially those wearing skirts.

We didn't get pictures of my favorite relay race (also the first game I played), but it was pretty fun/funny! All of us players threw our shoes in a huge, stinky pile at one end of the field and lined up on the other. You've probably guessed the objective--run across the field, find your shoes, cram them on, and make it back to your team without them falling off. There were some pretty hilarious stunts too, like my brother-in-law throwing his best friends' shoes out of the pile so they would have to go farther to find them. Thumbs up, Tyler! It was pretty hard to find my shoes (since apparently brown is the most common color); and I found myself wishing for one of the first times ever that I had flip-flops. ; ) I'm not sure how the scoring came out, but my team was awesome!! ; )

The tug-o'-wars were awesome!! This picture is kids against adults. You'll find me on the kids' side because this was taken before a couple of older girls and I realized that we belonged on the other team. ; P We lost the first one since our church is mostly children, but we won the second! ; )

That's my little buddy!

The rest of the weekend consisted of more hanging out (I did a little exploring with my friend Hannah and chatted some with her older sister), chapel sessions (I loved the history of the laymen's revival), an amazing bonfire (S'mores. That's what we exist for.), and amazing games in the cafeteria. (Some of my family members brought crafts to do with everyone, but I never got around to doing them.) Those times of all sitting around together laughing and talking or trying to beat each other at Dutch Blitz were my favorite times of all. That's when I got to know people (and sometimes got to beat them too!). ; )

Hanging out with the H. girls was my younger sisters' favorite thing about their first family camp (that they can remember, at least). I got to hang out with them a lot of the time which was so much fun! We visited their favorite spot at camp (nicknamed "the L tree"  for it's unusual shape), visited each  other's cabins (this picture was taken in ours), and sat together during church and the group picture. ;)

Altogether, it was an amazing time of fellowship and learning from God's word! And I highly suggest you all check out my Dad's sermon. ;)