Children's Camp

Children's Camp - what a wonderful week we had with these great kids. Where else can you see grown men's shirts being stuffed with water balloons, kids unfolding frozen T-shirts and trying to put them on, a thirty-year old man doing a back handspring, picking up pennies with ONLY your feet out of freezing cold water, carrying water in frisbies above your head, camp leaders blasting kids with silly string and water and singing around a campfire.. all in the same place?

Aside from a few homesick episodes and insect bites, all 71 kids seemed to have had a good time. They were 2nd - 5th graders, mostly from our church. I have to say I learned alot about girls, being in a cabin with five 5th graders heading into middle school and two younger girls. It was so different from my everyday life, but I enjoyed it throroughly.

4th of July

We headed down to Panama City (Water Sound, FL) to stay with Betty (Cork) for the weekend. Nana, Pawk, Holly and Aaron met us there. Thursday we all arrived and went to eat dinner at Reggae J's. We discovered this place last year and had to go back again. This is where Heath found his LOVE of fish tacos. Friday we headed to the beach and pool for the day. That evening we ate at The Club, which is always a treat. At dark, the neighborhood was hosting "Flick & Float" where the kids bring their float to the main pool and watch a movie on the big, inflatable screen. They watched Ratatouille. It was fun, but I was ready to relax afterwards in the A/C. Holly and Aaron's friends (Jessica and Jamie) from Dothan were in town and stopped by for a while. There were lots of laughs, of course. After just a few hours of sleep, we got up bright and early on Saturday, the 4th of July. We were invited to a party and parade. What gracious hosts...they let us hang out, eat and watch the parade. It wasn't exactly the Thanksgiving Macy's Day Parade, but fun and unexpected nonetheless. They threw beads, candy and coupons. It was all over about 9am or so. We headed back to Betty's for a rest. All the guys took a nap, us ladies hit the beach and pool again. Betty made a great dinner for us and we celebrated Dad's birthday. Afterwards we headed to the beach for pictures and then watched fireworks. Betty's two little doggies didn't like the noise much, but survivied. The power went off right before we left to take pictures and wasn't on after the fireworks. Thankfully, it came back on just in time for bed. Sunday morning came too fast and it was time for us to all head home. I hope Betty will allow us to come back..we all had such a great time staying with her. What great conversations we all had, discovering different things about each other... Hopefully, at times like these, we will take the initiative to leave phones, computers and TVs alone and enjoy the people that God surrounded us with.