Amelia goes to camp

I've now set a record for time elapsed between blog entries. As I said in the last post, life has been a lot of fun around here, so things have occasionally (daily) been put off. I've got about 2,349,217 photos from the summer, so maybe I'll eventually get caught up.

The photos below were taken in June by Pepper (aka Morgan, as she is known in real life). She's been a summer staffer for several summers, starting back with our first one when camp saw less than 40 kids. She's awesome! I have some photos on the wall at home that are very overdue for updating and she was helping me out with the task. Summer light is a challenge to work with, and what appeared to be pretty decent morning light turned out to be more like a beam directly from a helicopter search light. Once I printed them I realized they were too washed out to work for portrait replacements. Oh well! Many were cute regardless and Morgan is a very patient photographer. Thanks Pepper!



The black and white effect helped the light issue.





On the other hand, my Glamour Shot portrait turned out just beautifully!

I was a character for "Clue" played during second session of camp, a disgruntled ex-beauty pageant queen who may or may not have killed Rambo (James' camp alter ego) with a fast flying high heeled shoe. Right after I was finished applying the frosty fuschia lipstick Shannon said in all seriousness, "Mama, you look beautiful!" Thanks, buddy. Wonder if it was the Cinderella crown or the stuffed Pomeranian that did it for him.

Boy were we blessed to have James' folks here for five weeks this summer! Papa hauled his motorcycle from Texas so he'd have it to ride in the mountains. The kids were glad he did.







See ya, mom!



In other news, we put in a pool.



Or put up a pool, actually. This thing wouldn't fit in my SUV so one day before the summer started I hauled my horse trailer to the Gainesville Walmart and picked one up for me and for Alison, who needed a replacement after finding out that they don't winter well outdoors.

I love how Elizabeth is so well prepared for 11 inches of water.

And now, Amelia at camp! She went to third session, June 28-July 2. She had been looking forward to it all summer, especially since she would be at camp with three of the Davidsons, including Ruth who would be coming for the first time as well.

Staffers are posted to greet cars and show people where to go when they arrive. We showed up on the golf cart. Jackie (Snaps) gave her an official first day name tag.

She and Ruth claimed top bunks. They were in Rockcreek cabin, the youngest one for girls. The summer I was pregnant with Avery we actually lived in this cabin during camp. We were in our rental house in Clermont before moving to camp in October, and we wanted to be close for the summer. I loved that summer in spite of the fact that I was about two of my normal self size-wise.




Bunkmates!

The cabin was princess themed, by choice of the counselors. It couldn't have been more appropriate for these ladies. Every kingdom needs rules.

Rockcreek counselors, Bubbles (Angela) and Cupcake (Olivia). Sweethearts in every way! We will be blessed for sure if they are able to return next summer.

The first night includes the all-important tribal selection. Campers at Strong Rock are either in the Waya (wolf) tribe and are red, or are in the Awahili (eagle) tribe and are blue. Once you're a Waya or Awahili it stays that way for all your camp years. Maggie and Bennett D. were already Waya, so the girls had their fingers crossed to become Waya as well.

Amelia draws a color at random.

Ruthie draws...and...

Amelia gets her wish and is a Waya.

Thankfully for the friendship of all involved it worked out for them both. Go Waya!

Waya cheers.


Awahili cheers.

The first night game is always the same, and is played for tribal points, as are most evening games. It's ultimate frisbee, only modified and renamed by James to become "Multimate Frisbee" (played, you guessed it, with multiple frisbees.) It's a favorite of many returning campers.

Amelia jumped right in and started playing.

Don't let those mean old Awahili intimidate you.



Off to find another frisbee in need of catching.

The other kids never have any trouble finding ways to entertain themselves during evening activities. Shannon played a lot of the games played all over camp this session. He hung out with Bennett whenever he could.

Elizabeth likes to wander all over the place.



I stayed out of Amelia's way as much as I could. We wanted her to have as normal and independent of a camp experience as possible. About three days in I couldn't resist taking a picture of the self-styled hair do. My only request before camp started is that she got help at least once a day to brush it out good.



Still cute from the front!

Meanwhile, Avery relishes the joys of being a dude with outdoor plumbing. Field Two doesn't have a restroom real close by, so he always wants to use the great outdoors.

Which isn't a problem with me, as long as he goes around BEHIND the building. Oh well.

I love it when the nurse for the session is a favorite friend. Nurse Jenny flashes her gang sign.

"Nurse Jenny, I think we have a problem over here."

"Or maybe it's over there."

Shannon has been a bicycling fool all summer. Except for the endo he did at this field when he tried to ride through a narrow ditch (and literally flew over the handlebars), he is a fearless rider. I've always said he'll be the one whose last words will be, "Hey y'all, watch this!"





His only complaint is that his bike doesn't have gears. Do they even make bikes for five year olds with gears? I have no doubt he could handle them.

I have to agree with him about it needing gears.

I got a few shots from the last night of Amelia's session called Tribal Council, where the tribes compete in a series of games and activities. I was too busy yakking to get her competing in her game though.

Balloons filled with shaving cream must be popped and the shaving cream is carried back to a staffer. Tribes try to get the most shaving cream to their person during the round.

It somehow mysteriously ends up other places too. Like all over faces and in outrageous shaving cream hair do's.

Elizabeth watches from her perch.

Another game is called "Face the Cookie."

Competitors try to get a cookie from their forehead into their mouths without using their hands.

This is Jacob, my friend Becky's son. He's got good cookie handling skills.

At least it doesn't look ridiculous.

Success!

Noah, who goes to our church. If you didn't know what was going on here you might think this is a form of hot cookie forehead torture (truly grisly, trust me), or maybe that an alien took on cookie form and is sucking out his brain.

Waya cheers! (Or is it Wayas cheer?)

Here's Cricket (Michael) getting ready for every staffer's favorite game, Coolest Counselor. Kids are about to fill his shirt with ice. There's also a representative from the Waya tribe, Google (Aaron)....

...who looks like he's about to have an ice, ice baby just any second. Brrrr!!!!!

The campers love it when the staff compete. Nothing like transferring marshmallows to a bowl at another table using just Vaseline and your nose.

Blech!

Babushka and the Outlaw. A new series Tuesday nights on NBC.

The last evening Lifeline (what we call our devotional times) is done by the lake. We have a theme for the summer and all the Lifelines follow and build on the theme. This summer it was Faith: Where's Yours? Rambo does a great job with these.

He commands fire too. Cool.

The day the parents come to pick up their campers we do a final closing program in the gym. Performance oriented classes show what they've learned, including gymnastics, dance, drama, and drumline (percussion class). My camera didn't like the light in the gym so I only got one okay picture of Amelia with her dance class.

They did a pretty lengthy routine considering how few days they had to learn it. She's now officially a Michael Jackson fan. (Part of the dance was to a snippet of "Beat It." We heard it on the radio on an 80's weekend program a few days ago and she asked me to play it again. I guess part of school this year will include learning how a radio works.)

She had a wonderful camp session and enjoyed all five of her activities of choice very much- horseback riding, arts and crafts, dance, gymnastics, and swimming. She made new friends, had a blast with old ones, and thoroughly enjoyed the staff. She was really bummed when we said no to her attending fourth session. If we let her go all summer there's no magic left for next summer! I have a feeling we'll be attending Strong Rock Camp again. If you ever need a reference from a parent, give me a call. :)

Amelia's summer fun continued the next week. She and I went to Six Flags together, and because I wasn't interested in either hauling around or ruining a camera on water rides, all we got were a few shots on a disposable one. Of course I've yet to develop it. Six Flags does a reading program for kids where they track their hours and earn a ticket. A local homeschooling mom coordinates it for our area, and because I'm Amelia's teacher I got a ticket too. That was a fun day. It had been about 8 years since I had been. She was tall enough to ride a lot more than I thought she would be, and even rode the Mind Bender with me. (Still one of my favorite roller coasters.) We were hot, sweaty, and thoroughly tired at the end of the day, but happy. I again decided that I hate getting older. I didn't used to get dizzy on rides. My theory is that the liquid in your inner ear that helps you maintain balance gets old and stale and therefore doesn't work properly.

One more picture to end this post.

Rambo, a cycling fool. Can't think of too many people who consider "Cycling Fool" to be a compliment, but I think he would. He accomplishes amazing feats of distance, altitude, and speed on a bike. He hit 57 mph on his bike on one of his mountain rides lately. He was BREAKING THE LAW on a bicycle. Crazy man. (I'd rather he didn't tell me such things...)

I have many, many more pictures to post and smart aleck comments to make, but this project always proves more time consuming that I think it should be, so I'm done for now. I'll do my best to get to the next post soon. Tomorrow officially starts our first day of school (I've decided), so in not too many hours second grade and kindergarten will commence at the Himstedt Preparatory School for Boys and Girls. I also have to drive 45 minutes each way for Elizabeth's two year check up with the rest in tow (which I had nearly forgotten about), and am supposed to meet with James, Daniel, and Rebecca for a little while tomorrow. Maybe school can wait until Tuesday.

'Night!