Laura and I tend to take a selfie together every year and every year she looks radiant, while my hair wilts under the camp humidity and different well water. Further evidence? Here's last year's selfie:
Wilting hair or not, it is always fun to hang out with these friends during meetings and classes and meals. Here's a shot taken at the concert with my friends, Cheryl and Linda:
Trevor had a couple of good buddies this year, as well. Here's one of his friends, Emmett, at the low ropes course during a Jr. CBLI outing:
Trevor also made a new friend this year named Jaylen. They had a blast hanging out together, watching old videos of Bryce doing dangerous things on his old You Tube channel from back when he was ten (things like lighting his hand on fire with rubbing alcohol, yikes). I think we convinced Jaylen that Bryce was a wild and crazy guy when he was Trevor's age.
Free time didn't end up playing out as I had anticipated (hours of time to myself while the boys went off on their own). Sean simply wouldn't go off on his own. He wanted to be with me every minute that was available to him. I still ended up with some reading time, because Trevor would go off on his own and Sean would simply lie in the top bunk playing on his I-pod while I read, but naps were impossible and I tried hard to limit the time they spent simply hanging out on their devices.
Trevor fell in love with one free-time activity this year - a game called Nine Square:
Even though it was in the Jr. High area, he played it alongside the big kids every chance he got.
Sadly, the air hockey equipment was once again broken and on our one trip in to Walmart, we forgot to pick up a new set of puck and paddles. But, the boys did spend a fair amount of time playing ping-pong (something they are improving at every year):
Sean and I went to the zip line three times during the week (I went down only twice because there were usually long lines of teens):
On Wednesday, during the Family Day activities, they brought in a bicycle stunt team called Real Encounters. It was an awesome show with lots of flips and tricks and air-time. I failed to take a picture, but thankfully a friend posted this shot, with a Scripture verse, on his Facebook page:
Sean was asked to fill a special role in the final awards program on Saturday night. The Jr. CBLI track performed two numbers and then Sean and one of the girls in the program presented the totals raised for the boys-against-the-girls competition to raise money for a Kindergarten in Mali:
After determining the total amount raised by the kids (some $900 - sadly, the boys lost and their leaders took a pie to the face later), Sean was asked to say a prayer over the donation:
Both boys were pleased to learn that they won a Jr. CBLI award for "the most gentlemanly brothers." I was thrilled that their head leader pulled me aside to tell me how well behaved and wonderful my boys were. Those are the kind of words a mother loves to hear.
The only sad ending to our time at camp came on Saturday morning. John called to say that he had a flat tire and wouldn't be able to come up to visit us at camp for the last bit of the weekend as he had planned. The boys were crushed, but I was thankful that he discovered the flat in the garage prior to departure, instead of somewhere on the road. Sunday morning we loaded up and after the morning service, departed for home to once again sleep in our own beds and eat familiar food.
After two lazy days at home, the boys headed off to the first day of school on Wednesday (and so begins another fall of writing, editing, querying, and dreaming).
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