Its hard to believe September is almost gone. Our weather has been warm, even hot on some days, but you can tell summer is just about spent.
CAMPING. I think the highlight of life these last couple of weeks has been camping. This is the first time we’ve ever been camping as a family. A few weeks ago Vicki found a deal on a tent. At 10’ x 16’ it’s large enough for all of us to sleep comfortably. It has two rooms and a porch.
We went camping down at the river in Milldale weekend before last (Friday the 12th), and it turned out to be a really fun event. Lori, Andrew, and Wil camped out as well (Kenny came, but does not camp). As we talked about it at church the Sunday and Wednesday before, three other families decided to come too, which made for a fun time. All the kids had a lot of fun playing in the river, and when the adults weren’t playing in the river with them we had a great time just visiting around the campfire. Mom and Aunt Mar even came down for supper and sat around the fire with us for quite a while.
When Mom and Aunt Mar left I loaded all the kids in the back of the truck to take them up to the barn where they could use an actual bathroom if they wanted. What was so neat was that they just started spontaneously singing in the back of the truck. They serenaded me with songs like Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star; BINGO; Jesus Loves Me; etc. Kenny, of course, treated everyone to a scary story. His rendition of the Carr’s Creek Critter (a local story) had several of the kids sort of worried about sleeping in a tent by the river. His next story was Samson and Delilah which calmed everyone down and got them giggling. He chose Nate to play Delilah (a role Ben passed up) and one of the little girls to play Samson (hence all the giggling). Both kids really hammed up their parts.
I had to laugh at Nate who seems to be turning into our little comedian, or trying to at least. He had taken his bear to school Friday for Show and Tell, claiming it was his bear’s birthday. That night he tried to organize a birthday party for his bear around the campfire. Sadly, none of the other kids seemed to want to join in. Not to be deterred I saw him trying his hand at comic relief several other times. Once I noticed him walking holding his lawn chair up to his bottom and saying, “Help! My chair is pushing me. Help!”
We didn’t get to bed until midnight.
The next morning we got up with the birds (because Ben and Nate were awake and kept sitting on their sleeping bags saying, “I’m bored.”) When the rest of the camp woke up all the play seemed to resume where it left off the previous evening. After breakfast we began packing up to go home.
You know, the only bad thing about camping is the amount of stuff you have to haul with you. The back of my truck was full just to go three miles down the road and stay one night.
CAMPING, PART 2. Ben and I went camping Friday night (the 19th). This event was a Baptist Associational RA camp out. It was held at Coldstream Christian Camp in Adams. There were about 100 men and boys there from across Robertson County, with ten of us representing Mt. Carmel.
Coldstream Camp has eight primitive cabins along with a field where people can set up tents. There’s hiking, basketball, an obstacle course, and a 14 acre lake. We didn’t bring our fishing poles but several people did and caught quite a few large mouth bass. The boys enjoyed paddling a boat on the lake. When they got back to shore they discovered a chicken snake had been riding in the boat with them the whole time. It’s a good thing the snake didn’t slide out from under the seat while there were out on the lake.
There’s also a zip line across one end of the lake. Ben rode this twice. The first time he traveled a good 100 feet out the line before falling into the water. The second time he didn’t realize the handle was tethered to the tower and barely got away from the tower before dropping about ten feet to the water. He came up grinning from ear to ear.
GROWING UP FAST. To understand this you need to know that East Robertson Elementary puts out a weekly newsletter which we stick to the fridge. This paper includes the lunch menu for the upcoming week. Jenna came in the kitchen one morning wondering aloud what was for lunch. Ben, who was eating breakfast, told her. This must have surprised Jenna a bit because she asked, “How’d you know that?”
“Well, I read it,” came his reply.
Taken aback, Jenna said, “Man, he’s just growing up too fast. I forgot he can read now!”
Joe
