Our church puts on a family camp each year for families that have kids in elementary school. We had never heard about this until this year since we now have a kiddo in kindergarten. When I heard about this I was unsure but a few friends in our community group and our family decided to give it a try. I'm so glad we did because we all had a blast!
This is us setting out for camp and wondering exactly what it was going to be like.
When we arrived there were a group of high schoolers called sterns (student interns for the summer at Fellowship) greeted us and unloaded our car for us. Neal and I want to take them everywhere we travel because our overpacked car was unloaded in 3 minutes. We found our cabin and settled in a bit. Then we went exploring a little and found some of our friends.
The sterns were so helpful all weekend and our girls had such a blast getting to "hang out" with highs schoolers. Our favorite part was that they would sit with the kids at meals and take them outside to play so that we could enjoy the end of our meals with adult friends.
The camp, New Life Ranch, was a really fun place. It had a creek with a bunch of water activities on it (a blob, a couple of big slides, monkey bars & zip line across the creek & more). The grown men and couple of boys did some of these activities and then we all went down to the more shallow part and played in the creek for a bit.
On the island across from the creek they have a big zip line, rock climbing wall and bungee thing they call the screamer. Reese and Ella both did the screamer and had a blast.
One day our mid day entertainment was that Mercy's helecoptor had to land in the middle of the camp. There was a wreck on the highway down the street from the camp and the helecoptor needed to get the lady involved in the wreck and the only place it could land was in the field on the campgrounds. They came in and got the lady and later we got reports that she was going to be okay. I'm sure that she loved having an audience of hundreds of people while she was being transported from the ambulance to helecoptor on the stretcher, but at that point I guess it probably didn't matter to her. Glad she's okay!!
We had multiple family services and these kids had so much fun together.
One day we did a selfie scavenger hunt. Neal and I had a lot of fun with this and the girls enjoyed it in parts but it was hot and a lot of walking, they complained a lot. I think this was their least favorite part of camp...but they love looking at the selfies.
Rock Stars-
Silly faces-
I mentioned earlier that the grown men did the lake activities. Our friend Jason blobbed our friend Trent and he got some good air. It was fun to watch.
Trent caught a fish while we were playing in the river. The kids loved touching the fish.
The girls loved the pool and the camp is finishing up a huge, really fun looking pool so next year we are excited to use that one.
Our sweet neighbor gave us this scooter that Ella always uses. Ella loves it and both of the girls traveled everywhere on their scooters.
This is the group that went with us from our community group. Next year we are hoping a few more from our group will be interested after hearing about all of the fun.
One of our favorite parts was the last service on Monday morning was outside by the canoe dock. They did baptisms and it was really sweet to watch these amazing fathers' baptize their children. It was great for our girls to see and spurred lots of good questions.
The strangest part of family camp was being completely disconnected. There was no cell service whatsoever. It was really good for us. When we first got to our rooms the girls wanted to know where the tv was. When we told them we wouldn't have tv they collectively decided camp was going to be so boring. It was great for them to see that we don't need technology to have an awesome time. We all had a blast and I think it will be an annual trip. Reese even said it was just as much fun as Disney...Ella wasn't sure about that.
This summer has been a really fun one. The girls are to a fun age and are more flexible than they've been in past years. The girls adore swimming and have both become such strong swimmers, they are little fish. While I constantly watch them I'm glad I don't have to worry quite as much now that both of them are fully comfortable swimming long distances underwater...it makes pool time so much more fun. We've spent so much time outside and now that it's so hot we spend the majority of our time in the water. I'm thankful for a neighborhood with so many fun friends to play and swim with, almost everyday it seems.
