A Scrapbook of Sorts: All About Family Camp, Part 1

Consider yourself warned: These next two posts are very long!

But, here's the short part of the story: Jeff is in between jobs, and unexpectedly, too. No, it's not a bad thing...his next job starts in July, and we are very, very thankful for the timing of everything. God has taken great care of us. And the great thing about being in between jobs is that we get some extra time with Jeff without burning any vacation days. We had all of last week without any solid commitments in it, so we started brainstorming how we might use it to make some great memories as a family. Go to the coast? Disneyland? Canada? Hawaii? Family camp? Well, as you already know from the title of this post, we narrowed down our options and decided to go to family camp. We realized that doing anything with our kids at this age would be a lot of work, but family camp seemed like the best option of all of them. Plus, Dave and Jen encouraged us to go, and we had been hearing great things about family camp for a long time. We registered just a few days beforehand and were excited to find out that they had room for us. We weren't disappointed!

Here are a ton of pictures, and not all in order, but I hope you enjoy them! After doing laundry and packing for myself and the kids (yes, Jeff has to pack for himself,) we made it up to camp. Jen hauled two pack 'n plays and a backpack up for us. As you can imagine, our Subaru Outback wouldn't hold us, our stuff, and the pack 'n plays.

On the first afternoon, camp started with a carnival, and both kids got their face painted. Jonathan requested a red admiral butterfly, which he described to the painter.

This is what Grace looked like after dinner, watermelon, and ice cream, as we walked back to our room for bed.

Getting everyone to sleep the first night was rough. I won't lie...I thought we might have made a mistake coming to camp while the kids were so young and trying to get our small children to sleep in one room. At one point they were all crying. After they got to sleep, though, they were fine for the night, and after we made it through the first 24 hours, we got into a groove. I'll show where Grace slept later on in the pictures...

This particular camp is steeped in tradition. Some families were there with three generations and had been coming to family camp for several decades. We were a bit of a novelty since we were first-timers. Our first-time status earned us a place in the Newlywed Game. (Obviously, we were not newlyweds!) The camp had a speaker time for the adults each morning and each evening, and we really enjoyed both speakers. I didn't get sleepy while listening, despite my sleep deprivation.

You'll notice that my camp posts are heavy on ropes course pictures. This isn't because we spent most of our time on the ropes course, but because a lot of our time was spent managing our kids, and we didn't take pictures of that. :) In this picture, Jeff and Jonathan are getting ready for the climbing wall.

That's my boy! Can you believe it? I'm pretty proud of him. He made it about halfway up.

The grounds were beautiful...in the heart of the redwoods. Being in so much green was wonderful. Green is not a word you'd use to describe where we live in the summer, so the lush greenery was refreshing.

Jeff went on the redwood canopy tour. He loved it. He told me, of course, "You'd hate it." I wish I wasn't afraid of heights.

Yup, I'd hate it.

In the afternoons, one of us would usually let the younger kids take a nap while the other did something fun with Jonathan. On the canopy tour day, I had all the kids, and they did great resting (or reading, in Jonathan's case) while Jeff was on the redwood zip line.

Craziness.

Jeff and Jonathan went on the low ropes course together, and Jonathan made it all the way through. I say "low," but I mean 15-20 feet in the air. I'm thankful that Jonathan doesn't take after me and is not afraid of heights!

Benjamin took a lot of snoozes in the Ergo carrier, but he did manage to squeeze in some good afternoon sleeps in the pack 'n play. This was his first experience being dropped off at a nursery, and I took advantage of that service for him each day, usually after feeding him. We got lots of practice nursing in public. There were plenty of adults there for the number of babies in the nursery, and he got lots of holding and attention.

I managed to get Grace and Benjamin bathed. Once. I know the Bumbo is specifically not for the bathtub, but "you gotta do what you gotta do."

A famous banana slug. This one is all scrunched up, not stretched out to its full, slimy 2-3" glory. No, I didn't kiss it.

On Wednesday, we rode the open-air train down to the coast. Here I am with my dear friend, Jen, who invited us to camp, showed us around, introduced us to her friends, and made us feel welcome. This picture is with our "babies." When I met Jen, she was pregnant with Delia.