Jonathan's Time at Camp

The day after we returned from family camp, we took Jonathan to camp - a week of camp for kids his age, and without us.  It's hard to believe we have a kiddo old enough to go to camp on his own, but…here we are!  We had been anticipating this week for several months.  As it happened, Jonathan had the opportunity to go to camp where I had volunteered a lot and worked a little, once upon a time.  My boss was the evening speaker for the week, Jonathan knew two boys in his cabin because their parents are old, dear friends of mine, I was on staff with all the boys' parents but one, and, best of all, his cabin counselor was Ryan…I won't explain the many connections to Ryan, but his wife, Kathy, and I have been dear friends for many years.  That's too many things in a sentence to connect with too many commas, but I'm not going back to fix it now!

The camp has a Sherwood Forest theme, hence the green tunics.  Here's Jonathan the afternoon we dropped him off...

and with the guys in his cabin.

The rest of our crew goofed around in the forest briefly before leaving Jonathan.

Benjamin said, "Look at this acorn I found!"

Jonathan and his good buddy, Paul, both just happened to bring the same book to camp.  I'm sure they had plenty to talk about during the week…and may have driven the other boys a bit crazy in the process.

One last picture with Daddy.

See Benajmin?

A huge perk of going up to camp (for the first time in 15 years for me) was seeing these wonderful ladies.  We had been on staff together once upon a time.  Although I had already known some of them before this, our time on staff certainly cemented our friendship.  All of us had boys in the same cabin:  Kathuccino, Sarahmony, me, Heather Forecast, and Without a Trace.

 

I had wondered what it would be like to leave Jonathan for a whole week.  The only other time Jeff and I had been away from him for that long was for our 10th anniversary trip, and my mom took care of him when he was almost four.  That was a wonderful week, but this was different.  It was a big opportunity for me to trust God and the very capable camp staff to take care of him.  It did put my mind at ease to know that Ryan was his cabin counselor.  And, this part surprised me, but I had the most exhilarating feeling bringing him to camp that day - to share a place with him that was so special and influential in my life - and to see that it was going to become special to him, too.  To remember how my relationship with God grew and changed at camp, and to give Jonathan the opportunity to experience that, too - well, I just can't put into words how happy that made me.  It was amazing.  I'm so grateful.

After dropping Jonathan off at camp, a few of the families of campers went to the lake to catch up and let our littler kids play before going home.  Here are Grace and Olivia entertaining themselves.  I should mention that Kathy and Olivia stayed up at camp for part of the week and updated me on how Jonathan was doing, and those updates we priceless!  They also visited our house during the week, and I loved that chance to catch up with Kathy.

Finally, a week later, I went (on my own this time) to pick up Jonathan.  He was happy to see me but was in no huge hurry to leave.  He was sad that his week was over.  He said that it was the awesomest week that he ever had, that it was so fun that he had short-term memory loss, and that he would never worry about getting dirty again.  Also, that he liked it as much as family camp.  Lots of high praise from a boy who is often reserved with his opinions.

Here are the boys enjoying their last breakfast.  Jonathan must have enjoyed a whole week without me bugging him to put his knee down while eating.

This is the lower of the two stumps to climb near his cabin.

And here we are on it.

The "youngers" and I made this sign to welcome Jonathan home.  When Jeff, B, and G came out to welcome us home from our drive, the sign was gone.  We can't decide whether we think the wind or a neighborhood kid did away with it, but Jonathan didn't get to see it.  I'm glad I took a picture of it before we left!  Most of all, I'm thankful that Jonathan had a week away from the distractions of home to have an amazing week at camp.