A Camping We Will Go!

The delay in posts was due to the girls and I being in NY at my childhood summer camp. Camp Hunt, a christian camp for kids in upstate NY, is a HUGE part of my life. I met my college roommate there when I was in 3rd grade, I met my first boyfriend there, I had my first kiss there and I had the opportunity every summer to grow closer to God. Not a bad deal. I volunteer there as a Bible class teacher and try to go the same week as my sister. Katie and I were up there with our 4 kids....by ourselves. I'll give you a moment to let your minds wander to a land where a 3 and a half year old, a 14 month old and two 10 month olds outnumber their parental unit 2:1.

The girls actually did really well, in my opinion. We ran into a couple bumps in the road, as expected. The conditions at our 60 year old camp (with some facilities that old also), is not exactly accommodating to 10 month olds. Especially 10 month olds that are used to air conditioning...which we don't have at camp. I think that may have been some of the reasons for the poor sleeping they had while there. I'm talking about only taking one nap a day, waking up all night and not going back to sleep kind of sleeping issues. It also probably didn't help that there is a huge bell that rings almost every hour and the friendly trumpet that sounds at night and the morning. They weren't exactly used to those kinds of sleeping conditions.

Simple things, like bathing the girls becomes a whole adventure. First I have to strip them down to their diapers and load them into their stroller to make the trek to the girls shower house, as seen below.

(I think the accommodations at camp are making a little more sense to you now). We have to go to the shower house because it is the only place at camp, besides the mess hall kitchens, that has sinks large enough to bathe the girls.


Also, we were without our baby jail, so the girls were on the loose. They would continually disappear and I would look down the hall in the lodge and see this.

(Don't mind the unknown stain on the floor. That is just part of the Diehl Lodge experience!)

When we are home, we aren't out on a lawn very often so all the green, wide open space was very interesting to them. Here are the girls at the top of the hill, with their backs to the soccer and baseball field.





Later on we took them down to the sports fields to wander around. They enjoyed messing around on the logs that the kids use as seats by the athletic fields.






Since you are in nature, you have to watch out for all sorts of insect bites. Especially the Jamison bites. Oh...you haven't heard of those? They show up like this on your children.



The little bugger traditionally looks like this.



Yup, Jaime took a bite out of Maddie. Katie justified it by saying that he only bites people he likes. So, sorry Ruthie. Your cousin apparently favors your sister. It is no wonder. Maddie literally followed Jaime everywhere he went around camp. Still not a reason to bite my child.

One of my absolutely favorite things about camp are the clouds. Here are some awesome pictures of clouds with my children in the shots, of course!






Even though it was hard work, I wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else that week. I'm excited for camp to be as special of a place to Ruthie and Maddie as it is to me.