A tale of two camps

Over Labor Day, we had the privilege of attending family camp down in Iowa at Hidden Acres. Sara's sister Barb and her family were there as well as Sara's parents. We had a blast! The kids swam, rode horses, made rope, were in a sidewalk chalk contest, went to kids chapel, played with cousins, and Luke participated in the cardboard boat races. The rules were this:

1. Materials can only be: cardboard boxes and 1 roll of duct tape per boat.

2. Participants must be 18 or younger.

4. Fastest time paddling across the pond wins.

3. Have fun!

The results were highly entertaining.

Luke and Andy with the craft they had built.

The participants getting ready to paddle across the pond. Also in this picture are my mom, sister Barb, her son Jake and daughter Maggie (who also raced in Luke's heat) and Barb's father-in-law Arlyn Abrams, helping Maggie with her boat.And they are off! A minute after this picture, Maggie had capsized (good thing she was wearing her goggles:) ) and Luke was adrift at sea, or in this case, pond.

Daddy to the rescue! Andy was the only parent to get wet. In his defense, Luke was the youngest person captaining a vessel by a few years. We forget that he is only 4 sometimes!

Family camp was indeed a great time! We saw many, many old friends, and it was fun to go back to a place that has such special memories for us and to have our kids experience Hidden Acres.

THIS weekend, we just got back from Antioch's third annual fall retreat held at Camp Shamineau! Always a great time, we look forward to it every year. This year Luke decided he wanted to do the zipline in the high ropes course. The plan was for him to be strapped to Andy and zipline across this very steep gorge. Ava thought that would be an OK idea as well, as long as she were strapped to mom. Great. Well, Luke marched up to the platform and stated, "I'll do it myself." And then he did.

After going once strapped to me (it was actually kind of fun), not to be out done by her brother, Ava decided to give it a shot. She was a little more nervous.But she did great! What a trooper!And then they each went a few more times. By his fifth time, Luke was quite the stunt man, doing no hands and laying horizontal. The guy running the zipline exclaimed to me on a few occasions, "He is really comfortable! I've never seen someone his age do this!" Hmm, should that worry me?And then because the zipline wasn't enough, Luke had to climb something. This really tall pine tree with little staples to hang on to. Hard to tell in this picture, but he is a good 15 (maybe more?) feet off the ground. I know this because you climb an 8 foot ladder just to get to the first rung, and the ladder isn't even close to being in the picture. The kid fearless.

To sum it up, camp is great. We love it! And now we sleep.