Preteen Camp

July 14 - 18, 2008, Preteen Camp at Wheat State Campground. There were about 300 kids there, maybe not quite that much, but pretty close to it. Fun was had by most of us... lol. As with girls, aged 11 - 13, drama happens occasionally. But all in all, the girls from our church were above and beyond with their behavior. They were kind to each other, compassionate, reached out to the other girls in our cabin from the other churches... and Meg & I were very proud of them. We arrived on Monday around 1 PM. Left Friday at noon. It's about 4 hours away from Kansas City. The boys and girls rode together on the church van, but once we got to camp, there was very little mixing of the boys and girls, much to the kids' chagrin... oh well. They still had lots of fun. The activities throughout the week included: rock climbing, blobbing, paintball, prayer walk, ultimate frisbee, double kickball, water games, tie-dying t-shirts, missions, basketball, and a couple hours of free time every day. The kids were wonderful, at least the ones from our church. Oh, I said that already, didn't I?

And Meg.... I'm gonna talk as a mom for a minute: She was WONDERFUL!!! She has a gift for working with these kids, and the whole entire week, I never saw a sad look on her face, or an attitude!!! She was in her element, and it showed! The girls all loved her, and she loved them back. She prayed with some of them at the altar, she hung out with them all the time, she played with them (as I did), and she contributed to our cabin devotions. I was one very proud mom!!

Here are some pics, a few of the 500 pictures I took this week. I plan on downloading them onto discs for the girls, and to make a scrapbook from Shutterfly to leave at the church. We had a terrific time, and hopefully these pictures will show you a bit of that...

Meghan is tie-dying her t-shirt. Fun times!
In this picture, Kaleigh & April are writing the skit that our cabin girls performed during the Talent Show. Their skit was great! The skit was called "Extreme Makeover: Soul Edition" The kids made that up, and I was impressed! The premise was that there would be a reporter and she interviewed the rest of the cabin girls (17 of them) and they told what their life was like before Jesus came into their lives, and then how it changed, once they let Jesus into their lives. They played roles such as a lifeguard, a professional singer, sports people, teachers, authors, and such, and then after they were interviewed, they went to their place in a cross formation. It was very cool. I thought our girls cabin performed the best. Although, the pillow people dancing to "Drive the Bus" was hilarious too!
Wednesday night was "Carnival Night"... they brought in inflatables, lots of them, and sno-cone machines, and we had a blast! Here is a picture of Meg & Lauren. Lauren won the award for the "sweetest" camper in our cabin.
Oh, dang.... I thought I was downloading the picture of my bullseye! I made a bullseye in target shooting... Oh well, this pic is from someone elses' shots. I'll have to find my picture and add it later.
Here's our group, after we paintballed. Or before? I can't remember. I got killed twice... the first time by Meghan, and the 2nd time by Cassie, one of my former choir students.... LOL. The first one was in the shoulder, and the 2nd one was on my upper chest.... boy did that hurt! But, totally fun!!!
Okay, here's Meg by the "pond". Ugh.... what dirty water.... all sandy and brown. I did NOT swim in it.... no way!!! Neither did Meg.... this is as far as she went into the water.... basically ankle deep. LOL

Here are some of our girls having fun at the "pond"... silly girls....
I think this picture was ytaken in the cafeteria, after a meal.... Just being goofy....
Emma & me, with her silly glasses... they got these glasses at the "missions" activity.... to see others differently...
This picture is from the water games.... the people in charge of this activity took a t-shirt, got it wet and wadded it up and froze it. The girls had to divide into two teams, and race to see who could undo their frozen shirt first.... then do a relay with it, taking it on and off, and dumping it into a big bucket of ice water... This team won. After that, Meg & I got the super soakers out and had a blast with the girls.... and in the process, we both got soaked!!! Fun times...

And that's my life so far...