Adventure Camp!

Last week the kids had their first VBS experience for 2018. They only were able to attend 2 of the 5 nights (and actually arrived late one of those nights due to tennis lessons), but one of the VBS programs they are going to attend next month is using the same curriculum. This week our church is having their VBS from 9-12. All the other VBS programs they will be or have attended are in the evening. In fact even our church had it at night last year. Our church only holds VBS for four days, and today is the first day. Both Ian and Oliver will attend today and tomorrow, and only Oliver will attend on Friday. Neither can make it on Thursday.

This week is the first week this summer that any of the kids are participating in a camp. Nadia is attending Adventure Camp at Bloomsburg University from 9-4 for five days. The camp is for 8-13 year olds. They have two groups one for 8-10 year olds and the other for 11-13 year olds and all up to ten children per age group to attend each week. Last week was the first week they offered the camp this summer. This week there are ten

children in the older group and only five in the younger group. In Nadia's group there are two boys and three girls. Although she said she had fun yesterday, they were doing teambuilding games yesterday, which wasn't what attracted her to sign up for the program. Today she will be hiking at Ricketts Glen State Park. Hiking definitely isn't her favorite activity, but the rest of the week they are to be doing things like climbing rock walls, kayaking, and high ropes/ zip-line. Those are the activities she was most looking forward to doing. Ian surprised me months ago and said he WOULD be interested in doing this camp, but knowing how fearful he is of things like rock walls, I didn't sign him up. Nadia said he would have enjoyed yesterday's activities. I ended up signing him up for Young Explorer camp at Camp Susque, which is basically a three night summer camp experience. Those who are going into third grade have their choice of either participating in the short week with the younger children OR the full week with the older boys. This will be his first experience going to an overnight camp. I am taking him

up there tomorrow afternoon, and we'll pick him up on Saturday morning. I hope he has a blast!

Our neighbor is going to take our boys to VBS tomorrow morning and Friday morning as she will also be taking her two kids there Wednesday through Friday. The neighbor couldn't go today so Paul agreed to take Nadia to Adventure Camp today as both camps start at 9AM in towns that are 30 minutes apart from each other. I am very grateful as yesterday the boys and I did a lot of driving. We left the house at 8:10, dropped Nadia off at camp, and then I took the boys to a playground in Bloomsburg for about an hour. We left around 10am, shopped at Walmart, and then drove to the park in our town so the boys could have their free lunch. Yesterday they served hotdogs, bananas, oranges, peanuts, and apple pie. After the boys ate and played a little, we went home and were there for about three hours before we drove back to BU to get Nadia. To make two round trips to BU and back means driving for about 2 hour 40 minutes total. I'm very

thankful that yesterday was the only day I'll make two complete round trips between home and BU on the same day. I'm only picking her up today. Tomorrow I'm only taking her as Paul will pick her up as I'll be driving home from Camp Susque with the boys. On Friday I'm only taking her because Paul is going to pick her up just to help me out (very grateful!). On Thursday I'll be dropping her off and picking her up but I won't be coming home in between. Instead I'll be taking Oliver, the babysitter, and her two sons to Montage Mountain water park for a few hours. All three kids have tennis lessons this evening in Bloomsburg from 5-6 so I am going to take them to Wendy's for dinner (Kid's meals are on sale for 1.99 each there) in between picking Nadia up and taking them to tennis. On Thursday only Nadia and Oliver will have tennis lessons as Ian will be at Camp Susque. Next week all three kids are going to the same horseback riding camp so it won't be as tricky as this week when they are doing different things!

This does mean I will have about 6 hours of time without kiddos this week. Today I am going to use my time to buy a few things for Nadia at Walmart, go to the library, and get some work done on my laptop for homeschooling next year. When I have had free time over the past month I have struggled with whether to try to get things accomplished (work around the house, preparing for the fall semester, homeschooling preparation, cooking, etc.) OR take some time to relax (such as leisure reading). Yesterday I read while the boys played at the playground. I definitely need some down time like that this summer as that was sorely lacking from my life from August through early May. I am trying to streamline my to do list to what is really necessary for me to accomplish. I think this will be the first year in the last 24 that I won't be buying any mulch. It's just not important enough to me this year to expend the energy for that annual project. I have a feeling picking strawberries is going to be the first thing on our summer bucket list that I decide to skip this year. I've been buying some strawberries at the grocery store. Hopefully that will suffice for this year! We do have some blueberries growing on our blueberry bush, but the birds or some other animal might get them before we do. At this point I'm still planning to pick blueberries sometime next month. They are Nadia's most favorite fruit and so expensive to buy at the grocery store so I am more motivated to pick those ourselves!