Camping!

We are not the camping type. We own three sleeping bags but don't own any tents. The past four days our church has had VBS from 9-12. We had about 180 "campers" come each day from age 3- completed 5th grade. It was called "Camp Wannastay." Each day one of the classes (K-5) had a turn on the water inflatables. Even though it was a very rainy week, the Lord graciously held off the rain during the time the kids were on the inflatables each day. Oliver only attended on Tuesday and Wednesday because he was at Camp Susque the past two days. Thankfully, the first graders had their turn on the inflatables on Wednesday. Ian's class (grades 2/3) was the biggest one this week. There were around 50 kids in that group each day. His class used the inflatables yesterday, and Nadia's class (grades 4/5) had their turn today. I helped out in crafts, which is somewhat ironic. The kids earned points for various things such as saying their Bible verse. Oliver's team won first place, but he didn't get one of the prizes since he wasn't there today. Ian's team came in third place, which meant he came home with a water bottle. Nadia's team came in second place; she came home with a drawstring bag and a sandwich bag that contained the makings for a s'more. 

Oliver has been at Camp Susque since Wednesday at 2pm. It is his first experience at an overnight camp. They have posted pictures on Facebook of the kids doing a variety of things - hayride, nature class, making s'mores, chapel, swimming in the pool, etc. I only spotted Oliver in one picture thus far. It feels a bit like "where's Waldo" trying to find your child in any of the pictures. Hopefully he's having a great time! He's staying in the Susquehannamo Tent pictured above. He's pictured with his counselor - Chief Jon. I can't wait to wrap my arms around him tomorrow morning!!!! Ian goes to camp tomorrow; it will be his second time at Camp Susque and first time staying there for seven nights. The camp would let us drop him off at 10:00am when we're picking up Oliver to save us a trip. If it was Nadia, I would have done that as she would love to have 6 extra hours at camp. I didn't think that would be Ian's preference. We'll come home for a couple of hours, see Toy Story 4, and then take Ian to camp. Nadia and Ian bowled two games on Wednesday on our way home from camp. I had signed the up for the Kids Bowl Free program, and since I had gotten them bowling shoes for Christmas - we didn't pay a penny to bowl on Wednesday since I didn't bowl. I'm planning on taking Oliver and Nadia bowling on Saturday on our way home after we've taken Ian to camp. Ian won both games of bowling. With bumpers the scores were 71 and 63 in the first game and 94 and 86 in the second game. I'm hoping they improve over the course of the summer. 

Yesterday we had planned to go to a water park after VBS. When I saw the weather forecast I didn't know what to do. The Weather Channel's forecast looked grim - thunderstorms, hail, etc. from 1-9pm. Accuweather's forecast was far more optimistic and only showed thunderstorms for a couple of hours in the afternoon. If the water park was closer to our house we would have given it a whirl because we were able to have six free tickets yesterday. Since it's 75 minutes from our house, the thought of possibly driving 2.5 hours round trip in vain was too big of a deterrent for us. I felt really badly because originally I had invited three girls to Nadia's party, but only one was able to come in the end, and they were supposed to do a big zip line (it's at a place that is a ski resort in the winter) plus the water park, and that didn't happen. If we hadn't just gone to the movie theater on Tuesday and already had tickets for this Saturday, I'd have taken them to see a movie yesterday. Nadia didn't want to go bowling. We just stayed home. The girls made cookie dough that I turned into one GIANT cookie (Nadia's request). They played inside and outside. We played board games. They watched a few episodes of the Brady Bunch. I played Blokus, Rummikub, and Sorry with Ian while the girls played together because when Grace is here then Ian loses his playmate. I feel like I don't do a very good job at planning birthday parties for the kids, but Nadia didn't say anything negative so I think it bothered me more than it bothered her. It just felt like a sleepover instead of a "birthday party" as she didn't open any gifts and only had one friend over. We did sing the happy birthday song before they ate their slices of the birthday cookie. On Monday (her actual birthday) she and I are having a very special day together- painting at the Milton library, lunch at Perkins, manicures at the spa, books from the Lewisburg library, donuts from Dunkin' Donut, and frozen yogurt at Sweet Frog. On Monday she'll be opening her gifts from Paul and I. I let her start her bag of Sun Chips today because she'll be heading to the Creation music festival on Tuesday. The camping theme will continue next week as Ian will be at Camp Susque, and Nadia will be sleeping in a tent at the music festival for five nights next week! For four days next week Oliver will be the only child at home!

The pics below are all from Gettysburg last Sunday. I have many, many pics that I haven't posted yet from our vacation, and I still need to upload the videos from the kids' musical at church!