The Campers Return

The Solar Powered Golf Cart.
(Solar Panels are on top)

Hayden and Chris (his counselor)

Another reason Rachel loves camp.

Rachel riding the barrels.

Hayden getting ready to chase the clown.

Notice his feet aren't even touching the ground.

Hayden with Jack and a couple of other campers.

Rachel

Headed home...

Well, things were very different without kids. It gave us a little taste of an empty nest. We LOVED it! Don't get me wrong, we love our kids, but we really love each other and having fun together, watching movies that we want to see, eating out where they don't serve chicken nuggets, getting ice cream for fun...

All the kids are back home and we have enjoyed hearing their songs, stories, and awesome tales of their adventures of camp.

Here are a few of the things they shared:

Kate came back from visiting Gran and Poppy in Lubbock with her new camera! She got to take pictures of the cousins in Lubbock and do her first photo shoot. She then took her camera to Hidden Falls to get pictures of the rodeo. She had a great time going shopping and spending time in Lubbock.

Sarah, who went to WT's engineering camp, got to weld this week. She brought home this really cool WT metal art piece that she welded together. She also got to make her own fireworks! She got to convert a golf cart to a solar powered golf cart. It sounds like she got to do a lot of fun stuff at camp. Now, the funny thing is that she talked about how several kids were falling asleep during the class time. She made it a point to count how many were asleep during each session. Her highest count was 13! They were engineers after all. (I do realize that engineers won't find that funny.) Sarah also won an award at camp this year. She was awarded the "Best Smile". She says that it is thanks to Dr. Sparkman.

Rachel, who went to Hidden Falls, got to spend a week with several of her friends and celebrated her third year at camp. She loves it just as much as the first year she went and has decided that she will in fact be a camp counselor when she is old enough. Her favorite counselor was Sebastian. He is from England and plays soccer for WT on scholarship. She, along with everyone else at camp, loved his accent. Rachel rode the barrels in the rodeo and did a great job. She looked like a natural on her horse.

Hayden, who also went to Hidden Falls, got his first taste of camp. He was a little nervous when he found out that he couldn't call us, but he did great. He introduced us to every counselor at camp. His counselor in the Rockin' B cabin was from California. He learned about Hidden Falls because his mom is from Amarillo. This was his 10th year at camp. Hayden did the clown chase in the rodeo and had a great time. His favorite story was when the camp leader asked for his help. Hayden had to help unlock a bathroom. His leader had him climb through a window and into the bathroom from outside the building to unlock the door. He thought that was pretty cool.

Sarah turns TEN!

Wow, hard to believe that she is ten years old. We had a little Luau for Sarah this weekend and she had five girls stay the night. They made their own pizzas, made ribbon flip flops and played the Wii all before midnight. Finally at 12:30, we had eight girls lined up like sardines in our living room floor to watch a movie. They all had a great time. It was so funny to watch them play the Wii. Marissa was the best bowler. She bowled five strikes each game and was the one to beat. Sarah got some fun gifts and had a very good time. Poor Hayden, he really wanted to sleep downstairs with all the girls, but he had to go up to his bed. I think it will take us a few days to catch up on our sleep. But that is what sleepovers are for: staying up late, good friends, playing games and yummy snacks!

Prince Charming?

Sarah's friend Marissa came over today and brought her pet toad. Marissa had cleverly put her toad in a backpack and was found out just before she entered our home. Her mom said, "stop right there and show me what is in your backpack." To my surprise, but not hers, it was a toad! "In the back yard only", said Marissa's mom. Okay, I thought... I have never let my kids play with toads before...can't they get warts? They were not worried. They had so much fun! They played ring around the toad as they sang Jesus love the little children. They pretended to kiss the toad, wear the toad on their heads, and dance around the yard with the toad. It was 'toad'ally cool!

Rachel has decided that she wants to save her money to buy a toad. I'm not so sure that is going to happen.

By the way, Sarah did not really 'kiss' the frog, she just held him up real close and pretended. You can bet that she will have a scrapbook page with these pictures on it.