The Weekly Review V

Sunday~

We headed south to Iowa and left Travis behind. We took with us, Mara and Malia. We felt really bad leaving Travis on Father's day so we actually let him leave us for church and then we left. That way he didn't have to stand there watching us back out of the driveway. We stopped to see Grandma Cleone in Sigourney on our round about way to Centerville for Sharon Bluff Bible Camp. We had a nice little visit with grandma. They have had a ton of rain around here. So many rivers were way out of their proper boundaries and many fields had ponds in them that aren't intended to be there. We made it to camp at about 5pm. Got ourselves all moved in and registered. I will be helping in the kitchen, life guarding with Trina at the pool, being a dorm mom with Trina in the girls dorm and being the nurse. We also will pass out the campers canteen cards and random other duties. We should be busy and have fun.

Monday~

We had a fair amount of rain today. It did clear off for sports and swim time which is nice. They played volleyball and basketball since they are on concrete pads. The kids still got muddy chasing the balls that go out of bounds and things. I have to pass out quite a bit of medicine. Kind of sad for such young people to need things on a regular basis. There was a bit of an incident with a boy that came up this evening and he needed to be sent home because of his actions. His cousin that came with him chose to go home as well. Because all that took some time and his parents took awhile to get here it made a late night for all of us. The girls all hung out of their windows to watch the goings on. It took the girls a long time to calm down and go to sleep this evening.

Tuesday~

Because of the late night the girls all slept in. One even slept through her cell phone alarm, so I confiscated that. The rule is NO cell phones. (I think I found a cell phone everyday of this week that wasn't turned in on Sunday). We have a couple girls that are homesick and going home. Lots of headaches, I need to preach drinking water more I guess. More rain came today again. It made it hard to hear in the main building and the Sheriff's office called to say everyone had to remain in the main building because of the severity of the storm until further notice. When I was thinking I really needed to think of a good game for everyone to play because it was chaos going on the oldest camper gathered everyone together and they sang until it was time for chapel. She is a good leader of the kids, very sweet to them (a mess with her things though, which is driving Trina batty :). We tried enforcing the rule no sleeping in other girl's beds tonight, and we garnered some enemies in doing that. What the big deal in wanting to sleep in someone else bed is, I cannot understand. These are some big girls that are doing it mostly so it has got to be awfully poor sleep for them.

Wednesday~

Blue skies all morning!! During sports there were tornado warnings though. I was gone when that happened because I took the afternoon and Beatrice and Gregory and went to visit my Grandma again. It added so much to our driving time on Sunday that I wanted to do it some other day than Friday on our way home. We had a really nice visit. It was nice to get away from camp for awhile also. We got back just as the girls were finishing their swim time and the boys were going in. It had been delayed because of the storms. Gregory really wanted to go swim but was so grumpy from waking up from a nap in the van that he just couldn't get in there. We had a lot of extra people come for the supper tonight and service. For activities the tribes put on skits. They were fun to watch. After that we had a baptism! Pretty exciting. The girls had a hard time getting calmed down to sleep for some reason tonight. But in time we all slept a little.

Thursday~

First day of no rain! It was hot though. Margaret, Mara and Malia found a field of blackeyed Susans and picked each of the cooks a bouquet. They were really pretty. We also got a sweet letter from one of the younger boys telling us that we made the best food he had ever tasted. Not me actually because I didn't make any of the food, but maybe it was better because the pans were so clean for the food to be in. I wrote the recipe down for Marilyn's wonderful cinnamon rolls. They are really yummy and Travis has wanted me to get the recipe for many years. Now we will try it in whole wheat. My kids missed the whole grain foods we are used to eating. That was nice to hear. Amazingly the girls were quiet when we shut the lights out tonight. We shut it off almost an hour late, but then all was quiet.

All of the campers

The cooks who were there on Friday morning

Friday~

Some of the girls had really wanted to go swimming early in the morning before breakfast since it was our last day there and time to go home. I told them if they were quiet at sleeping time I would take them. Only about 8 ended up wanting too, but we did it and they had a wonderful time. The air was cold but the water warm and it wasn't crowded, it was really lovely. Christa (who chose not to swim) went around and woke all the swimmers up so they wouldn't miss it and then went back to sleep. I thought that was nice of her. After chapel it was time to clean the dorm! And did it ever need cleaning. Most of the girls were really industrious and we left it much better off than we found it! There were many pairs of underwear, socks, and bras that were trashed, I believe, because no one claimed them as we were picking up. We had a good trip home and remained safe as we drove through tornado warnings and torrential rain storms.

Saturday~

I slept in. Harrison said he got up at 6:30 or so, but I did not. I tried to attack the mountain of laundry growing in my basement. I made a lunch of a shrimp stir fry. It was really yummy, too. I put together most of the ingredients to a cranberry coffee cake for breakfast in the morning. It is our traditional morning for cereal but we are out of milk (Travis ate 3 boxes of cereal while we were gone and that took care of all the milk). The kids built race cars out of legos and K'nex while Travis read this morning and they had their computer time this afternoon. Travis is at work now for the evening.

May your laundry be caught up and your days be sunny.

~Anna