A camptastic weekend…

October 21, 2023 | Stacy

Johanna went camping on Kings Mountain, and Katriel went camping at Paris Mountain. I did not go to either event… but my friends shared some photos.

Tent night for the win…

April 10, 2022 | Stacy

Katriel had one outstanding item on her list to get the Sacajawea Level Award for AHG.

We ran out of weekends.
But Daddy didn’t run out of energy.

Camping 2020! 8/25

August 25, 2020 | Stacy

Another early morning, but this time I had everyone up by 8AM.

Breakfast was amazing.

We drove an hour north to Fort Ticonderoga. This was a dream come true for me.

We left for lunch and grabbed some pizza. The pizza was amazing; the service and cost was repulsive.

John dropped me and five of the kids off back at the fort, while he and Stewart went to the Star Trek museum.

We checked out a few more things (canon firing) and then looked around the gardens.

We tried to do the corn maze, but it seemed to be closed.

We went back and joined a tour until John and Stewart met up with us again.

Our admission to the Fort also allowed us access to Mt. Defiance.

We went up the mountain as far as we could drive then hiked up the last little bit. It was paved. We then were able to look back down upon the Fort and see Lake Champlain for a good distance.

We saw an extremely large cricket by the bathroom. I’m glad it wasn’t in the middle of the night.

Dinner and another nice campfire.

Camping! 2020 8/23 & 8/24

August 24, 2020 | Stacy

As soon as Stewart got home from work this morning, we headed out for camping near Lake George, NY.

We set up camp in the rain… and, as always, we realize that all campgrounds are not created equal. But we figured it out and got on to eating.
I do love cooking over a campfire, and tonight’s dinner of hot roast beef sandwiches did not disappoint. We made sugar cone “smores” and enjoyed the campfire.

Morning comes early for us.

After a chill breakfast of pancakes, etc., we headed to Lake George to peek around. It was fun surprising the kids with a game of mini-golf. What is normal to a lot of families is not normal to our “big” family. I actually heard one of the older kids telling one of the younger kids they shouldn’t ask to play mini-golf, because it is so expensive. It was with a tremendous amount of joy that we blew their minds pulling into the parking lot.

Here is a photo of Johanna and Katriel with the winner of the mini-golf.

(Yes; that’s me.)

After golf, we parked the van and wandered around by the fort and the beach. We tried to get ice cream there, but they were not interested in working with us to insure a peanut-free experience.

We headed back towards camp and stopped at the Stewart’s Shoppe, which provided us with amazing flavors and GREAT experience.

Back at camp we had taco’s in a bag for lunch.

And daddy found a way to set up a hammock. I took a book to the pool so the girls could swim.

We made friends with the ducks!

And we had some sort of hot dog/croissant meal for dinner.

Camp Cherith Day three

July 22, 2020 | Stacy

We made it through breakfast without rain.

And then in CAME with a vengeance.

I momentarily considered calling it a day and heading home, but we decided to just wait it out, and I’m so glad we did.

Amidst just a drizzle, we did our nature activity. Our leader for this was the director of the camp.

She was such a delight to talk with. We had a number of friends in common.

We examined some pond water, and Katriel found a tadpole! Someone found a snail!

Our last activity was hiking. First we found some quotes and scriptures about being in nature.

We had our last meal – a lovely lunch.

And then we went to the Tuck Shop and purchased some souvenirs and ice cream for our trip home.

IT WAS SO AWESOME!

Camp Cherith day two

July 21, 2020 | Stacy

We woke by 7 to a glorious morning and headed off to breakfast by 8AM. We came back to our cabin to do our devotions, and then we went to our first activity, which was swimming. I didn’t take my camera. I sincerely enjoyed, to the core of my being, my conversations with the two women who are swim instructors/life guards. One was from FL and one from IL. I was so soothing to talk with them and find they felt the same way I do about this “pandemic” and the lockdowns. They also were so encouraging to my reluctant swimmer and they played with Katriel and their cool toys. Our family had the WHOLE POOL to ourselves.

We headed back to the cabin to prepare for our next activity.

ARCHERY!

Our wonderful archery instructor does this FOR FREE every summer as a ministry. God bless these leaders. I am just in awe.

My girls are naturals!

Tab shoots left.

I even took a turn.

WE WERE HUNGRY!

Then we went outside for our post-lunch devotional activity.

This one focus on how we need people in our lives to support and encourage us.

We had cabin quiet time. Here she is reading her Bible storybook to me.

Finally we had a craft period.

Again, we had a lovely adult leader who met my girls where they each were at for crafting. Different than at home, where mom is all about calculating the mess, our leader was all about helping them see their vision come to be.

We hurried back to the cabin for swim suits and we were at the Tuck Shop the moment it opened for our daily ice cream.

Tab used free time to read while we hit the pool again.

Dinner was delicious.

We played on the lawn a bit.

Then a game before campfire games.

Our family was the only group to finish the map relay race on time. Tab is an expert mapper. (It runs in the family.)

Devotions and treats.

And SLEEP!

That thing where we do a Camping Redo!

August 4, 2019 | Stacy

After the camping disappointment of June, we surveyed our calendar and found the ONE other weekend all summer we might be able to pull off a camp trip. THIS time we booked two nights at Branches of Niagara – a foo-foo camping resort with lots of bells and whistles.

John and Stewart both had the day off, so after knocking off a few appointments (and dropping the mini-van off at the garage for maintenance [sigh]) we headed out.

I do believe we were assigned one of the three nicest tent sites. (Thank you, God!) We got the tents set up rather effortlessly, however, some decidedly grouchy temperaments were emerging. We realized it was getting late so we ordered pizzas and change into our swim wear.

There are not really that many photos of the campground. A lot of this is because we were too busy. We were busy swimming, busy playing mini-golf, busy playing Scrabble, busy on the playground, busy in the kayaks, busy doing crafts, busy making fun food. All the best kinds of busy.

I think they played a dozen times.

We also had some great worship and family prayer. The weather was gorgeous. It only started to sprinkle as we were breaking camp. John actually noted the dark clouds as they were moving toward us, but we couldn’t outpack them. Smile with tongue out

Lucille Ball Museum and Jamestown

June 23, 2019 | Stacy

After we broke camp we headed 40 minutes southwest into Jamestown to visit the Lucille Ball Museum and Desilu Studios.

This was the reason we’d picked this region and it was worth the trip.

The two buildings are a short walk from one another in beautiful downtown Jamestown. If you are a Lucy fan, it did NOT disappoint.

I took very few photos as I was really enjoying the displays and reading the signs.

The full studio replica was amazing. It was life sized. Ohh how I wanted to go in and play in it!

Old scripts and cameras and equipment.

I was so impressed with the work ethic of these two. Desi Arnez had major directing interests and helped to design equipment to work to meet his vision for the live broadcasts.

This is a model of how they had the live studio.

After a few hours in the museums we walked to a yummy pizza place.

and then headed over to the Comedy Museum.

The comedy museum would never have gotten us to the region on its own. They offered a bulk pass to the two. The technology used in the museum is cutting edge and very impressive. The CONTENT – being comedy focused – is entirely too crass for my tastes. We enjoyed what worked for us and left the rest. What we did enjoy was cool. Like I said, it was technologically VERY engaging.

We headed home where we unpacked from camp and ate the rest of the premade food I’d had for camping. And we slept well in our own beds!

A camping story. Sort of.

June 22, 2019 | Stacy

We had our first camp trip in 2017. It was a great trip and set us up to try again in 2018. That outing, while still fun, had a few bumps.

As I looked at the calendar for 2019, i realized we had precious few weekends available to camp, with Stewart’s work schedule and his Costa Rica trip. We established that this would be a good weekend and I used a handful of internet tools to find a lovely campsite near Jamestown, NY, so we could couple the camp trip with a visit to the Lucille Ball museum.

Shortly after I made our reservation, Marie’s Girls’ Bible Study group moved their end-of-the-year picnic to the same weekend. She prayed a lot about it and in the end really wanted to have that time with her group. She stayed home from camp and stayed with Nan and Nene.

We got on the road rather late (after John and Stewart got home from work) for our 2+ hour drive.

Our first clue that this wasn’t going to be the ideal camp trip was when we arrived and there wasn’t a tent in site. The kids and I sat in the van near a dilapidated barn structure while a woman drove John around in a golf cart. He came back about 10 minutes later and told us he picked the third site she showed him because that site had a fence to block the cliff down to the lake below. Hmmmm.

Much like the campground last year, this place was home to many, many permanent campsites. The kind where the trailer from 1984 is rotting away next to a gorgeous deck that stops inches from the next broken down camper.

Sigh.

Our site itself was a patch of grass wedged between trailers overlooking Lake Erie. The sound of the waves was wonderful, and it promised to be a good sunset.

John tried to start a fire for me because it was already 7PM. The plan was I would cook while they set up tents.

But first, we had to mow.

I’m sorry. You aren’t familiar with the long-held practice of mowing your own site? You don’t say… Well, see – the man in the camper behind where I am photographing had just brought out his mower to mow around his own trailer and he offered the mower to us. Meanwhile he was all but irritated with both the camp staff and us(?) for being there. It seems in all the years he’s been renting his spot no one has EVER CAMPED where they were setting us up.

Hmmmmm.

See how it looks like I am cooking? Well, I wasn’t. Seconds later the fire died and it would be another hour or more til I actually had my cooking established…

It was a beautiful view.

I abandoned photography as I worked ForEvEr to try to get a fire going. John and the boys got our tents up and Tab helped me with the little girls and the cooking. My new Mother’s Day tent is BEAUTIFUL and large and I loved it.

We ate greasy food in the dark and decided to just get ready for bed. No one wanted the whole campfire experience.

We went to the nearest bathroom facilities. OUTHOUSES a little walk away. The sign said you had to boil the water before you could use it.

Say what?

Boil water to brush our teeth?

Oh no.

We got in our van to drive the 3/4 mile back up the winding road to the main bath house we’d seen when we got here earlier.

Nope. Have to boil THAT water too!!!

We didn’t brush our teeth.

We went back to our tents to go to bed. It was close to 10 PM.

Kids played loudly outside til well after midnight.

I woke at 2AM to fighting nearby.

Do you know what happens when you wake up at 2AM? You need to go to the bathroom… that’s what.