Time For Camp

Tomorrow is the first day of camp. We are going to be counselors at our jr./sr. high camp this week at Lutherhaven. We're excited about it. This is our first year helping out at our church camp. The only thing I am not looking forward to is being away from the kids for three nights. Sometimes I long for a break from them but I don't really want a three night break right now especially since we will be going to India in a few months. Oh well. I'm sure it will go by quickly. I know that we're going to have fun at camp and I'm looking forward to getting to know the girls better. I just hope the weather isn't bad. I guess it's supposed to cool off to the 60s for a couple of days with a chance of rain. I sure hope it doesn't rain. I'll post more about camp when we get home.

VBS

We had Vacation Bible School at our church this week. It was a lot of fun. I was a leader for the 9 and 10 year old kids. We averaged over 30 kids in that age group everyday. I think we usually had between 170 and 180 kids total everyday. This was my first year helping with VBS at our church. When I was a teenager I used to help at VBS at the church that I attended. Steve helps with VBS every year since he is on staff at our church. Usually he helps with games but this year he mostly took pictures. He did help with games a little bit though. This was B's first year in VBS as well. The program is for kids 5-12 years old. She is not quite 5 yet but she will be in less than a month so they said that she could take part in it this year. I think she really enjoyed it. She is always walking around the house singing the songs that we did and if she's not singing she's talking about what she did at VBS. My little sister also went and she really seemed to like it. She made a few new friends but she's kind of bummed because she won't have much of a chance to get to know them because she is leaving for India soon.

I got to meet some very sweet kids this week. I hope that I was a good witness to each one of them and that I was able to help them enjoy their time at VBS. It was a lot of fun to be there helping but I am glad that it is over. It is very tiring.

Seattle Trip

Last weekend we took a trip over to Seattle for a few days. We left on Saturday morning and came back home on Monday night. We went over there with my parents so that we could help my sister get the rest of her stuff moved out of her house and help her get her house cleaned up.

I think we got to her place around 2:00 and we spent the next few hours cleaning and packing stuff up. Then we went and got checked into our hotel. We decided it was probably too late to go to a restaurant for dinner without having to wait too long so we just decided to eat at the hotel. We stayed at the Embassy Suites in Lynnwood and it was such a nice hotel. They have a free cook-to-order breakfast and reception at night (I suppose you pay for it in the room rate though). We ordered pizza from the restaurant that they have inside the hotel. We were all pretty tired so we retired kind of early.

The next morning we all met for breakfast downstairs and decided that we would head into downtown Seattle and visit Pike Street Market. Steve and I had never been there so we wanted to experience it. It was really nothing very special but we still had a good time. We walked up the street a few blocks to Game Works where my dad bought a few game cards and we played some games. After awhile E got fussy and so my mom, my sister and I took our kids down the street so they could have some cookies and I could feed E his lunch. Then we took a walk down to a deli so the kids could have some frozen yogurt and we could get something to drink. After about an hour or so all the boys met us and we headed back down to Pike Street so we could go back to the hotel to let the little kids rest. We decided on The Old Spaghetti Factory for dinner that night and it was delicious. After we got back from dinner we spent some time at the reception downstairs visiting while my youngest brother and sister watched the little kids upstairs in my parents' room. It was kind of sad because we realized that that was going to be the last time we were all going to be able to sit in the same room and visit for quite some time since my parents are leaving for India soon and my sister was leaving for Florida. We took the kids swimming in the hotel pool later that night and they had fun. B and H stayed in the water until they were purple.

The next day we met for breakfast again and then Steve and I took our kids to a local mall while everyone else headed for Erica's house to do some more cleaning. We met them there after a little while and helped out some. At about 1:30 or so we decided that we needed to get on the road but we needed lunch first. We stopped at Burger King and had our last family meal together for awhile. After that my younger brothers and sister drove home with my mom in Erica's car and we drove in ours. My dad stayed with Erica one more night so that he could take her and her kids to the airport on Tuesday night. My brother Jeff and his friend are going to drive Erica's car down to Florida in a couple of weeks.

It was sad saying goodbye. I don't really know when I will see my sister again. We are hoping to have a family reunion down in Florida when my parents come home to visit next summer, but I really don't know how Steve and I will be able to afford a trip down there. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. I am so glad though that we were able to make the trip over there to see my sister and her kids one last time. I will miss them very much.