Friday, June 29, 2018

June Camps - Thurman, Crown of Life, 121, Pine Cove & NACC

First week of summer reserved for Camp Thurman as usual.
 Love the pics I get from their camp website and long car rides with the kids on my carpool days. Dylan usually passes out in the afternoon in the car.
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First year for all three to go to Crown of Life VBS.
 They loved it!
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Ty did 121 Active Sports Camp with his friend Aiden from school and LOVED it.

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Pine Cove
Kinley went to her first 7 day overnight camp at Pine Cove with Sawyer and Ella.
 It was such a huge deal sending off my first born for 7 full days.
I was so nervous and excited for her.
I was never much of a camp girl and was always too homesick.
 But, Kinley is so much braver than me.
She accepted Christ last summer and I was SO excited to see her faith grow on her own.
I know there is nothing like being a little lonely and scared and only relying on the Lord to get you through.
It helped SO much that Sawyer and Ella were both going to be there too.
And the communication and information from Pine Cove is seriously TOP NOTCH. I was NEVER wondering where to go, what to do, what she was doing or if she was ok.
 They are SO good about not letting you worry at all.

 We bought and decorated her trunk, picked out all her theme night outfits, followed the packing list, got all her mail and packages set aside, and set off for Tyler. 
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Just sitting in the line waiting for camp to open is SO fun.
 It's a party in itself and finally driving into camp they get you SO excited and make you feel like such an honored guest.
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We pulled up and they took all Kinley's stuff straight to her cabin, we dropped off all her mail for the week, and she headed to do her swim test first thing.
I set up her bed with sheets and blankets, etc and then we all headed off to the gift shop to buy matching T shirts, and finally dropped them at their cabin.
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Driving away, I did have a few tears but I was still more than excited for her.
She said goodbye just fine and I could not wait to see how much she would grow in 7 days.
The other thing that helped me SO much was checking the app.
Twice during the week I would get a picture of a written letter from her to me and I couldn't wait.

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Also, I would scour it every morning for pictures of my girl.
I couldn't wait to see a smile on her face in a picture.
Then I would know she was ok.
And these are some of the cutest pictures! 
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Picking her up on day 7 was SO fun.
 I loved hearing what the counselor said about Kinley, seeing her thrive and not even need to come home, watching her sing her heart out during the closing ceremony, and watching her love on her little brothers who missed her SO much. 
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One of the BEST Pine Cove stories, that I don't want to forget, was about Kinley's mail.
 Immediately as soon as we saw Sawyer, Ella & Kinley they ran up to me and asked me about our new cats. 
 I had received a funny letter during the week that said something about cats but I had no idea what Kinley was talking about. 
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I thought maybe she was talking about some camp cats or something??
It wasn't until we got home and Kinley showed me this letter that I understood.
 She really & truly thought that Ben and I had purchased 2 cats while she was away for a week. Turns out the letter was for KinSley, not Kinley....and none of them had noticed.
 I still laugh about it. 
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Before we even left, we signed her up for next year. 
 I am so excited for her to keep going back year after year and watch her heart for the Lord and a relationship with Him grow more and more. 

 NACC 
One thing that kept me from thinking and worrying about Kinley every minute she was away was the fact that Ben and I went on a little trip to Indianapolis for the North American Christian Convention.
Compass was the host church for the event and Drew was the President of the conference this year.
We went in support and Ben sat on an elder panel for a couple of the days.
We spent three days listening to incredible speakers, the best worship in the country (Compass) and even my fave Christian comedian - Jon Crist.
It was basically our own adult christian summer camp and we loved it.
Ben and I had a lot of great time together and I loved having a couple days with some of my besties too...
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Ali and I had an afternoon off to explore downtown Indy and we just cant be trusted with various forms of public transportation and an hour to kill...
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