I Want To Go To Camp!

We're one month away from the first day of school, which means we have 4 weeks of fun camps left. The girlz are at VBS at church this week, and they've been looking forward to this week all summer. Every Thursday night for the last few months, we've spent our evenings at the church drawing and painting VBS decorations. It looks like it's going to be a terrific week!!

We finished a two-week session at Camp Arrowhead last Friday, and finally made it to a Family Night. It was really nice to meet (and thank) the counselors the girlz have grown to love this summer. I only wish we had remembered to put on bug spray before making the trip back out there!

The girlz have had some great experiences this summer, and they still have a lot to look forward to! It makes me a little jealous - I would love to go to camp instead of work!

The Alpine Tower at sunset

Archery (also known as "Bows and Arrows" in Campbell's world)

Campbell had dance Saturday morning and then she helped a good friend celebrate her 6th birthday.

We headed to church on Sunday morning, and the girlz were SO EXCITED to see my handiwork hanging in the front door. I'm a mediocre artist on my very best day, so creating this handprint reader and keypad freehand was a REALLY big deal for me!

And now we start another week of summer fun. I can hardly wait to hear what the girlz got to do at VBS today!

Weekend Recap

Managing the girl'z daily camp shuttle, dance taxi, meal plans, and laundry service is a full time job. When you add in my little side gig at the Nerdery (also known as a demanding career), there has been no time for posting pictures of what we've been up to.

Therefore, I've been temporarily reduced to Weekend Recaps.

This weekend we helped a good friend celebrate her birthday, we helped gather a huge harvest from the Children's Learning Garden at church that will be donated to our local food bank, and we enjoyed some frozen yogurt at The Skinny Dip. 

When I wrote up this week's activities on the white board in our kitchen, I realized what an insane week we have ahead of us - quite possibly the busiest of the whole summer. Yikes!

It's about the get crazy around here. Hold on tight and enjoy the ride, girlz!

Enjoying cotton candy at Emma's birthday party!

Gathering the harvest at the Children's Learning Garden...

Enjoying a sweet treat at Skinny Dip!

When You Just Know

Sometimes, there comes a moment when you just know. And this morning was one of those moments.

Looking back, I can see the path that was so carefully carved out to put me at that exact place at that exact moment. It didn't make sense at the time, but it's blindingly obvious now.

The weeks the girlz spend at Camp Arrowhead are awesome, but require an enormous amount of preparation and planning. We often run late, which makes our typical morning very hectic and rushed.

We've been feeding a neighbor's cat for the last few weeks and they're due to return early this afternoon. We always check on the cat in the evening, but Campbell wanted to go next door this morning and say goodbye to Mr. Pretty Kitty before our neighbors returned. A very sweet idea, but it was one more thing to cram into an already too-short window of time.

On top of all that, I somehow needed to squeeze in a quick trip to the grocery store before work.

The stage was set for an ugly, crazy morning.

Campbell and I checked on the cat, and then I worked on getting everyone dressed, fed, packed up, sunscreened, bug sprayed, teeth brushed, hair brushed, and pottied. When we pulled into the camp parking lot, I noticed we had arrived a full 10 minutes early. Now how did that happen?!?

It definitely didn't make sense, but I didn't think too much of it. I walked the girlz to the lodge, gave them each a kiss, and made one last visual check to ensure we didn't forget anyone or anything. Everything appeared to be in order, which I chalked up to a mid-summer miracle. Hooray!

Since I had 10 extra minutes, there was ample time to stop by the Food Dog for groceries. But instead of going to the closest store, I passed two different Food Dogs and went to the one by the dance studio. I didn't really know why, but that was what my gut was telling me to do... so that's what I did.

I gathered up our groceries and took my place in the checkout line behind a girl pushing two very young children in the police car shopping cart. Within a minute, another cashier called the guy behind me over to her line. That was obnoxious, but I didn't dwell on it. Thanks to my super-chill morning, I wasn't in a rush. There was no point in stressing about a few extra minutes.

As the girl in front of me stacked jar after jar of baby food on the belt, my mind wandered and I thought through the day ahead. I was not paying close attention to what was happening around me because my brain was completely focused on figuring out what time I needed to leave the house this afternoon in order to get the girlz to the dance studio on time. That's when I thought I heard the girl in front of me say "I don't have it".

Within about 2 minutes it all became crystal clear -- WIC had covered most (but not all) of her cart full of baby food, generic-brand vegetables, and other basic food staples. She didn't have the money to cover the remaining balance.

As the girl and the cashier tried to figure out what wasn't covered (so they could remove it from her bill), I looked at the cash register and noticed the total due: $9.74 -- that's my birthday, y'all.

God clearly doesn't play around when He wants my attention. In that moment, I just knew. All the food in her cart was clearly for the babies -- they needed food and God had carefully placed me in that check out line at that exact moment to make sure those two children were covered. There's no other way to explain how we ended up at camp 10 minutes early when we should have been late, why I felt compelled to pass two perfectly good Food Dogs in favor of that particular store, and why the other cashier took the guy behind me when they always call for the next in line.

And if it wasn't already obvious enough, those kids were in the police car shopping cart and her total due was my birthday.

Something needed to be done, and I had quite obviously been chosen to do it.

So I did.

Part of me wished the girlz had been with me this morning - there's no better example of what I mean when I say we have an awful lot to be thankful for. And part of me was glad they didn't have to see that mother cry.

This afternoon, the girlz munched on snacks as we drove from camp to the dance studio. And of all days, Cassidy chose today to thank me for always bringing them good snacks.

"Yeah, about those snacks..." I said. "Let me tell you what happened this morning at the Food Dog."

Sometimes, you just know.

Weekend In Review

This past weekend was a nice break from our norm - we actually had a quiet weekend with nothing to do! That won't happen again for a while, so we made sure to enjoy it.

Last week was number-crunching week at The Nerdery, so I ended up with several unexpected ugly and stressful work days. Lucky for me, Mama jumped in to help and whisked the girlz away from my Math Hell.

By Friday, the Nerd Dust had settled -- just in time for Cow Appreciation Day. I able to slip away from work to take the girlz to our local Chick-Fil-A, and we already had the perfect outfits for the occasion!

Dalmatian costumes can double as cow costumes! They stole the spotlight from the cows... we got SO MANY comments and compliments!

Friday also happened to be Free Slurpee Day at 7-11. Did we stop for Slurpees on the way home? You know we did!

We spent Saturday running errands, and I rag-rolled Cassidy's hair Saturday night. She woke up looking like Shirley Temple yesterday morning!

We were bad Christians and skipped church. I took the girlz to the chocolate shop instead and LT got his hair cut.

These delicious bites of heaven were not on our healthy eating plan... but we took one for the team to help a fledgling small business. Totally worth it!

Yesterday afternoon I took the girlz to get their nails painted. It was super-busy and we had to wait FOREVER. I tried (several times) to convince them I'd bring them back another day. It was a lost cause... they had no intention of leaving the salon until those little nails were done!

Such a great weekend!!

More Pictures from Camp Silver Beach

It took me a few days to get my iPhone pictures moved to the computer, so these are late.  Here are a few more pictures from Camp Silver Beach!

Cassidy's portion of her cabin mural!

Cassidy, Hannah, and the best counselor ever - Miss Cat!

The girls at the Impact Rock Garden

Cassidy in front of one of her most favorite things from camp -- the Wet Willie Waterslide!

She's already looking forward to going back next year!!

Super Girl

Cassidy has been asking for lacing cord since last summer. She brought home a handful of it from Camp Silver Beach to make what she calls a box braid, but it's what I used to call a lanyard when I was her age. While we were waiting for her disposable cameras to develop on Sunday afternoon, we decided to pop over to the Stuff Mart to see if we could find some cord and maybe a few other crafts to keep them occupied this week.

We found what we were looking for and headed toward the check-out lanes. We got sidetracked when Campbell spotted the most wonderful shirt in the girl's clothes section.

It's a Super Girl shirt with a cape, y'all.

She fell in love! Campbell put the shirt on while we were still in the parking lot of the Stuff Mart and has worn it every day since.

Even better, it seems that Superhero shirts with capes give you the courage to ask Daddy to take your training wheels off!

That was $8 well spent!

Camp Silver Beach

Well, the old girl did it. She spent an entire week at her first overnight camp and LOVED it. She loved it so much, she didn't want to come home.

As cool as I thought we were, the sad truth is that we're actually a lame family.  We don't stand on chairs during meals or dance on the table. We don't shoot rifles in the backyard or have a banana boat to ride every afternoon or a climbing tower at our disposal. She said she doesn't mind living with our family, but she wants to go back to camp soon because it was JUST. SO. MUCH. FUN.

I sent her an email every day and arranged for 2 care packages to be delivered during the week. We mailed postcards and letters. I hid notes all throughout her bag. And we got one postcard from her the entire week that had one sentence on it:

Mommy, I miss you (just a little bit).

I was so deeply proud of our brave girl when I read that postcard!! 

Go, Cassidy!!!

The 4 houses of Camp Silver Beach - we're in the Osprey House!

The awesome water park!

Cassidy's temporary home for the week!

Happy 4th of July!

It felt strange to not have Cassidy with us as we enjoyed all of our favorite 4th of July community activities. A mild hurricane had blown through Thursday night, so the day's plans were up in the air until pretty much the last minute. Although this hurricane chugged up the coast much earlier in the season than usual, it stayed true to typical hurricane form and left the most beautiful and pristine weather in its wake.

That translated to quite possibly the mildest and most comfortable 4th of July I can remember. GORGEOUS!!

The only thing I would change is to have Cassidy with us to enjoy it!

Happy Birthday, America!!!!