I heard last night that at over 330 campers and 60 staff, J and B's church camp session is the largest camp session for a "church of Christ" church camp in the nation. Wow!
On the other hand, I have never gone by the rule that "bigger is better." I am only 5'2" after all. And you know I think the super 5-A schools are too big for their own good.
But still, there are lots of people who trust the leadership of this particular group and lots of adults want to be involved with this group. The kids keep coming back and sharing the opportunity with their friends. The graduating kids often come back as counselors.
The ultimate opinion that matters to me: my kids'. They loved it and want to go back next summer.
We took our kids and 22 other kids from church to Camp Bandina. Larry drove a van with 11 boys and Bess and me. We had another van and another vehicle towing a trailer in our convoy across central Texas. It was a 4 hour trip with lunch in the middle one way.
I had never been there, but Larry's been a counselor and the kids have gone. This was the first year B is going without a parent there!! I am a little nervous for her. But she seemed completely fine in her cabin. Another little girl from our church who's a grade ahead of B is also in her cabin. I am glad, and I had even hoped it would turn out this way. I want them to bond and build a friendship they can carry into their teen years! ;-) (And for those who know, this is A, the girl with three little sisters and a baby brother.)
I wasn't going to show all these pictures, but here they are anyway. Enjoy!
J and Lar
Unloading
Checking in
Larry and B go to her cabin---#2
B on the bunk she chose B with A and an new friend from her cabin, J
J---he's got those hot cheeks!! Much of camp is air-conditioned, but not this room we were in.
We left them, and on the way out, our fellow road warrior had me take her picture. This was where she was baptized one summer at camp. :-)
Bandera is the county seat, so I got one more courthouse picture. The best (haha) thing about my anniversary? I got to eat out at McDonald's TWO TIMES. We were working on a strict cash-only budget yesterday! ;-)
But really, the best thing about dropping the kids at camp, is that Larry and I are having a quasi-vacation here at home. Larry is actually off the whole week. On Friday, we will go pick B up early (track meet in San Antonio), but the whole week is our own. I am working at Sonshine School on Tuesday. But other than that, it's just us. :-)
Our vacation is a working one, though, and we plan to put down a floor. FINALLY! Yay!!! :-) We spent about $1200 just this afternoon. Details on that are still to come!
I lost my camera, but found my camera! Life is looking up again! ;-) Easter festivities for me always start at my workplace with dyeing of eggs and the Easter Party and Hunt. This first picture is one of my better ones, capturing the ambiance of the event.
The parents are all standing around with their cameras and helping their own kid find eggs (12 was our goal this year), and then the kids are frantically trying to get as many as they can. The eggs are not really hidden, but it's fun. :-)
We had to delay a lot of our at home activities because of LTC. This is a church of Christ UIL-type event where the kids work on all kinds of projects and activities and then get graded on them. They get awarded gold, silver or bronze awards. They are not graded against each other, just on their own performance and effort.
J did Bible Class Teaching (a pre-convention project), Drama, and Chorus.
B did Service Challenge (a pre-convention project) and Bible Bowl. With BB you get graded on individual score (B got a gold!!) and your team score.
But our adventure started on Friday---we left town for Houston about noon-thirty. When we got to our Hilton Hotel, they didn't have the rooms we wanted, so we ended up in a King room with a rollaway for our family of 4. Not ideal, but B can sleep with Lar and I in the king bed. The guys room----4 teens and a young chaperone---were in an adjoining suite. J is lounging on the fold-out couch in there with a Wii in his hand.
Ah! But there was ONLY the fold out couch in there, along with a dining area and a view and little kitchen. One bed for 2 and nothing else! we needed room for 5 guys. This was a very nice room! But it was not what we needed, still! So we were moved to another room, and for our trouble, we got free breakfast and "evening orderves" which we couldn't eat because we had activities for the kids at that time. Our room was exactly like the other one, but we wanted our room near the other room.
Here is B going out the window of the suite---not really! That's the convention center in the background there. This was on floor 18?
This evening, the first event for us was the chorus. I don't know our score yet---they're getting mailed to the church. Here is our group, though. The guy in the blue shirt is their coach--he's our young chaperone! :-) The kids are in 10th, 4th, 6th, and 10th grades. Only the guy on the right can sing a "part" so far----I am hoping someone will help Jamie learn to sing tenor, but the coach here says Jamie already has a Bass range. Huh!! imagine that!
Also Friday night was Bible Bowl. We had 2 High schoolers who were happy to have B on their team, but B got registered as a 3rd grader, so they lost her for their team. B had to join up with another team from another congregation, one from Austin area, I think.
Here she is with her block. She had to point the correct answer towards the judge for each question.
Here is her team. That boy is cheesing it up for me isn't he? B was in the back. They sit in teams of four, one at each table. They do two rounds. B's age group did 35 questions each round. This year's theme was I Samuel. She got 30 out of 35 in the first round, the one that counted for her individual score. 29-35 was a gold award. We sat at the back, watching her cube from the wrong side, and watching the judge sitting at the front of her row. The judge would hold up a card telling how many on the team got the answer right. Only a few times did we see a zero!
After B got done at about 9:00, we took her back to the room. I wanted to get her on to bed. Larry watched basketball, and the rest of the kids went to a big devo. One of the teen guys came back and watched bball with us ( men's college hoops!) and J played games in the "guys" room. Curfew came, we got our son back, sent the other guy to his room across the hall, and it was lights out.
I must say, it was very comfortable, especially considering B was between Lar and I. The pillows worked for me! I usually wake up a lot, but I slept pretty well.
Up again at 6:30 to shower and eat that free breakfast. It was kinda fancy, and again, in a room with a nice view. The food wasn't fancy, but the room was nice with couches to relax upon and big flat-screen TVs.
Our drama was set to go at 8:30 a.m. The older girl in our group wrote it. The theme was "Here Am I" like Samuel said to God once he knew he was being called. I made a video. :-) For it to upload on webshots, it had to be less than 5 minutes, so I am uploading the 4:59 video. It cuts off only the wrap-up part----where they each say something like "God calls us, too, and you should follow Him where he leads."
Here's our drama group. We took 8 kids with us this year, and a few more kids did pre-convention events. 7 of those kids were in the skit---just B wasn't! Lar helped to coach.
We were all done with events after that. B and I looked through all the bulletin boards, scrapbooks, art projects (both 3-D and 2-D) and children's books. There are so many ways the kids could express themselves. I love that.
Here are our Easter pictures. We took them right after church. We did every possible combination of family members you can imagine. I didn't pull out the tripod!
Do you like the dress? B and I went in a dressing room with about 8 dresses and came out with this one. She is so slender, some of the ones in her size are too big around. The ones in a size smaller were too short for her. She has grown up this year, but not "out." The little sundresses were gaping in front and back on some of them! This one was nice. Green seems to be "the" color this year.
How tall will J get?? Is he done growing for a while?? We did an egg hunt for the kids in the living room. I hid 37 eggs (I think) and they found 35. Hmmm . . . did I miscount or will we find some later? None of them were boiled eggs!! We dyed eggs Sunday afternoon also. Those went to the refrigerator for eating!
Beautiful egg, B!! Even I have to get in on it. I boiled 3 dozen, and we ended up with 11 each to dye. Today B got her results on her TAKS test---she got a "commended performance," which means she scored well and will get to go on to 4th grade! ;-) Like I was worried. She missed two in all. Very good!!
This week's theme is wooden. I had two ideas, so I'm sharing both.
This wooden ceiling is in the St. Paul's United Methodist Church in Houston. For any of you who saw last week's entry, you'd probably guess I took this on the same trip as that one. This picture is not the greatest to display such a wonderful ceiling, but it was the best I could do that day. The church building is patterned after the neo-Gothic style, which means it is in the shape of a cross and has the ornamentation you'd expect. It was built in the 1930s. The ceiling is supposed to look like a wooden boat, overturned. Since many of the first Christians and apostles were fishermen, and they had to meet in secret, they often met under a boat. The ceiling is supposed to have that feel, as a reminder of those brave souls who literally risked their lives so the Gospel could be spread. This wooden structure is not really tilted---it was me. I took this in the summer of 2005 in Holland Michigan. That is Larry and B standing in front.
Die Swann windmill was a Dutch windmill, taken apart and re-built in Michigan. The bottom part is brick, but the top is wooden, and the inside has wooden stairs and wooden floors and such. It still grinds flour for sale in their gift shop. Definitely worth a visit!
Want to see more wooden photos? Go to TN Chick, the one who started it all. She has a picture of a wooden game on her site today.
We went on the Ten Commandments Hike in downtown Houston last Saturday. This was a Boy Scout event, but was open to everyone, so we were using it to help earn our Architechture badge. These are our girls, of course. We got to downtown Houston about 8:00, which I thought was our starting time, but as it turned out, we didn't start the presentation part until 8:50. But it gave us time to get registered and look around the church where we started. This fountain was in the courtyard. Here's the front of the First Christian Church, built in 1958. It was designed by a student of Frank Lloyd Wright, who we'd talked about in our GS meeting the week before. Here we heard about eht first commandment---You shall have no other gods before Me. Also we heard about the Disciples of Christ, which is really close to the kind of church we go to, springing out of the same movement.
Here is B and A. I told them to turn around while we were hiking to the next church (.8 miles). A is holding her water bottle that each hiker got. We refilled them at water fountains all along our route. We hiked along one side of Rice University. A's mom told the girls they should think about Rice as a college option---it's a good school. It was beautiful this morning. The temps were great and it was a shady walk. The second church is Palmer Memorial Episcopal Church. it is a copy of a church in Venice. I took a lot of pictures here!
Here we heard about the 2nd commandment: You shall not make for yourself an idol. The front area is raised just like the one in Venice----with the water so close, they do not put basements in, so they raised up the altar area for storage. The next hike was to Hermann park, where the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints gave the talk about the third commandment. They do not have a church in this area, but they wanted in on the talks. The 3rd commandment is Do not take the Lord's name in vain. We are starting to get a little tired already. But it's not hot---not yet! It was a little warmer than February usually is in Houston, with the expected high about 70.
We got to see some interesting architecture and even some sculpture. We arrived at the First Presbyterian Church. By this point we had hiked 1.9 miles. We really enjoyed this lavendar church! :-) It was built in 1948. I have a sort of geneological tie to Presbyterians---I have a Scottish heritage. This is the St. Matthew Lutheran Church. It was across the street. They had beautiful carvings up front, and beautiful stained glass, which came out blurry on my camera. And this one's crooked! I was trying to take pictures between heads and with a zoom.
We had police escort all along our routes to get our large group across the streets safely and in one group. Yes, we were stopping traffic all over Houston.The next stop was just next door, too. This church was patterned after the neo-Gothic style, built in 1930.
I had gotten notebooks for each girl, and they really were busy in each church, taking notes and drawing what they saw. The ceiling is wood, and is supposed to look like an upside-down boat. The early Christians often had to hide to worship, and sometimes it was under and overturned boat. The 6th commandment was here----Thou shall not kill. This window has a rendering of Charles Wesley---The brother who wrote many hymns. This is the outside---the building is roughly in the shape of a cross.
Here is B and fellow Girl Scout , M. After this we hiked another .8 miles to the next church and our lunch stop. We're now up to 2.9 miles. This stretch was very sunny and kind of warm. Not quite as pleasant, but not bad. I didn't get any pictures of lunch, but we sat on the floor and ate the brown-bag lunches we packed. After lunch we went to the sanctuary od the South Main Baptist Church. This building was about 104 years old. It was very fancy---fancier than any other Baptist church I'd ever been to with friends. This was the 7th commandment: Do not commit adultery. I think this was the one that everyone tries ot not get to talk with to the scouts. But the guy who was there (not a preacher!) did a good job talking about loyalty and trust and honesty. After that was another .9 mile hike, and we saw a really cool church---U.of St.Thomas Chapel of St. Basil. Very modern, built in 1993. Some of our girls are in this shot. The whole place is illuminated by natural light. It has a big dome on top, but split with windows, so it lets light in that way. I love this bright cross. Here the guy talked about the 8th commandment: Do not steal.
Hiking again---.8 miles again. We crossed over the expressway (Hwy 59?), and B took this artsy shot.
I didn't get a picture of the 9th church---the Fourth Church of Christ, Scientist. I think I was getting a little weary by then. It was Hot, and we were getitng tired. I was having to get a couple of girls to catch up all the time. We were really slowing down. This church offered us bottles of water, a nice gesture. We heard about the Christian Scientists and the 9th commandment---You shall not bear false witness.
We couldn't really stop to take pictures---wehad to keep moving and try to stay on schedule. I also didn't want the Boy Scouts to think we were slow poke girls. After our last .8 mile leg, we finally arrived at our last stop, the Congregation Emanu El, a Jewish synagogue. This is also a Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired building, built in 1949. Here is a real Torah scroll, being unfurled for us to see. No touching the ink----it's specially formulated and can be damaged by human hands. After the talk about the Jewish faith and the 10th commandment, I asked more about the church itself and the scout leaders there were very nice and helpful. They were built in 1949, and up until 5 years ago, they had the largest hangin movable doors in the world. The back of their sanctuary (I think that was his word?) can be opened up because of those doors to double their seating capacity. This lady, Lisa, is not only a Boy Scout leader, but leads a Girl Scout group, too. She was talking to the girls about the Torah scrolls displayed up there. Here's the front of the building. In the FLWright style, it was a building tying in with nature, meant to look like mountains rising up out of the earth, and with arms outstretched to welcome all. This building was noted as the best 50-year old building in Houston.
Well that was our adventure. I really thought it was a great trip. The girls---despite being weary and tired at the end---they all seemed to have a good time and learn things. Our girls were very well behaved, so that made the trip more pleasant for the grown-ups, too. I learned a lot about thedifferent denominations represented. I'd recommend it to anyone. :-)
B with A and an new friend from her cabin, J
The best (haha) thing about my anniversary? I got to eat out at McDonald's TWO TIMES. We were working on a strict cash-only budget yesterday! ;-) 
The ceiling is supposed to look like a wooden boat, overturned. Since many of the first Christians and apostles were fishermen, and they had to meet in secret, they often met under a boat. The ceiling is supposed to have that feel, as a reminder of those brave souls who literally risked their lives so the Gospel could be spread.
We went on the Ten Commandments Hike in downtown Houston last Saturday. This was a Boy Scout event, but was open to everyone, so we were using it to help earn our Architechture badge.
The next stop was just next door, too. This church was patterned after the neo-Gothic style, built in 1930.
