Ridgehaven Camp

Well! I'm finally back home, and here are some pictures. These may mostly interest family members, but you other friends are welcome to gawk at our offspring as well :)

As soon as I arrived, many of us traipsed down to Hunter's house for some invigorating tea. The girls went along. Aren't they getting old and beautiful? This is (l-r) Patience, Hannah, Katie, Anna. Cousins all. They range from 13 to 19 years old.

Cousin love. Is there anything better?

Ah, tea. Hunter is the best :)

Peter and Ben dropped by at our tea party. They stayed, but did not partake of the nectar. Boys this age are rarely still, unless they're asleep or in front of a screen. Thus, the fuzziness.

Peter is so shy, you know, so I thought I'd better not make him show his face in this shot.  His knees, however, are very bold. Very cool.

More cousin love, but don't tell them that. These are, l-r, Clark, Justice, Nathan, Julia. All born in 1999 (Well, almost. Clark went over into the new year a bit.) Note Nathan's face. This was actually a photo to prove which cousin is tallest. Nathan was trying hard to overcome Justice, to no avail. Justice's daddy is taller than Nathan's, so I don't think Nathan will ever catch him up! I must add that these four spent hours at the creek, doing very muddy things. Mother said they hardly needed to go to camp at Ridgehaven; they had their own personal camp fun at the creek :)

They played various card games in the evening.

Registration:  they enjoyed meeting up with old friends from previous years. Here, Justice and Julia stand by two girls we've known since they were babies.

And Hannah and Katie found their dear friend, Sarah (right), who brought her friend April along to camp for the first time.

The senior highs have a GAW camp week, which means they sleep on hard floors, eat bad food over a fire, and get more bug bites and poison ivy than ordinary campers. These privileges cost more, of course.

I have the funny feeling that this bunch will be inseparable for the week.

And the little boys. Ah, I feel so for their counselor. We met him. His name is Levy. Nice fellow. I hope he survives.

Julia and her counselor, whose name I forgot to ask.

Julia and Patience are in the same cabin.

These girls have beds, dining hall food, and bathrooms. Sounds good to me! Their counselors had done a little decorating:

I left the girls doing some craft work on the floor. I think they were making their own name cards, coloring them.

Flamingo twinkle lights. Who knew?

We had to go back to the GAW camp site to take Katie her pillow and sleeping pad. These are their tents.  I must say, when I was 13, and camped for four days during camp, we pitched tents on the forest floor and did not have bath houses. This isn't quite as "roughing it" as we did, back in the day :)