Week 3

We had a lot of fun having Bailey back with us this week!  The kiddos are feeling more and more at home here:). I think the kids know more of the staff than we do and Bradley has his own little fan club!  It has been fun to watch Bradley come out if his shell some.  The camp only has one family with kids that lives on site. Bailey and Ben have had fun getting to know their kids.  Their favorite thing this week to do together was hunt for muscles in the lake in the afternoon.  They would spend hours doing this...one day they found 443 muscles!  This past week the band that led worship also brought their kids and our kiddos quickly bonded with them as well.  By the end of the week our kids would no longer sit with us in the dinning hall and had created a kids table like at the ranch:)

This week the weather has been a bit crazy!  We had temperatures in the 90's early in the week...which would not be a big deal if we had AC:). It was a few hot days and we spent ALOT of time at the lake.  Then later in the week we got tons of rain and wind from Hurricane Arthur.  We only had a few down trees and branches at the camp and they had to pull in the trampoline and the blob out of the lake but no major damage.

This week John continued to work with the maintenance team and helping with projects.  Outside the regular schedule of setting/cleaning up the Dining Hall, cleaning public restrooms, and stocking the vending machines around camp; John got to help out with several other projects on their maintenance list. There was a lot of variety in these projects which included fixing some broken drawers from different cabins, sorting and washing lost and found from the first week of camp, helping troubleshoot how to update their point of sale software that they use for their snack shoppe, and his favorite was using a chainsaw to help clean up a large pine tree that got knocked down when the winds and rains came in with the storm system associated with Hurricane Arthur. 

The kids and I went and visited a children's museum about an hour away one day to have something different to do.  The kids had a great time there!  Their favorite things were the bubbles and trying to make the biggest one, the castle slide and Bradley loved the train station.

On John's day off this week we headed up to the mountains to hike and explore Franconia Notch in New Hamsphire. The mountains were beautiful and we got to go to the top of Mt. Cannon!  We were able to ride a tram up to the top and along the way up the kids got to see a black bear in the wild, which was really cool!

Once we reached the top we had some fabulous views!  It was super windy that day due to the Hurricane which you will be able to tell in some of the pictures.

On the way out of the Franconia Notch State Park we were able to stop by the Old Man of the Mountain historic site. This was a rock structure that was discovered in 1805 and served as as symbol and popular spot for many to come and see this amazing formation. Unfortunately time and weather caused the formation to come tumbling down in 2003. The state has built a memorial at the popular viewing site where  you can see the location and then by standing in a certain spot there is a sculpture that you can look at to replicate what it used to look like. 

Today marks the halfway point of our adventure. We have one more week at Camp Berea, where John will spend the middle of the week leading morning devotions for the support summer staff (aquatics, rec team, office, maintenance, nurse, and volunteers). We appreciate your continued prayers for our family and the staff at Camp Berea as they continue to impact campers lives this week.