Last Hurrah

This past Thursday through Saturday afternoon we had our "last hurrah" before school starts... a camping trip to Hanging Rock State Park, with 3 other families from our Sunday school class. Despite the sweltering heat (upper nineties on Thursday) we all had a very enjoyable time. Here to tell you about the trip in her own words is McKenna:

"Well, my favorite part was playing with my friends. It was a fun camping trip and my church friends were there. It was fun, the thing is, only 3 girls were there, including me. I also swam in a nice and warm lake. It was fun. I learned how to do the backstroke and I swum very far. And we ate 'smores, went to go look through telescopes and we talked and played with friends."

Molly would like to add:

"We ate s'mores and we looked through telescopes to see the moon. And I talked and played games with friends. We goed to a really pretty waterfall and we swam there. We walked there. We slept in a tent. And we looked for deers. And we saw the stars. We saw flowers and ladybugs. We ate healthy stuff. I played with Ella and Ryan and Erick and McKenna. We ate ice cream and goed swimming in a warm lake. That's all I'm going to say. We had fun."

We arrived at the campgrounds Thursday afternoon and set up camp. It was so blazing hot that we decided to go take a dip at a nearby waterfall when we were done setting up. To our surprise and delight, we had the pool at the base of the falls all to ourselves. It was such heaven to cool off in the cold water and listen to the sounds of the waterfall in the background. We returned to camp refreshed and ready to get down to the serious business of s'more-making that evening.

We had never camped with several families before, and it has got to be said, that that is definitely the way to go. The girls, though initially shy (what else is new) warmed up quickly to the other children that were there, and had a great time running around (literally) with them. Ron and I enjoyed getting to relax and have "grown-up" conversation with our friends. As my mother-in-law would say, "Maybe Hillary was right after all, it DOES take a village!" It sure was nice having a "village" in this case!

Friday morning we had a short rain shower that really helped cool things down. The 4 of us huddled in the "living room" portion of our sizable tent and ate breakfast and relaxed while waiting for the much needed rain to pass. That afternoon all the families went to the lake for a swim. The water was a comfortable temperature and the roped-off part designated for swimming was sand-bottomed. The girls loved swimming out in the lake, and McKenna became quite a pro at the backstroke, swimming from the shallow end, all the way out to the ropes in the deep end (accompained, ofcourse). Molly had fun practicing swimming too, and when she tired of swimming, she resorted to building sand castles.

That evening we took the girls over to the visitor center to look through some telescopes, as they had amateur astronomers there that evening. It was a beautiful, clear night, and we got to see the moon, as Molly told you, as well as Jupiter and 4 of it's moons. One of the telescopes there was so powerful, you could see some of the bands on Jupiter. It was amazing and brought back memories of when I was little girl and got my first glimpse through an enormous telescope. Hopefully the girls felt that same sense of wonder and awe that I felt all those years back.

Saturday, the kids all played while we packed up (again, a wonderful part of camping with a "village" of friends... usually breaking camp is the worst part of the trip as the girls are bored out of their gourds and are constantly getting underfoot). Despite the heat, we all had a great time on the trip, and it was such a nice way to bring summer to a close. And it should be said, there is already talk of a fall trip... we'll keep you posted!

And btw, in the interest of full-disclosure, the photos with this post are not from this trip (as you can probably tell from the clothes) the one of the tent was taken in Blowing Rock but at least gives you a basic idea of our "living conditions". And the one of the waterfall is in fact the waterfall we swam at, but was taken in Autumn. Obviously, I fogot my camera and left it at home.