Birthday Weekend

Tonight we celebrated Lindsey’s and Rachel’s birthdays!  Lindsey turned seventeen yesterday (June 21), and Rachel turned eleven today. 

My first celebration was when most of the staff went home around 11:00 a.m.  I like the staff—those few I've met—but now it would be Totally Family Time! Yay!  The archery director stayed at camp for the weekend, too, and she invited Kaylie, Rachel, and Jessica to go down and shoot this afternoon. So all the kids but Michael and Lindsey went down to do some archery.  (Jason says that wearing his Robin Hood hat did not make him a better archer. :-) )  Bruce had a little work to take care of and I wanted to get the cabin cleaned up and then we were going to go down and take pictures of the kids shooting, but by the time we were ready, they all came back home. We are not very good at the photo opportunity thing. Maybe another day.

Brandon hikes up to our cabin.
The older kids,  from Ryan and up, sleep in camp tents.

By the time they’d hiked back home the kids were ready for a rest so Bruce and I went to take a little walk around Frontier Lake by ourselves.  That was nice.  Probably the most time I’ve spent with my husband—bar sleeping—all month.

When they heard Bruce and me coming this little family of geese thought they'd better jump in the lake and go for a swim.

For dinner we raided the staff refrigerator and brought home pasta, meatballs, and some steamed veggies.  (This commissary lady stocks frozen veggies—like broccoli—and not just canned green beans. Yum!)  I made some sauce with stuff that we had brought up to camp, tossed in the pasta and meatballs and we had a much more delicious dinner than we’ve had in a while.  We went out to walk off our dinner a little and found wild raspberries growing near the lake (Frontier Lake—there’s more than one little lake here.)  It was fun to be with all of my family, and  for more than two minutes at a time. :-)  We sang and played and just had fun with each other. 

Back at the cabin we played a game of Boutros Boutros Gali (I have no idea if that’s how you spell that name). We sang “Happy Birthday” twice—once for Lindsey and once for Rachel.  They opened their presents, and we had birthday pie. I just bought frozen pies to thaw and serve here—don’t really have stuff for baking.  But they were all right; key lime for Lindsey and Rachel chose Cookies and Cream (which tasted like Oreos mixed in whipped cream).

Lindsey is pretty excited about
her birthday present . . .





Rachel appreciated the aluminum-foil wrapping paper and Hershey's Kiss bow (which was stuck on with a drop of honey).  She appreciated the playing cards and crayons that were wrapped inside it, too.

It was a nice, relaxing day.  I really enjoyed just spending time with my family.