Family Camp

This past holiday weekend we spent some time up north in Three Rivers, Michigan at Family camp with some friends. We'd been planning this weekend for months and months, so the anticipation has been building. We went up to Fort Wayne on Friday so I could get my 19 miles in on Saturday morning before we left for camp (cannot believe I'm at this mileage...and surviving to talk about it! It was a runner's dream at 54 degrees; I finished in 2:58 and am thrilled with this time!). We got into camp Saturday right after lunch and it was quite nostalgic driving in, as it reminded me of my own camp experiences as a kid.

Most of the people we went with were past campers and previous counselors here.
As soon as we arrived we unpacked, got our beds situated and put Delaney down for a nap. While Mike stayed back at camp with a few others, Izzy and I went on a nature hike.
Girl got tired so a shoulder ride was necessary

Saturday night we walked to a local restaurant for dinner. Here's a pic of us with Maggie & Myers. We headed back a little early to put the littles down.

Once the littles were down we brought the bigs to a community campfire for some traditional camp songs and s'mores. Here's Izzy & Jackson enjoying a treat...

We then headed back to our cabin for our own campfire

Sunday morning was a little crisp, so we had breakfast with our fleece accessories (btw-we had the option to eat all meals at the mess hall but opted to eat most at our cabin).

G.ang sign?

Sunday morning we went for a little walk...

...and stopped to pick some wildflowers. You can get an idea of what our cabin looked like in the background. One word: rustic.

Buggie hanging out with Clay and daddy

Sunday morning we also took Izzy to do a little horseback riding. We thought she was too little for the trail rides so we simply kept her in the ring for some laps. Both Mike and I were nervous about Izzy being up on "Major" as she was not strapped in, but she did a great job balancing and was a trooper! So much fun. I especially liked this activity b/c I went to overnight horse camp as a kid and this brought back memories for me!

Big girl!

The helmet was a touch too big but you can see how much Izzy was enjoying herself!

Relaxing in the sun

My favorite part about camp was always arts & crafts and I was tickled to know this was open all day long for us! We tie-dyed and made some necklaces with Maggie & Jackson:

I had to keep on checking Izzy's mouth for her smuggled beads :)

The end results...love how these turned out (although they won't be able to wear them for a few years - ha! Camp E.'s youngest campers are 7 years old...so this was as small as they had).

The weather got VERY nice on Sunday so we rented three pontoon boats and spent the entire day down by the water. Izzy loved the giant slide

She kept telling me she'd see me at the bottom

Big swimmer

We docked our boat near an island that had a sand bar...so Laney and I had to do a little swimming. The water was chilly so we didn't get too far in :)

Mags and Myers (and the b.e.s.t. beer in the world!!!)

Jackson & Owen

The ages of the kids ranged widely...the bigger kids did a lot of frog and turtle hunting (our cabin's front yard was RIGHT on the shore). Monday morning Cameron caught his third frog and I just had to get a picture of some of the kiddos with him. He was so darn proud...too cute!

We had a great time at Family Camp and are happy to be home and in our own beds. Thank you to the Bowdens for the invite!!!

And I just had to get this pic...we stopped back through Ft. Wayne on the way home and Laney was ALL about Rodey Poney. She has one at home that she got from her Bobo & Grandma; however, I think she was wanting to do some horseback riding of her own and just wouldn't stop bouncing on this one!

PS-Doesn't she look so grown up with jeans and big kid shoes on? I just can't get over how big she's getting!!!