RazNoggle

This morning I’ve been packing! It seems like we’ve been in a constant state of packing and unpacking the past 6 weeks! That’s camp life for us though. Hard to believe it’s actually our last day!! It’s been fast and furious, but good. I am thankful that God has given us the chance to work in a camp ministry. Camp has been an important part of both of our lives, and now will have an important part in our kid’s lives too! What a great God! He truly is so good to us. Not only does he provide abundantly more than our needs, but He generously allows many of our wants as well. Then He works in our hearts and lives to bring us to the exact place that we LOVE to be. Wow! Not that there aren’t difficult moments, but even through those the peace in Christ that we have from being where we need to be makes it worthwhile.

Anyway, that was all free. You’re welcome!

I’m going to brave the thunders and run out to the vehicle for the camera. I’ve neglected giving you all that photo-tour of camp that I’ve promised. Now is as good a time as any since we will be shortly gone from here for the summer! Be right back!

Okay, so while that’s working and I have a captive audience waiting for the pictures I’ll just keep rambling. These probably aren’t the best pics in the world. I took them with our point and shoot camera, which actually does a pretty good job, but the problem was the time of day and sunlight angle. But still it’ll give you a pretty good idea of what camp looks like.

We have enjoyed being at camp, like I said, but we’re all really looking forward to being at home! Going into the summer I was thinking that we’d get to have some great ‘family time’ after camp ended, but this coming month looks like it will be just as busy, in a different way, as this last one has been. Stuart is diligently working on school stuff and getting his certification and everything solid. I’m so thankful to be married to such a fantastic man! He works so hard for our family AND camp. Even though I know I don’t say it often enough, and others say it even less, I appreciate everything he does, and the way that he gives 200% to everything he does, even if it’s not something he necessarily wants to do. I’m a lucky gal!! But however that may be, it does mean that he will be busy this month. We’re leaving camp early today because he has a test to take tomorrow. Then the following week starts about 5 days of education conference for him. I know he’ll have a great time because he loves to learn, but we’ll miss him!! After that we’re going to take a couple days to “camp” (more or less) with his family. The day after we get back I start babysitting, and that Friday is Stu’s first official day “back to school.” What in the world happend to summer??? I think it’s just wrong for school to be starting the first week of Aug. Crazy!

So that in a nut-shell, is what’s going to be going on. I’m looking forward to some stability in our schedules and routines though. I know the boys could certainly benefit from it and that means I would too. My goal is for us to have some kind of established regular daily routine set before the little lady shows up. I know that anticipated event will throw us all for a loop, but if we have a routine that we can fall back into, instead of starting from scratch, it’ll be better. So as exhausted as I am third trimester, I’ll be happy to put the effort into getting our lil family back in line. That’s what mommies do, right?

Okay I’ve keept you long enough. Here are the pictures of camp in Alpine, AZ. You all should come visit sometime!

The bottom of the road to camp.

The steep part of the road! Pushing the double stroller up this hill is difficult!

This is the camp entrance. The hill behind kind of reminds me of Baker at TWR.

Aspen Lodge

Closer

The back

Fire pit

The field

Guy’s cabins

Snack Shop/Gen Store

Our “little house in the mountains” cabin

Love Aspen!!

When Grandpa was here, he let the lads ride their bikes to the other side of the field. Guess who was carrying bikes back?

Aspen Lodge. Ta ta till next summer!

Not feeling so hot today. Blah! Of course with as many of our staff who have been down and out, I shouldn’t be surprised if I start feeling icky. Hopefully though, it’s just a mild touch of tiredness. I am feeling pretty exhausted, but after trying to nap for the last half hour and noting that my brain was only going faster and faster, I gave up in favor of blogging all of my woes to you guys. Hee hee!

Today Myles and I made a quick run to town for some FOOD! Yay for eating! One of my favorite pastimes I must say! So now some beef is cooking up in the crock pot and will later be joined with onions and peppers so we can have fajitas for dinner. I even got some avocados for some fresh guacamole!! Num! Beats the pizza noodle stuff they’ll be eating in the dining hall for sure! No complaints though, the camp cooks, and nutritionalist have been doing a fantastic job this summer! I just prefer to do my own shopping and sometimes I prefer to do my own cooking, oddly enough.

The retched moths have been plaguing my life out for the past several nights. It’s actually been more like a week of nights where I’ve either heard them knocking their own ridiculously ugly heads against the wall above the bed or buzzing past my ears while I’m trying to sleep! One night I got up and annihilated about 4 of them, but there were still more lurking. Grrrr!! Several nights I’ve just pulled the covers or a pillow over my head so I can’t hear them. I hate sleeping with stuff on my head! Then last night I reached over to turn down the humidifier next to the bed because it felt like the bed was actually getting wet from it, and I must have disturbed one who was sitting by the pretty green “on” light. As soon as I turned the knob and moved my hand back, something buzzed past my head! ARGH!!! I went to bed feeling very ill last night, so this didn’t improve my mental state. I turned on the light and attempted to swat the crazy flying beast, but I apparently can’t aim with a little rubber spatula! I needed a ginormous fly swatter for sure, because suddenly this little rogue was joined by like 5 other of his ilk all fluttering like mad around the lamp!! It seemed like every time I’d swat at one they’d divide and suddenly there would be twice as many! Finally I gave up, turned on a different light, turned off the bed light, and sat in the easy chair pouting till I thought it was safe to return. My poor husband has a lot to put up with I tell ya! I don’t remember there being this moth infestation last year, but I’m pretty sure we sprayed the cabin with that ortho bug stuff last time, so maybe that made the difference. Who knows! Just 2 more nights! I think I can, I think I can….

It sounds and smells like it wants to rain out there right now, and I think that would be lovely! I love mountain rain showers!! Of course it IS free-time and the campers are having a blast climbing the wall, hurling themselves down the gauntlet, and playing paint ball, so I guess it would actually be better if the rain holds off for a couple more hours.

Anyway, that’s my little world in a nutshell for now. Hope you all are having fine and fabulous summer days! Toodles!

Whew! It’s a roller coaster ride for sure! Then I knew it would be. We’re having a great time at camp! My WHOLE family was up here last week with the teens from their church. Actually one bro is here as cook. The rest came up with their teens and that was fun! I got several good foot rubs from my kind-hearted brother who took pity on my poor pathetic, and very dirty I might add, feet. Happy feet!! Ahhhh! Well, we hauled our grill up here to camp so we “grilled out” each night with the fam and that was lots of fun! Nothing against most of the camp food, it’s been great! It’s just difficult for me to get the lads to meals/fed/feed myself, and get out in the allotted time, so it’s easier doing meals at our cabin. Plus it’s nice to have a certain measure of control over what we’re eating.

Apparently though, our good cooking sparked some interest in some unexpected ways. Friday night was a doozy for Stuart! He had final scoring which is always very exciting. Then he stayed up till sometime around 3 AM helping the AV guy get the camp DVD ready for the campers to take home. Whew! He got back and promptly fell asleep, but then my brain started going on photography related things and I couldn’t go back to sleep. Just about the time my eyes were really and truely closing, I heard a familar bumping sound. I just couldn’t believe that the lads were up and about at 4 in the morning! Arg! So I got out of bed, in a not so happy mood, and turned on the light, stuck my head in their room and hissed, “Go back to bed!!” But as soon as I had, I realized that they were both snoozing soundly away in their proper places. Hmmm? Strange! Oh well, I got back in bed thinking maybe one of them had kicked the wall in their sleep. A few moments later I hear more of the same banging. Only this time I was awake enough to realize that it was coming from the other side of the cabin wall…. OUTSIDE!! Now there’s this deck/ledge that goes along that side of our cabin, and on this ledge is our trash. We like to keep stinky things outside like diapers and such. Some of the leftovers from the week had also made their way into that trashcan. Suddenly I knew the truth without even looking, but just to make sure, I looked. There, right outside our window was a black bear happily helping himself to our trash!!! Like any sleep deprived, mommy of little children, my first reaction was to freak out! Poor Stuart, who was even more sleep deprived, was rudely awakened by a hyperventilating wife telling him that there was a bear out there! So much for my therorys that the noisy campers and stinky diapers would be a deterant for the critter. He had been spotted near here the weekend before. Anyway, Stu got up and made some noise out the door, and the bear kind of grabbed the tree next to the cabin as if he were ready to climb. It was then that I realized he was still a pretty young bear, though not a cub. Still…. But he was very happy about our trash and wouldn’t leave until Stuart went out and flashed a light at him. Then Stu and 2 other guys kind of “hearded” him off the camp site. My poor exhausted hubby came back to get some much needed rest only to have that determined critter come straight back to our yummy can! This time however it was empty because Stuart had taken the trash up to the camp trash trailer. I nearly laughed out loud when I looked out the window this time! The bear was sitting on the ground staring into the empty can that he had knocked over! I can almost see the thoughts passing through his little bear brain, “I was sure this was the can I was at before!” ha ha ha!! Stuart had to shoo him off again, and by that point sleep was an illusion that we could only dream about till the next night.

Still, I had been wanting to see a bear…. I think I’ll rethink my “wants” the next time though. I don’t really like the idea of those wild critters roaming around my “home” and especially where my kids play. Though he was easily chased off, you can’t be too careful with wild animals. So I will keep my “momma bear” eyes open and alert while my little monkeys are playing outside, and we will NOT be keeping any more ‘yummy’ trash at our place! Oh no!

That’s the title my lads should use as their umbrella corporation. As I was watching them play outside today I though again, as I have often recently, about how I never considered moving two handfuls of dirt from one place to another to be so delightful! Apparently I’m missing out. Qade and Myles, but Myles in particular, will pick up dirt, rocks, pine cones, or pine straw and oh so carefully take it somewhere else and toss it down. Myles will walk around and around with his little fists clenched tightly around a bunch of gravel that he managed to snag until he decides the place is perfect then down they go. It cracks me up! Today Qade decided he needed to “Work on the trees” so he spent quite some time pouring dirt down the tree trunks and trying to fit pine straw in the cracks in the bark. I love their little imaginations at work. Myles has been taste testing most of the organic stuff around here. Though when he picked up doo-doo of some kind on the field last night I was quick to tell him to drop it. Uck!

Camp is a magical, exciting time for youngsters!! The campers are of course always excited/exciting and the staff are generally thrilled to be at camp, but for the camp kids there’s just something about it that’s wonderful! They get to interact with each other, and believe me Qade loves playing with his buddies. But they also get to interact with the staff, and in my thinking that’s even better. For young children to be able to watch and play and learn with dedicated Christian young adults is just a fantastic opportunity! The kids don’t look at it that way, of course. To them it’s just someone else to play with or talk to. But I’m thankful for the influence that other Christians can have on my kids, and there’s no more fun and concentrated way for them to get that experience than through camp.

I miss being in the middle of the action and a part of all the excitement. But as a Mommy of 2 very active lads I have different priorities right now. I get to be on the sidelines cheering on my man who is in the midst of it all. (Not the least big jealous, oh no!) And I get to watch my kiddos taking it all in. Camp has been such a big part of my life, that sometimes I feel like I’m somehow “missing out” on it all. But when I really stop and consider I realize that my time in those roles has passed. And there may come a time again when I actually can spend more time “out there” enjoying the excitement of camp, but that time is not right now. There are other things that I really would miss that I could never have again if I didn’t keep my family the first priority. Plus this year I’m so fat and sluggish with baby girl on the way, I’m practically worthless anyway. SO I will enjoy my “job” as camp wife and mommy, and enjoy watching my lads grow though the summer as they experience new things and new people. I’ll also do my best to learn and grow from the situations that do come my way this summer as we all work together to reach the next generation for Christ!

They live all around us apparently! This weekend was a great “wild thing” sighting time. On Saturday we were driving into town for our park fun when out of no where I saw a bear! I was looking intently for Elk because they often are along that way, but sure enough back in the woods there was a big fuzzy bear! I did a double take and then yelled out “A beeeeaaaaaaar!” (so Stuart says I said) and freaked everyone out. We turned around but “Teddy” had already disappeared into the thick woods so no one else got to behold him. Ain’t I special? We also saw the Elk and occasional Mule Deer, and a little heard of Antelope with their babies, too cute! Then yesterday as we were driving back from the new camp property just around dusk I saw a bob cat off in the field. I hollered again and Stu stopped and turned around. This time we were lucky enough to both get to see it. He was just sitting there in the grass waiting for us. Once he decided that we had actually seen him, he wandered off into the brush, but that was pretty cool! We also saw this ENORMOUS heard of Elk just grazing away like cows in a field. There were LOTS of them out last night. I’m sure we saw a couple hundred of them all together. It’s so cool to be in a place where you can experience God’s creation first hand! I told Stu that it was too bad that Qade had no concept of how cool it was to get to see all of these critters. But then again, Qade thinks that it’s awesome to look out the car window and see “Tows” and “Howsies” (cows and horseys) so he is impressed with God’s creation too. Maybe I should learn to think it’s cool just to see a cow or a horse. They are after all, just as much a part of creation as the Elk, Bear and Bobcat. I can learn so much from my little lads!