Loyal to the Royal!

Ah, girls camp. How I have missed going. It has been years since I ran around at Shalom, and I was super excited to check out what we, Marylanders, do for camp. I was not disappointed!

I had to work Tuesday (when the girls' left) and Leslie was sick, so we headed up at the crack of dawn Wednesday morning. Camp was about two hours away (we made it in about an hour and a half). We were camping in tree houses near Gathland State Park, in western Maryland. BEAUTIFUL! All the girls were rounded up and headed off on a hike, the trail was part of the Appalachian trail, and it was a lot of fun. We spent about 5 hours on the hike, but I'm pretty sure we didn't cover much distance! The company was enjoyable, and there were many memories, including life saving rock climbing, witnessing an innocent caterpillar-killer, a near-death experience with a black snake, and brief car-towing scare. All in all the hike was great! It was weird to me though, because the trees are so dense, it never really opened up to provide a "view", I'm sure it was just the area we were in, but I did kinda miss the "view". Still love the trees.Wednesday evening we had some nice talks, and then it was time to roll out the camp songs. Ah yes, how I love the fact that the animals came off the arky by threesies, thressies, when they went on the arky by twosies, twosies. Hmm, interesting. I seriously think I could have sung all night, if I hadn't started to lose my voice!Thursday I woke up bright and early and went out for a run. How amazing to be in such a beautiful area and just enjoy the quiet and peace. I loved it. I appreciated the time to myself. I also discovered that I had been attacked by a killer cold, I am pretty sure that my nose was a leaky faucet, and nothing but a kleenex hanging out my nose would stop it! I came back and it was time for a tubing spectacular. We were given our choice between a "lazy river" or a more exciting one. Well, pretty much every one picked the wild one. I'm glad we didn't pick the lazy river, as the only real excitement we got, came when a couple of girls failed to follow directions and ended up on the wrong side of the extremely wide river. Oh, and it did get exciting when you went over the 3' "waterfall". The only real casualty was Stephanie's fabulous hat. After a quick bite to eat, we all chose to brave the wild river again. It was a very enjoyable float down the river. This time when we got to the waterfall, Leslie and I decided to hurry through, so we could watch everyone fall off as they came through. Well, in our excitement to rush through, Leslie went first and (ahem) failed to keep on moving through, so when I flew in behind her, my tube bounced off her tube and pushed me back into the rapids and I proceeded to flip, toss, roll and flail. In my efforts to find the water surface I managed to hit my knee on every sharp, solid object under the water. I was sure that if my experience was a sign of things to come, we were in for a good show. No, no one else fell off! How rude! I should have made Leslie hang out at the bottom of the falls for everyone else! See how they managed!

Ah, good times. Thursday evening we took our big group picture, and actually got in the local paper! I guess 50 girls wandering around in pink shirts is newsworthy!

We made the paper! Click here!

We spent our last day torturing Isabel with braids, and playing pranks on the girls. Well, really just Amanda, I stuck a sausage in a twix wrapper and gave it to her. She was so excited by the candy, but then much to our disappointment, she didn't open it right away. Instead she put it in her pocket and kept it there for a while. After a few hours, we feared for the potential stinkiness and we prodded her towards discovery. She had a good surprise and we had a good laugh. Thanks Amanda for being a trooper about the whole thing, it really was pretty funny!The week was awesome. I'm so glad I went up. It was so much fun hanging out with the girls and seeing them outside of a formal church setting. It was also a blast to hang out with the other leaders (I'm still not sure I'm used to that role!). I think there were times, nah...I know there were times when we leaders acted a bit crazier than the girls, but hey...it was all in the name of fun!
Girls Camp - June Photo Album - Click Here