one happy kamper!

We have returned! Although one of us returned rather reluctantly.... Alex LOVED camp!!

Here is where he spent the first 13 days of June...
Kanakuk Kamp

I can't even begin to tell you how much he loved it! He has already told us that he really wants to go next year and to go for TWENTY-FIVE days this time! Can you believe it? The camp is just an absolutely amazing place, so we'll do it if he wants to. I was a kamper there for three summers and I went for 26 days at a time (that was all that they offered at the time). I loved it too.

Going two whole weeks without talking to my boy was hard. Eight year old boys leave a lot to be desired in the letter writing department. I kept getting one sentence postcards that said things like "the food is good", "miss you too" or "camp is great". They did post daily candid photos online so I searched them daily for a glimpse of Alex. I spotted him most days. This is how I learned some interesting things about Alex... mainly, if left to his own, he will wear the same shirt daily. Our paperwork said that they would have a red, white and blue themed party and to bring special clothes if you wanted to. Well... I didn't get anything special but he had a red, white and blue striped shirt that he wore last fourth of July. I put it in his trunk and told him that was his party shirt... well, I guess everyday is a party when you're at camp because that shirt showed up in every photo where he was actually wearing a shirt! LOL! It is a special level of filthy (as were his white socks... sigh). I also had to question him about why he was wearing his pajama bottoms in his cabin photo.... apparently, he didn't really *need* them as pajama bottoms as they slept in their clothes at night.

It was so funny to see photos of a whole camp full of boys in charge of dressing themselves each day. This is the outfit he carefully chose to greet us with on parent's night...
yep... those are swim trunks and a bright red Cardinals t-shirt. If you're wondering what he's doing, he's participating in the plasma car race at the family carnival.

We went to a hotel without him that night and then came back the next morning for the awards ceremonies.

Here is Alex receiving the "Barnabas - The Encourager" award at his cabin's special award time...
And here he is with his award he received at the big whole camp award ceremony...
He was pretty darn excited... and we were pretty darn proud! :-)

Okay... off to start my day. We just got home Saturday night and Jeff left yesterday afternoon for London and Budapest. Today starts Clara's dance intensive and I may have to take Alex to the doctor. He got a bug bite on Saturday that just keeps swelling. I called the doctor on call yesterday and they gave me a list of what to look for.... but even though its not exactly doing what they said was dangerous, it still doesn't look right. It's now the size of a golf ball with a dime sized purple blister on top... that doesn't sound good, does it?

Okay... I'm really off now!

Lots more pics of our two weeks in MO to come!