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Nine years ago, a sweet tiny 7lb 15oz baby girl was born. Our only Virginia baby. She captured our hearts from the start.
Honey loves books. She regales us with her vocabulary whenever she speaks. Her love of a story and make believe is legendary. She can be bigger than life. I don't know how nine years could have gone by already.
My beautiful girl. Happy birthday.
And, did you know she had camo paints on her birthday list? And, all sorts of tomboy stuff?
For the past three years, a family in our homeschool group offers their home for a "camping" experience. We have swimming, a campfire, and different activities. This year, we added Saturday's vigil mass. The setup was much easier having the camp starting on Saturday as opposed to Friday. Until Father offered mass for us, we couldn't figure out a way to do a Camp W on Saturday into Sunday.
We had swimming, then a potluck dinner, more swimming, a campfire with smores, of course, and a camp sing along. The next morning, the overnight campers had a potluck breakfast. With it being Father's Day, we had the children wash the dads' cars. They had fun and then they were allowed to swim. After swimming and a quick snack, we had a tug of war.
The team on the left won.
In an effort to cut down on trash and waste, we leave it up to the families to provide reusable plates and cups. It doesn't always happen. Some families just forget (I've been one to forget when we first started doing this). Some will bring paper plates which is fine. Usually, a couple of the families provided the paper goods. So, this helps cut down on a few of the families carrying the whole group.
Well, I've just deleted a whole paragraph that wasn't going in a good charitable direction. So, I'll talk about a family who was there. This mom has four 8 and under. The youngest is a baby. She camped overnight without her husband as he was in the field. She put up her tent by herself. She was super. Without raising her voice once! I was in awe. She was vigilant. She kept an eye on her children and made sure they didn't wander into the swimming pool area.
Kids will be kids. The people who own the property keep the gates closed because they don't want their dog to wander in and and out of the backyard. That's the only reason why there are gates. And, as many of us have been there frequently, we don't close the gates. It's easier to go in and out of the pool area. So, it was neat to see how this mom took care of her children while having the gates open. But, of course, the Army is sending this family elsewhere.
