Family Camp 2011

We had a blast at family camp this weekend! Every summer our church rents out spaces at Nehalem Bay State Park for a huge gathering. There were 500 of us there this weekend! We all loved it - it is nonstop fun with friends for 3 days, and the weather was perfect. About 20 of us from our life group get a group of sites together, and we eat together, play lots of games, have bonfires, make baked cinnamon apples, etc. We celebrated our friend Molly's 50th birthday by bringing a cake and a decorated walker for her. During family camp there are a few organized activities for the families to participate in if they want to. Conner's group won the sandcastle contest by making a fire, roasting marshmallow, graham cracker, and Hershey chocolate out of sand :) They won lots of candy and a little sand shovel. Conner made some new friends and built his friendships with some people he had hung out with in the past. He ended up spending the entire weekend with all these kids, so we hardly saw him! They all rode into Manzanita and went out for pizza and milkshakes. McKenzie's best friends were all there, so she had a blast. When we left, she said that she wished we all could just live there together :) Kelsey also had a ton of fun with her friends and loved being a middle schooler at family camp this year. Each night the middle school and high school kids get to go to "night games" on the beach where they are on the beach from 9:30-11:00 playing crazy games.

What made this trip even more enjoyable this time was we rented an RV from our friends. We've decided we will never go tent camping again. Having an RV makes camping SO much more enjoyable - there was even heat in the RV! It is so nice to come inside for the night, be able to turn on a light, go to the bathroom in the middle of the night without freezing to death, and have places to store all of our food, clothes, etc. The RV had a "little" trouble with the turbo, so we went 25mph on almost all of the hills. We made a few people pretty angry on the way there as they honked and zoomed by us when we had a chance to get in a passing lane. On the way home, we just kept pulling over to the side to let everyone pass us. It made for an interesting adventure :) We are so grateful that we were able to spend the weekend with our wonderful friends and are thankful for such a relaxing getaway.