Family Camp and Camp Family

Over Labor Day weekend, David and I went to Camp Desoto to work at their Family Camp Retreat. Those of you who know us have probably heard us talk about Camp Desoto or Alpine Camp at one point or another. These are camps for children that David and I worked at while in college. Desoto is a girls camp and Alpine is for boys, but after David and I got married, both camps allowed us to come back and work together during the summers. We have continued to work, or just go back to visit, anytime we possibly can.

When we headed up to North Alabama on Friday afternoon, we got held up in Atlanta traffic which caused us to get there much later than we would have liked. We love driving up to "the Mountain" and how the scenery gets better and better the closer we get. We leave the flat farmland of South Georgia and slowly begin to see the foothills of the Appalachians. It is beautiful and makes us more and more excited to arrive.

I was disappointed that we were arriving so late until we saw this.

And then this...

And this...

Why does the sky look so much prettier in the mountains? Is it because you are closer to it? I have no idea.

We could both talk to you all day about the reasons that we think these camps are wonderful and beneficial to both the campers and the college age staff who work at them. I won't do that now, except to say that camp is so much apart of who we are and where we have come from, that we consider them to be family. Going back to Alpine and Desoto, for us, is much like going home. It is familiar, comfortable, and encouraging. We love the people there, and though we do not get to see them as often as we would like, when we do get together, we pick right up where we left off. It is a blessing to have them in our lives.

These girls are a big part of my camp family.

P.S. I squint when I smile real big. Can't help it.

Here are all the Mercer people who worked at camp! I got to know these two sweet girls when I was interning with RUF Mercer last year, and I convinced them that they needed to go work at Camp Desoto during the summer. They both did a great job and I am so happy that they love camp so much! Yay! More "camp family!"

There's the squint again.

David's job this weekend was to lead several different activities like Ultimate Frisbee and Mountain Biking.(Not a bad job, huh?) He also spoke at the worship service on Sunday morning. My job was to teach crafts for the retreat, which is my very most favorite thing to do. We both helped with night activities, including a super fun square dance. Dave does a mean "chicken dance", FYI.

Since  this was Family Camp retreat (there were boys and girls of all different ages) we had several different crafts. The older boys made duct tape wallets and the tiniest campers made bandannas and nature bracelets.

The older girls made these fun headbands.

The picture is a little weird, but do you know how hard it is to take a picture of a headband on your own head? After many attempts and no success, I gave up and propped it on this branch. Let's pretend it's "artsy."

Here are the girls in the "Craft Shack" working away. We sustained a few minor hot glue gun injuries, but it was worth it! Crafting ain't easy.

The girls did a great job and made some AWESOME headbands. I'll post a tutorial about how we did it soon.

Thank you, Camp Desoto, for letting us come be a part of Family Camp 2010. We had a great time.

Love,

Craft Mama Mel

P.S. I linked up at Skip to my Lou