A week at camp

The Spirit works on us in as many details of our lives as we will allow.  I had never considered sending Jacob to the school district's summer camp, but the day before sign-ups, I had the idea to check and see if his neighbor buddy, Cale, was going.  It was enough to get my mind thinking, so when Cale's mom texted me and asked the same thing I thought why not?  

It is a big production to get signed up for the same week as a friend and almost all of the spots are filled in the first 30 minutes that registration is open.  There were some frantic texts and some phone calls, but when it was all said and done, Jacob was signed up to go with not only Cale, but a handful of other super good friends, and they were all bunking in the same cabin.  We were feeling pretty blessed.

Then there was the matter of paying for it.  I offered to pay for half and he was a great sport about doing lots of jobs around the house and yard to earn money for the rest of it.  My favorite part of the prep work was when he was packing.  He looked over the list, gathered things on his own, and then came to me saying "so, I guess they want us to shower every day".  A bunch of smelly tweenagers running around all day in the outdoors?  Go figure!  He said his cabin was woken up every morning at 6:30am and marched as a group to the showers.

Jacob had a great time.  He's a pretty independent fellow and was happy Monday morning to ride down with Cale to meet the buses and offered us a hasty and happy goodbye.  

He learned some neat things, ate well, had fun, and we were all happy to see him on Friday afternoon when he got home.  The camp director was great at sending home pictures, so credits to the photos go to him.  

This is what Jacob looks like when he is king in the game and then gets dethroned.

Silas and Jacob setting their critter traps.

The Pink Group. Jacob came with buddies Silas, Andrew (back left-right) and Isaac, Cale, Eli, and Tyson (front left-right)

Identifying leaves.

Watching the volleyball game.

Hot dog night!

The awesome counselors.  Jackson is on the right - he was Jacob's favorite.  Other things about camp that Jacob liked:  the treasure hunt (they finished first but were sent back to redo part of it, and Jacob got stung by stinging nettle and used lamb's ear to make it better), the game where you closed your eyes and got tapped (Jacob was tapped 4 times for "the person that is most likely to be famous someday"), and swimming in the creek.  He also learned some really cool historical things about the worst mining disaster in Utah's history.

Ready to head back home!  Hooray for a great week at camp.