Headin' for camp!!

I am not sure how many years, I just know it has been a lot. Bro JL Parker has taken many children down to our state camp grounds for the annual children's camp every summer. He drives the van down, helps them all get checked in and registered, and sends them on their way to one of the funnest times of their lives....JUNIOR CAMP!! It is for children aged 8-11. They will stay for 4 days and have a super time. Our three oldest have gone many times over the years and loved it! Now, Bro JL does stay down at camp with the kids...in the boys dorm room as a counselor/chaperon along with several others from the church. There are several ladies who stay with the girls also. Our family, along with some others I'm sure, will be heading down on Friday for the final night. There's going to be a kid's choir, activities, ball games, classes in the morning as well as evening services geared toward their age. Here's a quick-pic summary of their departure this morning at 6:00AM.

Bro JL checking all the campers onto the van.

10 kids+1 driver=LOTS OF FUN!!! Samantha, Brookelyn, Makenzie, Micaylah, Bro JL, James, Garrett, Braxton, Tyler, Jacob, Matt Loading up some stuff... These guys look so sad to be leaving home...HA!Girls are ready! No tears here...

Last check before pulling out to head down to camp!There they go!I am looking forward to hearing how it all goes. Have a great time kids and make some awesome summer memories together. THANKS! BRO. JL FOR TAKING TIME OUT OF YOUR SCHEDULE TO ACCOMMODATE THESE LITTLE ONES!! But then, that's the way you've always been. We know your reward will be great in heaven! We love you!

Our 4th of July Family Fun!!

Ok, I sure do hope your 4th of July celebration was fun! Ours was absolutely great! We took a short trip to the mountains nearby and did some camping. It was semi-primitive camping. We put up our tent and got the cooking area settled. You know I have to have a cooking area and it must be orderly. I like it all laid out and a nice pretty table cloth over the cooking table. We then hung lights all around (we brought an extension cord to run some electric for the lights). You know the white Christmas lights? We hung them from the trees and it looked so nice. Everything was lit up softly so that we could see where we were walking. We got all settled in and made a fire. Of course, we brought marshmallows, Hershey's chocolate and graham crackers...for s'mores!! Yea!! We love those. We had roasted hotdogs, pasta salad, and grilled chicken too. We brought lots of veggies and even cereal for breakfast. We had a cooler packed full of yummies! We brought sparklers for the kids to play with and they loved that. Even the 'BIG' kids had fun. They ran around with them and chased the lights that it made. Since it was a state park, no fire works were aloud. But that was ok. We don't usually use loud firecrackers anyway. Since we stayed several days we had the time to do some hiking. We packed a lunch in the cooler and made sure we had lots of drinks for everyone. We went into the mountains. We found a river bed that was dried out and the kids decided to go down into it. It really looked rocky to me. They went so far ahead that we (Grant and I) couldn't find them. We looked and looked and finally we saw them on top of this HUGE rock! Sitting on the top of it--with Autumn, our little Miniature Pinscher. She was a whiz at climbing all those rocks and finding things in there. More coming shortly about our little trip...

Stitches!

Well, the other day we were heading to the hotel for Grant's meeting. We got checked in, went to the room and laid all the bags down. Immediately three kids started yelling, "Two beds, the room has two beds!!" Ok, you ask why do they even care if the room has two beds. It's very important that the room has two beds, because that means they get to jump from bed to bed. Over and over and over again. This is just a little tradition we have when we travel, anywhere. It's not like we are seeing something tremendous or even visiting a famous site. It's just that this is something that they are not allowed to do anywhere else, EVER. So we let them have a little fun jumping around and laughing and acting up. It really is so much fun. Sometimes even Grant and I jump too. Now that is quite funny to think of. LOL! We have a great little time and then we settle it down. That is exactly what we did. Everyone was settling down and getting ready to go to sleep. It was very late and I was so tired and very much ready to lay down and get some well-needed sleep. Since the children are still young, they are small enough to fit into one bed. They end up sleeping in every-which-way and they don't even know it. So they snuggled down together. It's so much fun too. All tucked in and ready for prayers they waited. I had gone in the bathroom. Grant was waiting patiently for me to return. Austin decided he needed me for something and hopped out of the bed as he normally does and when he did, he pounced right off and into the luggage table sitting next to the bed. Out I dashed and Austin says, "I'm alright, I'm alright, Mom." They all said he was alright. We lifted his hair up a bit and sure enough he looked alright. All that took about 3 seconds. We put his hair back down and all of a sudden, out it all poured. Spurted, actually!! All over his face came this flow of red blood and down his neck and then everywhere!! Good gracious!! How did it just start so fast. We rushed him into the bathroom, sat him up on the counter, placed something against his forehead and pressed hard enough to get the bleeding under control. Grant immediately went to get some ice. All the while Austin is saying, "I'm alright, and it doesn't even hurt." He was very calm and wanted to 'see it'. Grant came back in with the ice and we applied it to his face. We couldn't even see anything yet, so we didn't know how bad it may have been. I lifted the ice off slowly and took a look. It seemed to be small, but the bleeding was so much I wasn't sure if that was the only place. We looked him over and didn't find anything else. Thank God. He was starting to get a bit antsy now and wanted to 'see'. We turned him around and out it spurted again. "We have to keep ice on it," we told him. After about 30 minutes, the bleeding had completely subsided and we placed an bandage on it. He stayed awake for about an hour and a half, then went on to sleep. This was about 1:30am. We ended up taking him to the ER and they triaged him immediately and they gave him 3 little, baby stitches. Oooo.....oooo. All I could say is, "It will be alright and Jesus will take care of you." Ooooooo......ooooo. He could have had more, but they didn't want to put him through anymore pain. The three did the trick. They took such good care of him and he was a big boy. (we were in and out in about 45 min) Although, he cried out, "Mama, are they done? Are they done yet??" It was so pitiful. It broke my heart. I didn't know they have to stick a needle directly into the wound to give stitches, did you. Oh, that was terrible. We made it through it and now he's not even noticing he has them. He's getting the stitches out tomorrow. Lord willing :) Kids are so resilient!!