Family Camp

Family Camp is always in Manton, MI at Whispering Pines Campground, which is our North Michigan District campground.  We look forward to this week every year!

This year was different, though...we camped with our friends Brooks and Jill, which was different for us because we have never camped with friends before!  Brooks is a pastor at a church not far from our house, so we also are friends on a different level - being a pastoral family is not something many have any clue about...so it is nice having friends that "get it".

And every year we get to know other pastors in our district better, too, so it is nice slowly making more and more connections (since we have only been in this district for 5 years).

Another difference this year was that we had someone from our church come up for a couple days!  Our friend Troy (his wife, Valarie had to work) came up with their three girls on Wednesday morning and then stayed through Thursday afternoon.  It would be awesome if Val could come up next year and they could stay all week!

Anyway, here are some pictures from our week:

Titus found a tiny grasshopper at the pools!

On Tuesday they brought in a climbing wall and we all could climb as much as we wanted for free!!  I was so surprised, but Titus was all about it!!

Titus going up the easy side...

All the way to the top!

And of course I had to try it, too!

This one was a little harder, but not too bad!

Titus tried the harder side and made it all the way up!

This is about as far as Stephen could get on the hardest side...but the couple that rents it out said they have it set up for those that pay per climb at some of their events...if someone makes it to the top on this side, they get their money back.  No one all afternoon was able to make it to the top!

Damaris gave it a try...

But this was about as far off the ground as she wanted to go ;)

On Wednesday there was a 3 on 3 basketball tournament...which ended up being full court 5 on 5 with a couple people rotating in because there weren't enough teams for a tournament.  But everyone still had a great time!

And of course Thursday was our annual Pastor vs Laymen softball game :)

Troy pitched for the lay team

Stephen was hitting SO good on Thursday!  He had two home runs (in field), which he said he has never done before.

Camp is always a nice time of relaxing, resting, and feeling refreshed.  It's also a nice time to connect with others in our district and just get away as a family.  The kids really connected with some of the other kids their age, and there were constantly kids at our campsite, or our kids at theirs, or playing at the playground almost all day.  It was cute!