Camping 101

I have gotten so far behind with my blogging - sometime life just gets in the way of all of the things that I want to do. There are not enough hours in a day!!!

2 weekends ago, June 10 to 12, 2011, Anne and I went camping with the NJ Chapter of FCC, Families with Children from China. This FCC Chapter (we belong to the Lehigh Valley Chapter) has been running an annual summer FCC camp, and celebrated their 10th anniversary this year. Congrats to them!! And thanks to them for having such a fun and informative camping event for parents and their children.

It took place at Camp Ockanickon, a rustic YMCA camp in southern NJ. That's right, no electricity in the cabins, etc., but they did have running hot and cold water and showers in the bathrooms . . . that was a BIG plus!!!!

My friend, Barbarann, thought this would be a fun experience for our travel group. She organized the whole thing, and sent out e-mails with updates about how to dress when camping, what to bring along, camping necessities, how to sneak in wine, etc. I think the e-mails before the camping trip were just as much fun as the camping itself!

(We have all been trying to talk her into starting her own blog:

Come on, BA!)

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OK, on to camping 101:

The first night was the hottest night of the year, and we all got to "warm up" by the fire!!! (Not good for someone with hot-flashes.) But the girls had a blast:

They got to roast marshmallows in the fire . . .

after finding their own sticks . . .

They enjoyed eating their S'mores and telling ghost stories. (I think BA "talked" one of the counselors into giving our group an entire giant chocolate bar instead of just one piece!!)

Here are Kim, BA, and Janet enjoying the bonfire:

Getting ready to walk back to our cabins. Pictured here are moms: Julia, Kim, Sharon (looking very warm!) Hidee,(I think this is the only photo of her - she made us promise not to take any pictures of her!) and Janet; (BA is taking the picture) and girls: Peachy, Grace, Anne, Eliana, Ava, and Lily.

We stopped by the lake during our walk back to our cabins. Hidee had the most wonderful idea to let the girls go swimming! It was not quite skinny dipping, but they did strip down to their undies. They all said that the water was warm and wonderful. (Some of the other parents looked at us with horror in their eyes!) But later, Anne told me that she had so much fun - she said it was the best night of her life!!!!!

That night, the moms enjoyed lots of conversation and fellowship (and a little contraband wine) after their girls went to bed. Fun!!

In the morning, we found a surprise in the tree directly above our cabin:

Who would have thought that a raccoon was the most frightening part of our camping experience? All of the moms and girls were scared to death the following night - they thought this raccoon was going to attack us in our cabins!!!!!

We had breakfast at the "mess hall", then gathered for the morning activities. The kids were divided into groups and given colors to differentiate each group. Much to Anne's chagrin, her group's color was pink, her least favorite color! But after she got over the initial shock, she went off to enjoy the activities with her counselors and friends.

We spied them hiking through the woods mid-morning:

One of our morning activities included wall climbing. I did not think that I would ever climb a rock wall, but here I am, with BA, getting ready to be the first in our group to give it a try:

(Please note that BA picked a helmet that matched her outfit!)

I am looking a bit scared here, but one of the Chinese teens (her name was Amylynn and she was a cutie!) told me to Man Up!

Spotters Ready:

On belay: climbing . . .

Kim, ready to climb:

"On Belay"

Here's Janet, ready to climb:

On belay, Janet:

Janet made it to the top and rang the bell:

Hurray for Janet, our hero!!!!!

And . . . I am so sorry that we did not get any pictures of Barbarann climbing!! She did climb, and had fun, too!!

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After all of the exhilarating activities, we enjoyed a little afternoon snack compliments of BA. She made these marshmallow snacks, covered in chocolate and nuts: Mmmmmmmmm! . . .

Here's a close-up of our yummy especially-made-for-camping snack:

Anne and Grace were extremely anxious to go swimming in the lake, so I took them. (The lake is filled with "cedar water" and is brown in appearance. It actually smelled like my grandmother's cedar chest . . . pretty cool!

Grace and Anne had a blast swimming.

Unfortunately, Lily, and Ellie did not get to go swimming, because there was thunder heard in the distance, but did get to enjoy some fun in the sand:

A butterfly stopped by to pose for a picture, too:

The dinner dance that evening was amazing! The D.J. was entertaining and innovative - here he is having all kinds of fun with the audience - with just a plain piece of white paper!!!

He even had us pretending we were dancing Martians:

That night, after the girls went to sleep, we sat and talked again. It was awesome chatting and reminiscing about the activities of the day. Who would have ever thought that we would get yelled at (at our age!!) to keep quite? But we sure did.

The entire experience was wonderful. I still smile and giggle when I think about it. Our new friend, Julia couldn't have said it any better this:

"I just want to let you guys know how very special it was for me to have a chance to get to know you a bit better this weekend. How incredibly fortunate you all are to have each other . . . you are a diverse group of unique and special women . . . and as a group, you all have gelled to perfection . . . isn't that just one of the joys of adoption? . . . how it has brought us in contact with so many special folks."

Thank you, Julia, for your special words.

And thank you, Barbarann, Hidee, Janet, Kim, and all of the other moms, too!

Anne and I had an awesome and amazing time.

Happy Father's Day!

Today is Father's Day, and in honor of that, I want to share a 2-page layout that I made a few years ago. This was 2-pager was Sarah's design - she is the owner of memorylane pa, a scrapbook store in Quakertown, PA. The store is closing next month because of the poor economy and various other reasons.

That just makes me so sad.

Sarah taught a scrapbook class every month called KISS - Keep it Simple, Scrapper, which was the most awesome class. For each montly class, she made FOUR layouts and gave us the supplies and instructions on how to make them our own. She really helped me to perfect and refine my own scrapbook style.

This 2-pager was made at a KISS class. It showcases photos of the fathers grandfathers, and great-grandfathers in Katie's and Anne's lives, "the fathers that came before them."

And on a funny note, John wanted to spend a quiet day at home, but his mom had other ideas. She is having a meal at her apartment that she prepared from start to finish. John's brother and his family are coming as well. It just goes to show you that even on Father's Day, you listen to your mother!!!!!!!

Have a great day everyone.

We love and miss you, Earl, Clyde and Allen.

Heaven When We're Home

This week, at Scrapping the Music (go check them out at www.scrappingthemusic.blogspot.com), the song is the very inspiring "Heaven When We're Home" by Wailin' Jennys. I am sure you will find that it is such an awesome song to create with!! I came up with this layout using Jessica - aka Scrapbaby's very first sketch as the basis. You can see more of her sketches on Facebook. The photo was taken in my backyard.

Yes, it's really true: there's no place like home!!!!!

Thank you so much for stopping by my blog!

from "Songs From Shows We Can't Do Here!"

Here are 2 layouts that I made with the pictures that I took from Katie's recent high school show.

The first is of Katie performing "I'm Not Getting Married Today" from the show Company. I made this layout for the Darker Side Challenge at scrapbook.com. This month's challenge was entitled "Wedding Bell Blues." I thought this song was perfect for it!

The second layout is made with pictures of Katie's friend, Zack, performing "Money" from the show Cabaret. He was awesome, as always!!! I made this page for the Steampunk challenge at scrapbook.com.

Thanks so much for stopping by my blog! We are going to pick Katie up at West Point this morning. She goes to the Naval Academy tomorrow for their summer leadership seminar. . . John is driving her down to Annapolis with his brother and family. I am going camping with Anne at a FCC (Families with Children from China) event. I hear the accommodations are pretty rugged and involves rock climbing. Oh no!!!!!

Nazareth Theatre Troupe presents "Songs From Shows We Can't Do Here!"

Last night my husband, John, daughter, Anne and I went to Nazareth Area High School to see our oldest daughter, Katie, perform in a show that was like no other! It was a review of songs from different Broadway and off-Broadway shows. These shows, for various reasons, cannot be performed at Nazareth Area High School.

Here are some of the songs from last night and, boy, were they AMAZING:

"Nicest Kids In Town" from Hairspray:

"Wheels of a Dream" from Ragtime:

"Secondary Characters" from [Title of Show]:

"For Now" from Avenue Q:

"Not Getting Married Today" from Company:

"Be Italian" from Nine:

"Superboy and the Invisible Girl" from Next to Normal:

"Sunday" from Sunday in the Park with George:

"Mama Who Bore Me" from Spring Awakening:

"What I Did For Love" from A Chorus Line:

"Loathing" from Wicked:

"For Good" from Wicked:

"When You're Home" from In the Heights:

"Money" from Cabaret:

and the finale, "Time Warp" from Rocky Horror Picture Show:

We had a blast getting up and doing the time warp with everyone in the audience at the end of the show!!!!

It was a bittersweet evening full of tears and emotion . . . because Katie won't be able to be in the final performance tonight.

She is attending a leadership seminar at West Point for a week starting today. It was another day full of emotion as I watched her go off to the barracks with the other cadet hopefulls. Her junior year is over - she is officially a senior now.

Sniff, Sniff . . . Time flies . . .

look at you fly . . .

This week's Scrapping the Music song is a super fun one by the Dave Matthews Band called "Write a Song." We, the design team, love this song and hope you do too. Please check it out at www.scrappingthemusic.blogspot.com. You can even click on the widgets on the side bar to get all of the lyrics.

My inspiration for this week's layout is a picture of Anne taken at the beach at Arrowhead Lake last month. I love this picture - doesn't she look just like she can fly?