I’m laying in bed after a long day in New York City. We had a great week at Camp Breakaway with the Angel Tree Kids, and it was nice to take a day to enjoy the city while we’re up here. We fly home tomorrow, then Tim and I are back on the plane Saturday for vacation.

Our group in front of the Brooklyn Bridge.

We got to see a Broadway Play! Phantom of the Opera was really good!

I have a couple minutes before I have to announce the clean cabin award. So far things are going well, only minor problems of a couple campers not getting along. One of my girls from 2 years ago returned. She has grown up so much! I love seeing her around. She is in such a nice cabin…and actually her’s is who is about to win the clean cabin award. Because they did a good job, not being biased.

Okay, we’ll we’re busy. check out the youth site.

Tim and I are in New Jersey right now. We spent yesterday traveling, then at the beach in Ocean City. Today we did some training and the kids practiced their skits. Tomorrow we have more training and the campers should arrive around 3. I am really excited to get to love on all the campers that will be here. And I’m excited to get to be a support for our youth, and help them be effective with sharing Christ with their cabin kids both with their actions and by word.
I probably wont write much this week, if at all again. I’m already really tired, and we haven’t even started camp!

Pray for our students that have come to be counselors. Some are nervous about doing a good job, and some are confident. I’m thinking the confident ones will be the ones to have the hardest time, but we’ll see. Pray that these kids will be stretched. That this wont just be an easy week that they can fly through taking all the credit for themselves. But that they wont have any strength and that they will have to depend completely on God to get them through.

Pray for the campers coming tomorrow. Pray that God will open their hearts and minds to accept what we have to share with them about Christ.

And pray for safety for all of us. The terrain here is pretty rough. All of us played a night game, and Tim got pretty beat up. Pray that he wont be sore, so he can direct camp with all the strength God will give him. And pray that no more injuries will happen.

If you want to keep up with what we’re doing here you can check out our youth website. Tim will keep updating it throughout the day, and you can go see all the pictures each day.

I got my hair cut on Saturday and highlighted. I was waiting for it to warm up before getting it cut short again. The highlights are something new and fun I tried. I find myself looking at them every time I’m around a mirror. The girl that does my hair is great. She’s my age and does a great job. I think all the pastors and families go to her.

Tonight was a lot of fun. We had 20 youth over to watch Night at the Museum. Tim and Connor set up a projector and we watched the movie on the side of our house. They rigged up a King size sheet and we all sat in the driveway. We used a bug fogger and 10 citronella candles and lots of bug spray to keep the mosquitoes away. It was such a fun idea, and I would love to do it again. I was surprised how quickly the set up and tear down was. We had a couple girls come early and stay late to help. And then all the kids brought a snack or drink to share with everyone. Sunday school and youth group is canceled for the summer, so this was our first activity with the kids for a couple weeks. Next week we leave for New Jersey for an Angel Tree camp, then starting in July we’ll do youth meetings at our house, each grade level meeting every other week.

Tim and I have had our Minnesota drivers licenses for a few months now, but today we went and finally registered our cars and have Minnesota plates! Now we wont get weird looks by those around us…especially when the ground is icy and we had Texas plates. People gave a worried look and stayed away…which probably wasn’t a bad idea.

Tim is washing our plates right now so we can keep them as memorabilia. The only thing that could make us even more of a Minnesotan is if we start talking like them. But that might take some time, don’t ya know.

Yesterday Katelin and I spent about 3 hours in the lake alternating between swimming and kayaking. We would swim until I got too cold then we would kayak until we were tired. All together we kayaked around the whole lake, but we did it in sections with swimming breaks.

And today we had the most fun of all the days Katelin has been here. Our neighbors called us up to join them out on the lake. We got to tube, knee board and ski today spending 4 hours out there. But it was worth it. It was great to watch Katelin do water sports for her first time, and she had a great time too. The weather has been poor for playing in the lake most of the time she has been here, so God was very gracious giving us great weather and the opportunity to do water sports!

Katelin and Brittany at one time went about 4 feet out of water jumping a wave and kept with it, not falling off!

I think knee boarding is my favorite, although I don’t quite have the good arm strength, it’s a fun challenge and rewarding to do. My whole upper body is so tired now though, and will probably be more sore in the morning!

Tim did a great job for skiing only his 2nd time ever. He got up quickly and went around the lake 2 times!

Tim and I did great balancing ourselves as Doug tried to get us off. We didn’t fall off once, but it wasn’t easy staying on! (Just look closely at our faces!…you can click on the picture to see it bigger.)

Jon and Brooke had a great idea for our parents anniversary present. We got it to them a little late, but Mom called today after they received it in the mail telling me how much they love it! We took a few sibling pictures the last time we were all together and framed these 2 for Mom and Dad. It’s also great for us to have. I’ve been waiting a while for their anniversary to be able to share these pictures with everyone without Mom and Dad finding out.

On Monday it was too windy to try kayaking or paddle boating, but it was sunny so Katelin and I just jumped into the water, went all the way under water, stayed in for about 2 more minutes, then had enough of the cold.

Tuesday was sunny again, so the water had 2 days to warm up, and there wasn’t any wind, so it was perfect for kayaking and playing with the paddle boat. We had quite an adventure with all the spiders that we tried to clean off of the kayak and boat, but still had a few friends with us on our ride which made things interesting. We were able to go swimming for a little bit longer today, the water was still cold, but felt a lot warmer compared to the day before.

Wednesday Katelin and I went to a few shops downtown. We went to the Christian Book Store, used book store, and a cute trendy store (which we pretty much looked at a couple things, saw that they had chips and dip samplers, ate some of that, looked around for a few minutes, got another chip and dip then left). Then we went to an antique store (there’s lots to choose from!), and the craft store and headed back home for lunch.

After lunch Katelin and I went up to the church to organize and redecorate the youth announcement board outside of Tim’s office. Sunday is officially kicking off the new youth website so we made a banner for that and made information easier to find for parents and youth.

And today after sleeping in, eating breakfast at 11:30, pretty much just laying around the house all day, we finally left the house at 9:45pm to go out for ice cream and bowling. I won the first game by quite a bit and lost the second by quite a bit. While Tim and Katelin were warming up, I was getting worst! My wrist always hurts after bowling, and all of our fingers were aching.

I’m not sure what we’ll do for the rest of the time Katelin is here, but I hope we don’t have any more lazy days like today. We were going to swim today, but by the time we all had our swimsuits on and were ready to go, a cold front came in and took us below 60! Not good swimming weather, and the sun was no where to be found to help. Our xbox has been used more than ever this whole year, and I’m working on a puzzle Tim’s family brought me when they came to visit.

Today in the mail Tim had something addressed to him that came in a clear envelope. I hadn’t seen anything mailed like that before, so I curiously opened it. To my surprise it was a Certificate of Family Membership with a letter welcoming Tim as a member of the John More Association. I didn’t even know that there were certificates given to family members.

I have enjoyed hearing about my family history, but I am horrible at remembering things, so it was nice to get information of my ancestors in the mail, and I have been checking out the website about my ancestors.

I love how well our family is kept track of and that there are people willing to do all the work to make sure of it. It’s mind boggling that they have record of 13,000 descendants of John More, of which 8,000 living. That’s a pretty big family, and awesome to know that there is a connection with all of our family members.

I emailed the people in charge of the website so I can get more access to it and learn more about my family history. What a fun surprise in the mail!