Getting Ready for Camp!

Elise is spending the week at Carol Joy Holling camp. She is the first of our kids to ever want to go to camp. Neither Adrienne or Eliot had any desire to spend a week living in nature, away from home. But, when I told Elise that I thought she was old enough to go this year, she was ecstatic! Her friends from church go to all kinds of church camps and tell her great stories. Our neighbor that we carpool with to church on Wednesday nights has been going to this camp for years and shares tons of stories with Elise. So, Elise was pumped to go... until about 2 weeks ago... and then I heard, "What if someone changes their mind about going to camp", "I wish I wouldn't have said I wanted to go to camp", and other things relating to "Why in the world did I agree to go away for a whole week- I am going to die."

Then yesterday, she seemed to have turned a corner and accept that she was going and even seemed a little excited about it. We spent a mommy-elise day together. We packed her gear in the morning and then went to her favorite place, "Paint Yourself Silly".

We stopped to get a haircut and came away with a perfect summer style!

After stopping for ice cream, we came home to watch 101 Dalmations together and play Skip-Bo and Phase 10. Then this morning we went to church, watched a little TV and packed up to go. She was the one yelling at Eliot, "It's 2:00- let's get moving!" She did great all the way there.

And then we hit the check-in line to register...

45 minutes of standing in lines, waiting to see who was going to be her counselor and where she was going to sleep was too much. She stood there and sobbed. Oy...

After we made it through check-in, camp cash accounts, and health check-in, we had to get back in the car and drive to her campsite. She cried the whole way even though Eliot was being super nice and telling her how much fun she was going to have and making jokes, and Scott was holding her in the backseat.  I parked, got out, held her and prayed into her little ears that Jesus would be with her and help her to be brave and make new friends and have so much fun. As I pulled her out of the car, her counselor was right there and asked if she could have a hug and offered to carry all her crap and was just so sweet. Elise immediately stopped crying and was relieved to be able to have a bottom bunk. (She knew from friends that had been there before that you can't be late to check-in because then you end up with a top bunk and that is where all the spiders are... on the ceiling of the tent.) We set up her bed, gave her a quick pep talk and left. Here she is standing outside of her tent with her counselor and one of her roommates.

I'm sure she'll be fine... well, I'm sure that there is potential for her to be fine. The weather is supposed to be great all week. They get to go swimming in a pool and have sno-cones every day. They'll do some service projects and crafts and hiking and games and canoeing and zip-lining and on and on and on... As we were leaving, a family from church was coming in and would be in the same tent as Elise. Every time I turned around, another family from church would walk by so there will be many people that are familiar to Elise. You can do it Tootsie! Go make new friends and many memories!