Family Camp 2014

Last week was our week away from home at Fort Wilderness. We had a great time, as always. This year, one of Rosie Girl’s friends came with us. She’s a real “horse person”, so she and Rosie Girl did lots of horseback riding. Since Rosie Girl only rides when she’s up at Fort, she was pretty sore for a couple of days. They also enjoyed plenty of gourmet coffee and card games in between horse rides.

Wild Man indulged his need for competition in the archery and carpetball tournaments. He won first place for his age group in archery and third place in carpetball! And, of course, enjoyed his prizes – treats from the canteen. He also really enjoyed the teen Bible study for the week. It was taught by a young man who is in seminary and is a totally theology geek – but has a crazy afro and is psycho for coffee and tea. Wild Man just loves this guy’s passion. He taught about several men through church history who have followed Jesus in a big way and what happened in their lives. Some of them were Athanasius, Augustine, Anselm, Luther, Calvin, Tyndale, and Bonhoeffer (I probably missed some in there).

I did a good bit of reading and some knitting. I’m working on a pair of socks that start on the sole of the foot. The pattern is in one of the more recent Interweave Knit magazines. Unfortunately, I had several days of bad migraine, so I missed going on Wrangler Breakfast with everyone else. Other than that, I don’t think I missed much. PWM did a good bit of archery and was in the tournament, but didn’t shoot as well as he would have liked this year.

Grandma (PWM’s mom) joined us again this year. She loves to make campfires, so we had a fire most nights except for the ones when it rained. She made some homemade firestarter (using wax and woodshavings from PWMs workshop) which got things going more easily this year.  Rosie Girl also taught her friend and Grandma how to spin wool with a drop spindle on one of the rainy days. Rosie Girl has gotten quite adept at spinning and Grandma and M were making quite a go of it.

I made a new friend this year, one that I really hope not to see again. He was hopping up my leg when I met him. In fact, he was hopping up toward an inappropriate area and I finally had to pick him up because he didn’t respond to my verbal commands to leave me alone. “NO means NO, Froggy!!” So, I deposited him back in the woods with a strong admonition to leave human females alone and find himself a girl froggy to hang out with. I didn’t see him the rest of the week, so I assume he decided that trans-species romance was out of the question for him.

We had a great week. If you are looking for a fun way to spend a week with your family, I highly recommend Fort Wildnerness! It’s fun in a Christian environment for the whole family in the beauty of God’s Northwoods!