Happy Campers

Ava and her daddy just headed out for a Y-Princesses weekend at Camp Seafarer. I'm kind of jealous. I love camp. And that's kind of weird, considering that I am not the least bit outdoorsy (maybe I'll tell you about the monthlong NOLS trip I took in college. Summary: I lasted one night.)

I had a harder time saying goodbye than I thought I would. But I'll be happy for the sibling banter to take a rest for a couple of days. There's a high level of it these days. 

Back to camp. A ton of Ava's close friends are already coming up on their second year of going to summer camp overnight. The first time I went, it was the summer after fourth grade. I was nine, and turned ten later that summer. I went for three weeks, but knew tons of girls who were there. The camp I went to was a little on the rustic side. For instance, there was a pool, but it was filled with lake water. Ewww. And there were snakes. There was also a lake, and there was a brook that ran behind our cabin. You could hear it running at night. That's probably why our cabin was called "Brookside." I think we ate food that was all raised/grown on the camp's farm. Pretty cool. They were totally rocking the farm-to-table movement before it was even in our lexicon. 

The mountain camp was nice, but maybe a little on the earthy side for my taste. It was green before it was cool to go green. Nothing wrong with that, but just not really my cup of tea. For the next three years, it was on to Camp Thunderbird, located on Lake Wylie. That was more like it. Skiing, sailing, swimming.....and not too rustic. I still have the best memories of it, and would just love for my kids to have similar camp memories.

So, back to Ava. As I said, a good portion of her buddies go to camp. Many went for a week last year, and are moving on to two weeks this year. I guess I should count my dollars blessings that Ava doesn't want to go, because I'm sure the day will come - all too soon - when she is happier to be with her friends than with her daddy and me. But at the same time, I think it would be a huge confidence boost for her to be kind of independent for a few days. 

Then again, one week of overnight camp would pretty much eat up my entire summer activity budget. 

Oh, and that earthy camp I went to? I heard they have chlorinated water in the pool now. Welcome to the 2000s, folks.