While I had a quiet week at home and caught up on garden projects, my 2024 "Book a Week" goal, and coffee dates with friends, our girls were living their best lives working and attending the annual HiCamp up in the Santa Cruz mountains. A happy reunion of the 4 of us was the grand finale to this fun week!
After 10 intense, but necessary, days of training, Ella easily passed all her evaluations and certifications and was ready to welcome Week One guests to her courses! She gave 11 tours last week. Most are for the guests at Family Camp, but there are slots where the course is closed to them and open to the public. One of her groups this week was Japanese tourists! She'll guide them through a 2 hour tour on the ropes, but actually spend 4 hours working that shift because it takes twice as long to thoroughly inspect all the gear and the course each time out. After dropping Delia off up the hill at Ponderosa, I was excited to head down to Family Camp and visit Ella in "her office". I loved watching her high up in the trees doing her thing, catching zipliners, and encouraging guests through tricky spots.
When her tour ended, we grabbed some dinner-- the BBQ picnic on the lawn that each week of Family Camp opens with. (I wasn't a camper, I just bought a meal ticket.) Fun this time was sitting not on the lawn with all the other campers and kids, but in the staff section, meeting some of Ella new friends!
We were having a nice visit, when Ella jumped up with her summer staff buddies and said, "We gotta go dance now!" Part of the opening night festivities is always a skit introducing the theme and a whole staff flash mob.
Ella was already cracking us up with her many funny stories-- and just from the first week! She's not allowed to use "The F Word" (fall), and we were having lots of fun with that! One time her tour got cancelled, so they sent her up in the trees with a broom to sweep and knock down any spider webs. So, she had to do all the obstacles 150 feet up one handed! She was excited that with Family Camp starting, she'd go down to just working 45 hours a week. The big ropes course is where she spends most of her time, but she surprisingly loved working the archery range too, where she discovered she's a crack shot with a bow and arrow! This week she's scheduled for something new-- leading the 9 mile hike through the forest from MH to the Boardwalk!
Week One is when all our church and school friends go to Family Camp, so I LOVED having my phone blow up this week with everyone we knew up there sending me pictures of their tours with Ella. And as they post their fun MH photos and videos, I'm enjoying spotting Ella in the background of all the adventure shots! ;)
I already mentioned how she's living with her best high school buddy Maya, but another great friend from HS is working in Day Care this summer too-- Marina! These 3 are all incredibly busy with different schedules, but enjoying sharing this special summer together.
Delia's week at HiCamp was full of all the powerful worship, challenging messages, invitations to get vulnerable and out of comfort zones, and fabulous fun with friends that it always is. Delia's calling this year her best yet. SO much laughter and goofiness with this beloved group of girlfriends she shared a cabin with. Above, Beach Day. Below, ready to crush it on Waterslide Day.
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Posing on the rock wall.
Rides at the Boardwalk.
A little taste of her group's contribution to Lip Sync Battle Night-- they got first place! (Delia choreographed ;)
All her sweet friends on the last night, which is a Formal Picnic. She had 2 new girls from down south in her cabin and they were fast friends. A meet up at the beach is already planned!
One more of the E6 eight! She spent hours telling us all the fun stories and showing us the probably 100 pictures and videos on her phone. We pray hard for this week to be impactful for all who attend and the Lord has been faithfully answering for years.
Since we had to pick up Delia on a Saturday morning, we took advantage of Ella's one day off each week and spent all of it with her! Both girls were exhausted, so nothing big planned except a lazy day at the Santa Cruz Beach to reconnect.
HiCamp wears ya out! Delia is not usually a napper, but she fell right to sleep in the soft sand.
After some snoozing, the rest of our hours on the beach were spent chatting and reading...
Playing Flickin' Chicken. Heather introduced us to this wacky game-- like bocce ball, but with bouncy rubber chickens! I wildly flung one at a random beachgoer by accident. He thought it was hilarious!
Walking to both ends of the beach. Sooo glad to have my girl back!
And some silly crab racing. Barney, the hermit crab I selected, gave us quite the entertaining show!
Dinner was clam chowder, fried calamari, and a (shared) bacon avocado burger with a view!
And of course a stop for some Marianne's ice cream is a Santa Cruz must!
This was a great day! My heart was so happy to be all together again and hear all the happy reports of an awesome week.
1 comment:
I loved viewing this blog. It made my heart happy also just seeing how fantastic everyone is doing. Delia's lip sync video was so fun to watch. Of course they won with Delia handling the choreography! You all seemed to have a wonderful time together. This is what summers are made of.
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