The View From Here

Camp Kahdalea

We woke up early the morning we dropped the girls off at Kahdalea and I know for a fact that Ali and I were even more excited to get there than our current campers were!! They still had a little apprehension mixed with their excitement but Ali and I could hardly wait to see it again. We weren't disappointed! Camp was just as beautiful and looked exactly the same as I remembered.

Current Campers

Former Campers

The girls literally ran up the hill after we took a few pictures at the entrance. They were greeted in front of the office by a bevy of counselors and welcomed like old friends. It was a flurry of activity as the girls were all checked for lice, found out their cabin numbers, received their uniform shirts and met their counselors.

The office

Behind these beautiful trees are the girls' cabins all in a row - the car in front is only there because it is move-in day. The steps lead up to Lilly's cabin first, #3, then Meggie's, #6, and finally Katie's, #10. The area where our girls are is called "lower camp" and is divided into tribes based on age, the "senior camp" is up another hill just past the lake and every cabin in the senior camp is part of the "Seminole" tribe. Our girls are in the "Choctaw" tribe this year.

Pine Lodge - this is where the girls eat, have evening meetings, celebrate Christmas in July and other fun festivities. The bell on the deck is rung at the end of every activity period and for meals.

The girls each got to their cabins, claimed a bunk and changed into their bathing suits to attend to the first order of business at camp - passing the swimming test. I think our girls had an advantage over Lilly in that New Zealand has helped them toughen up a little when it comes to swimming in cold water. The lake is spring fed and is quite chilly and I think it was a shock to young Lilly's system. She managed to pass the test after a little bit of drama at the end that had a lot to do with the fact that she was frozen. Meggie and Katie whizzed through it without a problem but they were very happy to get out when all was said and done. I've since had some letters from the girls saying that the days are very hot so I'm sure the lake has proved refreshing when the heat index is in the 100s.

Lilly in her cabin.

Meggie in hers. Meggie was the only one of our campers joining an existing cabin of girls - the other girls were in with other brand-new campers.

Katie on her bunk.

Meggie with her counselor.

Katie and her counselors.

Lilly and her counselor.

The entire time the girls were taking their swimming test Ellie was asking me if we could leave. I told her we still wanted to walk around a bit and look at the camp and she asked me if she could go wait in the car alone. I wouldn't let her of course but I asked her why she was so eager to leave and she said "It's dirty". She's a funny one that girl.

While the girls changed after their test we sauntered around the rest of the camp - here are a few pictures. This is the gym - it's right across from the archery field and the girls can take dance and gymnastics here as well as drama. I'm still not sure what they've signed up for as neither child has written me with their schedule - but I do know they are taking everything together which I can't say surprises me in the least.

Josie and Anna would have loved for us to leave them there with their sisters - they gave the rock climbing wall a try and were desperate to get into the lake during the swimming test. When we were leaving Anna cried a little after saying goodbye to Lilly and Josie cried because we wouldn't let her stay.

At noon we figured it was time for us to say goodbye so we waited in the dining hall for the girls to come down so we could say our goodbyes. I had to laugh as I saw Katie coming down the hill in an entirely new outfit whereas Meggie and Lilly had both put back on the clothes they'd had on when we arrived. I hope sweet Katie doesn't run out of outfits while she's there!

Only Meggie got teary as we left and she managed to hold it together and not run after us. Saying goodbye was bittersweet - I couldn't help but be excited for their new adventures but my mommy heart also wanted to run back and comfort my girl.

Thank you to those of you who have written the girls, the news out of camp has all been good. I sent them both with cameras and journals but I'm not sure if they will have recorded too many of their experiences - however I will let them tell you about it on their blogs when they return. xx

Atlanta American Girl Place

While we were in Atlanta we headed over to "American Girl" for a visit. All three of the older girls have their American Girl dolls from their trip with Mommy when they turned 6 and they were keen to do some shopping for clothes and accessories. Ellie's trip with Mommy is a little more unsure - I'll definitely take her somewhere but we aren't sure if we'll be back to America - so we decided to let her go ahead and get a doll too. Mimi signed her up for an "American Girl" camp with Josie while Mommy and the big girls are in Washington D.C. so we thought it would be special for her to have her own doll.

We were in Atlanta on Sunday so the store didn't open until 11:00 a.m. - we were practically the first people there!

Meggie and her doll Skyler were dressed for shopping in their matching outfits.

Josie got to have her doll's hair fixed at the hair salon - it was a good choice as Felicity was looking a little ratty before but looked beautiful after!

Katie and Mimi wait for Katie's doll Nicki to also get her hair fixed. Mimi gave each girl some money to buy something special and both Josie and Katie spent part of that on some doll hair styling.

Ellie wasted no time in picking her doll - she chose Elizabeth immediately. Elizabeth is Felicity's best friend and they are from the Colonial era. I think Ellie loved her beautiful hair and fancy dress.

Uncle Stacy waited patiently for us at the coffee stop in the mall and he even showed excitement as the girls ran to him to show him all their purchases!!

After our shopping extravaganza we headed to lunch at one of my favorite restaurants - Houstons. It was every bit as delicious as I remembered! After a leisurely lunch we headed to the nearby Target for some last minute camp essentials then we drove for three hours to Asheville, North Carolina. The drive through North Georgia and up into the Carolinas was stunning - even though we had a bit of rain. We arrived in Asheville at dinner time so we checked in and then walked a few blocks to dinner, then it was an early night because we were heading for camp in the morning.

Heading to Camp!!

Last week we packed up the big girls in their new brightly colored trunks from Mimi and started our trek to North Carolina!!! I barely got the items on the required list to fit into their trunks - I don't know how the campers do it that are there for the whole summer!

We left Florida about 10:00 a.m. on Saturday morning headed for Atlanta, Georgia. We had arranged with Ali to leave our houses at about the same time so we could meet up on the interstate somewhere before lunch but we timed it so perfectly that they saw us as soon as they got on the interstate. Awesome!!

The girls were all great for the entire trip - we hit some major traffic south of Atlanta that caused us to spend about an hour more in the car than we had planned, so we arrived late and hungry. We got to our hotel and dumped our bags then headed to dinner. We ended up at a fun place called "The Twisted Taco" - the girls got to eat locked up in a jail cell. After dinner there was a d.j. so we stayed and danced until they kicked us out at 10:00 p.m. because they were no longer serving food and were officially a bar.

More pictures soon from our adventures at the "American Girl Place".

NASA

So in the last post I tried to post larger photos but I thought they looked fuzzy so I don't think I'll be doing that again. If you would like to see any of the photos in a larger format you can just click directly on them.

I LOVED going to NASA - and the girls enjoyed it too. We studied astronomy last year in school so it was a good time for us to go and get to see in real life some of the things we'd been learning about.

We signed up for a bus tour that took us to all the different launching pads and around the rather huge NASA complex. My brother-in-law supplied me with all these awesome photos because I left my camera in the car - thanks Stacy! Here's a picture of him that Meggie took at the beginning of the tour. He's pretty funny.

This next building is huge and houses the space shuttle. The blue rectangle on the flag is as big as a basketball field and our bus could drive up one of the red stripes as they are as wide as a car lane. It was very impressive!

We viewed several launch sites - I think this is where they shot off the Apollo rockets. I was surprised to learn that they flood the area around the launch pad with thousands of gallons of water in order to diffuse the sound, that's why there is a big water tank to the left of the pad.

We also got to see a preserved portion of the actual mission control area that sent Apollo 11 to the moon. The guides said that the computers and equipment all still worked - but it looked very antiquated to me. It's truly amazing to realize they made it to the moon given the technology available at the time. The next few pictures are of an actual Apollo rocket, they built 15 and only launched 12. The size was awesome.

Can you believe this thing that looks like it is just a mass of tinfoil landed on the moon?

This is the van that the astronauts ride in to get from the place where they suit up to the launch site.

We also saw some amazing 3-D IMAX movies about the Hubble telescope and about the Apollo program. The big girls rode a shuttle simulator ride and said it was pretty intense! Unfortunately it made Lilly quite ill so we called it a day at 5 pm but we'd been there eight hours already so that's pretty impressive. There was a lot more that we didn't see so I would like to return in the future - we didn't tour an actual shuttle or go to the Astronaut Hall of Fame. We also missed the opportunity to meet and ask questions of a real astronaut, so next time we'll hit those things first. All in all it was a great experience and I would highly recommend it!