High school camp

This week the camp hosted high schoolers. Biggers eaters, rambunctious and energetic, they played hard and enjoyed our cooking.

The group is playing a game called "trash can". If a person lets go of his neighbor's hands or is slung (tripped or caroomed) into the trash can, he/she is out.

In order to keep the kids comping back to camp, Mark was constantly thinking up new activities.
He encouraged the boys and girls to build a paintball fort of plywood, old lumber and tarps.

Lynne caught me on a ladder, hugging a tree in a high wind while trying to take pictures of the kids playing paintball.

High schoolers welcomed an improved, Alaskan waterslide, even though the temp hovered in the upper 60s and the wind chill was way lower.

A missionary to East Africa spoke to the group about her families life is Africa and their mission there.

Lynne and Dale have been collecting t-shirts on their missions trips. I was excited to help her cut out and arrange the shirts to make a quilt using an Alaskan themed fabric for the border.

We could only work in the dining hall after dinner, around 8 pm while the kids were out and about until all hours.

Sunset is now around midnight, with sun rise around 4 am. However the night is still more of a twilight. We are loosing about 6 minutes of daylight per day.
These girls are struggling to get up from an overnight in the tents. Their counslors said that they didn't stop talking until sometime after 3 am. No wonder they look bedraggled.

Thursday after an easy breakfast and fast clean up, Lynne and I drove to an overgrown trail where we picked ripe rasberries. No snakes in Alaska! but we had to watch our footing for there are thickets of thorny roses. Bears like rasberries.

We soaked the berries in vinegar to make vinegarette.

That afternoon we watched the boys build a fort in the woods. Dale explored the far side of this overgrown area for more rasberries. He quickly returned when he almost stepped in fresh bear scat!

The girls finished up crafts projects for the Christmas Boxes

Here Ellen displays 36 wrapped Christmas Child Boxes that she will soon ship overseas.
Friday afternoon, after the campers returned home, Lynne and I surprised the staff with jars of homemade fireweed jelly.

When we heard that blue berries were now ripening, we spent our Saturday off hunting the elusive berry.

With the three of us picking in the hot sun in a burned out area, we soon (several hours) had 11 cups of berries. Enough for a couple of batches of jelly.

Someone asked Dale where we had found the blue berries. When he told the location, he was admonished that :a true Alaskan never reveals his berry patch."

The wind has been gusting to 60 mph. We've had several birch and one spruce tree fall. There is still smoke in the air at times due to the forest fires near Fairbanks. This coming week, we are "off", no campers, so we will catch up on camp clean up while Dale and Levi do construction and repairs at First Baptist, Delta.