ECC Camp out

Hello again my friends.

We took yesterday (Sunday) when we got home from our church service at the camp to rest.

I was really glad to be able to sleep in my own bed after the very emotional day we had yesterday.

I wanted to tell you a little about our camping trip.

We stayed at Rocky Fork State Park near Hillsboro, Ohio.

We were in the Group camping area.

We had a blast.

On Thursday we packed up the van.

We arrived at the camp site at 1 pm on Thursday afternoon. 

It was super duper hot!!!

We unloaded the van and set up our tent.

Our tent is the Ozark Trail XL Vacation lodge. 

It is 20 feet x 11 feet and is 6 feet 6 inches tall.

We fit 4 twin air mattresses and one queen air mattress in our tent and still had room to move around.

Here is the view from our tent. What the picture doesn't show is the lake.

Here you can see our tent and some of the other's tents...ours was the biggest one there.

This area is the kitchen area.

It has a fridge, two stoves, an industrial sink. There is also 2 bathrooms and 2 shower rooms in this building.

A lovely view of the sky from the first night.

Sitting under the shelter house listening to the conversation around the campfire.

Here you can see the grove of pine trees down one of the trails in our camping area.

Here is a peek of part of the lake down a trail

And another.

On Saturday we had a fishing derby for the kids.

Here is the view from where we fished.

Here are 3 of my kids.

My other kiddo and an extra.

These wolf/coyote cutouts were all over the area down there.

Rocky Fork Lake hosts a lot of Canadian Geese.

I believe these were used to keep the geese away from certain areas.

Here are some geese swimming.

A picture of the Rocky Fork Sign.

The camp had a dog costume competition.

Here is the winner.

We got some rain on Friday but we had torrential downpours on Saturday.

Here is Sj and his friend playing in the rain.

I really do wish I took more pictures but we stayed really busy.

We usually woke up between 6:30 and 7 am and showered.

I would sit and watch the birds eat bugs until breakfast at 8am.

We also had morning devotions and guest speakers every morning.

We had to bring our own stuff for lunch and we usually had free time after lunch.

Every evening we had dinner at 6pm.

We had a music and a guest speaker around 7 each evening.

Then we would do a Bible study after the speaker. 

We concentrated on 1 Corintians 3 for the whole weekend.

Then around dusk we would have a campfire and we'd sit around and chat.

We also had group activities. We had a scavenger hunt, a water balloon fight, corn hole games, volley ball games. We also made ice cream in ziploc bags. 

On Saturday we had a quick storm move in and we didn't get a chance to completely close up the tent so some of our things got wet. We decided to pack up everything during that free time on Saturday and leave after the Bible Study that evening.

On Sunday we went back to the camp ground to attend the church service.

Me and another young man were baptised in the lake.

After the baptisms we had lunch and we helped everyone clean up and we all came home.

Our Smokey was really sick and weak and near death when we arrived home.

He took his last breath last night at exactly 9 pm.

Watching him pass was a horrible thing but I was blessed to see this wonderful kitty come into this world 2 years ago and I was blessed to see him take his last breath. We buried him by our gazebo in the back yard under a lilac bush. Our whole family is really upset over his untimely death. We know he was poisoned. We are pretty sure who did it but we don't have evidence to fully prove this person did it.

Unfortunately our neighbor's cat is also experiencing the same early symptoms as Smokey.

We thought his early symptoms were heat related but we were wrong. 

RIP my beautiful Smokey kitty. We love you.

My friends I am excited to tell you all that I didn't experience any anxiety while we were camping!

It was the longest time I have spent away from home since the symptoms started 10 years ago.

My kids had tons of fun as did my hubby and I.

We also have many bug bites as souvenirs.

Oh and Hope has a couple of spots of poison ivy.

But there you go my friends.

I am sorry if this post is a bit melancholy.

I have a heavy heart that will need some time to heal.

Be blessed my bloggy family,

Erin