Campmeeting 2013

The countdown to campmeeting finally hit zero and on Thursday, June 20, we left for Maine (via Providence) with great excitement.  Because of not going to Nova Scotia (major BOO which I'm still trying to wrap my head around), it was decided that Duncan would accompany us for the entire time.  A major plus!  It is so much better for all of us when Daddy is around.  We flew on Jet Blue leaving at 7:50 pm.  All went well although Brady got a little fussy at the end trying to get out of his seat...this was the first time he had his own and it was evident that he would have done better being able to cuddle on someone's lap especially as the hour got late.  Believe me little buddy, my wallet wishes you didn't have your own seat either.

The excitement was mounting at the airport while we waited for our flight.

Brady was definitely all wound up.

Not that you could tell in this picture.

The girls are usually really easy on plane rides.  They just sit and do their crafts.

We basically said hello and good-bye to my dad who unfortunately was once again having to be at Southern New England (SNEC) Campmeeting which was taking place at the exact same time as the Northern New England (NNEC) one (which is where we went).  Thankfully next year NNEC has scheduled it to be back at it's normal time which is one week later than SNEC and my dad will get to come up and spend time with us.  Kind of stinks to be all the way up from Florida for 10 days but only see your dad for a few hours.

My mom, Duncan, the kids and I crammed into my parent's van on Friday morning and headed out on the almost three hour trip to Freeport, Maine.  The weather cooperated nicely for us and we got up there and set up without a hitch.  Just like last year, we had four tents together: ours (which housed Duncan, Brady, and I),  Shawn's (Shawn, Camille, Camden, and Acadia), my mom's (her and the girls), and Aunt Toni (her and Aunt Lori).  Shannon and Finley did not come this year since the birth of her baby was imminent (more on that later).  We actually had not reserved our same tent from last year and it got taken by someone else so we had a little different set up this year but it all worked out nicely in the end.  Alison was in another section with Tyson and Westin and her mother-in-law and sister-in-law and Kelly, Steve, and Caleb were in their camper with a bunch of Steve's relatives (for some reason, I have no pictures of the three of them.)

We had barely left my parents house and Brady was already asleep.  I guess arriving at like 11:30 the night before will do that to you.

We had two screen tents set up between our tents.  In the evenings, we adults would hang out in here drinking Chai and  tea, eating cookies, and talking.  Loved it!

Apparently he really liked his yogurt.

A great time was had by all!  The girls and Camden were in the Kindergarten (ages 4 - 6) class together and had meetings each day from 10:50 - 12:15 and 3:40 - 5:15.  Their teachers were the same ones as last year, Kandace and Krista, and they did a fantastic job.  The theme this year was Noah and the Ark so much of what they did centered around that theme including making little animal crafts each day to go into a homemade ark.  In the evenings, they went to Primary (ages 7 - 9) from 7:30 - 9:00.  The first night I was a little leery because the class started off with like a 75-year old man named Earl (so fitting, really) playing an accordion.  It picked up from there thankfully.  The brother of Kandace and Krista, Ben, told a continuing story each night in the first person from a book called "The Queen's Gold." He was Steven and he told how he had been shipwrecked and captured by pirates.  Each night he would leave off at some cliff hangar and the kids would go crazy.  And each night Aubree would start looking so tired after we would get to the meeting and when I would suggest that we just go back to the tent she would always mumble, "I have to hear the story." Obviously it kept her attention because she actually stayed awake every night to hear it even though I was skeptical she would make it.

Acadia accompanied the older kids to the afternoon class (Brady was napping during this time).

The girls were always happy to go up front and help with the songs.

The night class.  That's Earl up in front on the right.

One night they had this dog character.  As you can imagine, Brady went bonkers over it and it also started him talking about Filos from VBS again.

Brady came to the meeting each evening and then Duncan and I would take turns taking him back to the tent to go to bed around 8:15 or when he became too loud, whichever came first.

He would find ways to keep himself entertained.  Here he is staring at a picture of Acadia on my phone.

Another night he sat next to Kathy and talked back and forth with her for quite a while.

Brady had one meeting a day which was from 11:00 - 12:15.  Last year this overlapped with his morning nap time but this year we had no scheduling problems and he enjoyed it very much.  I was pretty surprised how well he did because he has a hard time paying attention and participating in Sabbath School but he was very engaged the whole time.  The theme was the ocean and he enjoyed the props especially the little turtle which he would always refuse to give back.  The teacher, which is a friend of ours, Janel, started each class with prayer and every morning when she would ask if anyone wanted to come up and pray, Brady would always shout "me, me, me" and run up to kneel next to her.  I don't think he's gone up once in his own Sabbath School at church when the teacher prays.  Go figure!

Clowning around with Acadia with their glasses.

The bench that did in my foot.  That also happens to be the little girl on the slide that did it.

Praying up front with teacher Janel.

Hanging out in the boat with Tyson.

When he realized he had to give the props back, he started hiding his favorites behind his back so he wouldn't have to return them to the basket going around.

Besides attending the meetings, the kids kept themselves busy by playing in the tents, playing in the field with other kids, and going to the playground (the sandbox there was a big hit).  We also took some trips to LL Bean, of course.  Brady in particular greatly enjoyed seeing the animals there especially the moose and talked a lot about going back to see them.  I'm not sure what age it occurs to them, "Wait, these animals are all dead." Apparently not yet.

The view from the playground looking towards our tents.  That big field was right across from our tents and proved to be a favorite play spot.

Gigi had picked up this dinosaur set at a yard sale the week before and it was very popular.

Intrigued by the moose at LL Bean.  These moose had died because they couldn't get their antlers unlocked and were moved to the store and stuffed without the antlers ever being untangled.

We had several big rocks near our tents that became a great place to play or sit.

My boy.  He melts my heart.

Sometimes it was fun to just sit and watch people go by.

The girls and their friend Anani who was also six but about the size of Aubree.  Nothing wrong with that!

The necessary picture on the boot.

Calleigh was not happy to go to LL Bean on this particular occasion and sat sulking while Aubree lounged on the bed in the home goods store.

As I said, the rocks turned out to be very handy props.

Calleigh and Bruno in their almost matching shorts.  They spent a good deal of time wrestling in the field on Sabbath afternoon and Calleigh was showing me all her bruises from it.  I think she had five or six.

On Sabbath and the first few days of the week it was pretty warm, even for Florida standards, so we decided to hit up the beach on Monday.  It was about a 45-minute trek to Popham Beach and it was well worth it.  Just a gorgeous setting.  The water was quite cold and honestly, it started feeling painful to me after just having my feet in for about a minute.  Despite that, Calleigh still went in.  But they mostly enjoyed just playing in the sand.  My favorite thing from the day was when Camille and I each got out the bread to make PB&J's for our respective families.  I started by making one sandwich for Duncan and asked him if he wanted another one and he said no, he was good for now.  A minute or two later, my brother walks by with a plate full of sandwiches.  Yes, FIVE sandwiches, all for him.  Crazy!  Shawn has always had a big appetite although one couldn't tell to look at him.  Duncan still can't get over that Shawn downed 10 slices of bread in one sitting.




We did have one downside to the trip and that was watching the last two games of the Stanley Cup Finals with the Bruins and Blackhawks.  Game 5 was Saturday night and Alison, Aunt Toni, Aunt Lori and I went over to the Peltons to watch the game (although they weren't home because Ron was running in a race the next day).  It was a little eerie going into their house, almost like we were returning to a crime scene.  This is the house that had the carbon monoxide incident in November where Ron almost died.  I ended up having my own troubles there although on a much, much smaller scale.  My back started hurting so I got the bright idea to move to the floor to watch the game.  Within a couple of minutes my eyes started watering and I deduced that they must have or had a cat.  I knew their dog died in the incident and if they had a cat it would have too but clearly, the hair must have still been stuck in the carpet if they had one.  Those few minutes on the floor screwed my up for the rest of the week and even today.  I have had terrible problems with my left eye and have had to wear glasses for a lot of the time.  So annoying.  To make matters worse, the Bruins lost the game so the evening was a total bust.  Game 6 was on Monday night and I was glad to just stay back at the camp site and watch the game on my phone.  Of course, that was a bust too.  The Bruins had a 2-1 lead that disappeared with about a minute and half left to go.  I had about 17 seconds to think to myself "Hmm, I don't know that I'm going to have enough battery to watch overtime" before the problem was solved for me...the Blackhawks scored to make it 3-2 and win the game and the cup.  Boy, that did not end well.  I decided it was at least much less painful watching it end like that on my iPhone screen than my big screen at home.  Also, since the Bruins just won it all two years ago, I'm not in a position to complain too much about losing.

Al and I watching the game before my eye problems and the Bruins lost.

I had a few other little injuries too.  I stupidly didn't put anything on my lips while we were at the beach so my bottom lip got burned and I had several cold sores appear by the end of the week.  Not full blown but enough to make my lip puffy and painful.  You pay attention to your kids and their sun protection more than to yourself, clearly.  Then, on Wednesday while we were hanging out in Brady's class after the meeting had finished, a little girl knocked a wooden bench over on to the top of my right foot.  It hurt but not too badly but right away Alison says "Corey, your foot!" I looked down and this big bubble looking thing had formed on the top of it.  Thankfully Alison is an ER nurse so I knew I was in good hands.  We quickly got an ice pack and a bandage.  I could move my toes and it didn't hurt all that badly so the initial impression was that I hadn't broken it.  There were no crutches so for the rest of the day I had to hobble around with no shoe and just the bandage getting dirty from the road.  On the plus side, I got to use the handicap private bathroom but on the downside, boy, is it slow walking around with a bad foot.  When I went to bed that night I was thinking I would have to find some crutches somewhere the next day because it was very tedious to get around.  Amazingly, when I woke up, a lot of the pain (not that there was a ton) was gone and I could walk almost normally with a shoe on.  Thank goodness.  However, I'm still having some lingering pain all the way to today.  For example, I can't kneel because it hurts the top of my foot.  I'm just glad it's me and not one of the kids.

My injured foot.  Every now and then, Brady steps on it or does something and I say "ouch" and then he quickly comes over to it, bends done to pet it and says "That's okay, that's okay."

Towards the end of the week we some of other relatives who would come just for the day like Leigh, Mia, and Bode.  Ricky and Ana came on Friday and it was so good to see them since it had been since Christmas.  We also saw Rad, Uncle Charlie, David, and Yully on Sabbath.  It stinks to think that most of these people we won't see again until Christmas.

Mia was only here for one day this year much to our disappointment.

Camden with Bode.

Aubree with Westin (who was there all week).

Alison and Ana.

David and Yully with their new dog, Toby.

The weather was pretty good most of the week but then on Friday things went significantly down hill.  We woke up to rain that morning and although it only rained in the morning, the damage was done.  The area between the tents that we set up with our screen tents which contained our kitchen stuff and tables, became a mud pit and was basically unusable.  Boots and the bottom of pants became grossly covered with mud which got tracked into the tents.  By the time it came to pack up on Saturday night and leave Sunday morning, I was ready to get out of the those conditions.  I feel like the conditions have not changed since we've been home although at least we are now in a house.

We ended up taking down our screen tents because it was just too muddy.  That didn't stop Calleigh from having fun.

Our flight departed out of Providence at 3:50 on Sunday afternoon so we left the campgrounds and pretty much headed straight there.  Unfortunately the flight got delayed and didn't end up leaving until 5:15 but what can you do.  This time we were on Southwest and as soon as Brady sat down in his seat he started messing with the seat back in front of him and saying that he wanted his movie on.  We had to break the news to him that this plane did not have it's own TV like we had on the way up.  We had the same seating arrangement as the before. The girls and I on one side and Duncan in the middle seat and Brady in the aisle seat in the aisle across from ours.  About half way through the flight, Duncan realized he had gotten the shaft with the seating arrangement because Brady was having some challenges.  I was peacefully reading a book with Aubree asleep and her head on my lap while Calleigh worked on a craft.  Thems the breaks, kid.  I said I didn't want to wake Aubree up so we would just have to keep it the way it was.  He said next time, he wasn't getting Brady but I reminded him that next time I would have an infant on my lap so he would get all three.  Eventually we did switch Aubree and Brady and I do think Brady did much better anyway to be in a middle seat next to one of his sisters for entertainment.  Not sure if she agreed with that though.  Ron and Elaine kindly picked us up and vacation was officially over.

Waiting for our flight. I came back from the bathroom to find Brady cuddled up against Aubree's chest.  I couldn't get a picture in time of it but here it was at the tail end.  It was so cute.

One incident with Brady I will share from the trip.  We were in Shaws getting groceries and Calleigh had to use the potty so in the four of us traipsed, all of us going into the handicap stall.  As Brady is want to do, he immediately went to the toilet and started flushing it.  After he did it about two times and made no move to stop, I firmly told him to stop immediately.  Of course, he did it again.  I took his hand and smacked it a couple of times saying "NO." You know, a little spanking on the hand.  Nothing crippling but enough pressure to sting and to get the message across.  He immediately starts crying like he's dying and goes right over to Aubree, puts his arms around her for a hug and some comfort and says "Mommy hit me." Apparently I need to teach him the word "spank" as compared to "hit" since the last thing I need is for him to go around telling people that I hit him.

A few more pictures from campmeeting:

On Friday we went out to lunch at Amato's (sp?) to avoid the rain.  Brady is quite perplexed by something on screen.

The three girls cousins wearing their matching pillow case dresses made by Camille.

Duncan had to give Brady an emergency bath due to a diaper leakage issue.

Another day we went to Panera for lunch.

We also ate at the cafeteria for breakfast a couple of times.  This particular morning they had really good cinnamon rolls.

Brady slept very well although the last few days he started waking up around 6 and wanted to come into bed with us.  We had a really, really loud sound machine and we honestly couldn't hear anything even though people around us would stir starting around 6:30.

We had a big group meal on Sabbath afternoon.  What else?  Haystacks!

Have I mentioned how glad I was that Duncan was there?

They did slip-n-slide on Thursday afternoon with their class.  Unfortunately this was the day it started getting chilly.  I had a sweatshirt on but that didn't stop them.

Monday morning I had an OB appointment and since I knew it was be a quick one I brought the kids with me.  Unfortunately I was out of non-messy snacks and brought some Saltines with me to keep the kids busy while we waited.  It was my second time in the new building and had I gotten lost, not to worry, we left a distinctive trail of crumbs to find our way out.  I was quite embarrassed actually.  Note to self on that one.  The appointment went well and I measured right on for being at 31 weeks.  I got my C-section scheduled for Tuesday, August 27 at 8:15 so it's nice to have that squared away.  As my doc was leading me to the scheduling area she asked me off offhandedly if I was scheduling a tubal as well.  I said "no." Boy, did she give me a dirty look when she said "Well, you know, this is your fourth C-section and it really becomes much less safe after you've had that many to have another one." To be clear, we are not planning another kid but we just don't want to take permanent measures at this juncture.  

Speaking of babies, Shannon had her baby boy yesterday evening in what I can only describe as the easiest delivery I've heard in quite some time.  He was due today but came a day early much to her relief.  Extended cousin # 14 is named Griffin Michael weighing in at 7 lbs, 1 oz.  Considering that she had a scare at her twenty week ultrasound when they told her they thought she had a hole in her sack (not good), him being born healthy and with all his appendages is a major blessing.


On that positive note, I will wish you good night and happy 4th!