Darla Stories - Camp Edition
Seeing how I’ve been talking about family camp and our 3 girls are at Kid Camp in Tyler this week, I thought it would be a good opportunity to tell you a few Darla Stories, Camp Edition.
In other words…a few things I’ve done that have really embarrassed my kids.
For starters, when you arrive at Family Camp or Kid Camp, the counselors are lined up and cheer as you drive in the camp. They jump up and down in 100 degree heat and yell their lungs out and act thrilled beyond belief to see you.
And I think it’s so much fun.
I also think it would be rude to not reciprocate. So, I roll down my window and yell and high five with the best of ’em. That is until my kids (except for Savannah who would love to hang out of the sunroof and yell too) beg their dad to roll the windows up.
And lock them.
The first year of camp when the counselors cheered like this it was a total surprise to me. And I did, just as I told you, and hooped and hollered as we drove into camp. After we got home, the camp sent us a video of our week. It was so much fun to watch and see all the things we had done. Each family had a 2 second spot where we said our names and where we were from. I always wanted to jazz it up a little with a cheer or something but, yet again, 4 of the 6 members in our family vetoed my idea.
When we received the tape, we saw our spot.
And we also saw a segment where I was hanging out of the car cheering upon arrival.
I thought…“how nice of them…they personalized it for each family showing them arriving for their week.”
And I called my friend who was with us at camp but hadn’t yet received her video and told her how fun it was to see your own family drive up.
When she got her video she called and said…“Darla, it’s you on the video.”
I thought there was a mistake (honestly). I really thought they had sent her the wrong tape and that they accidentally put my family on her video.
But no, it was me…for all time…on every family’s video…hanging out of the car acting crazy.
And after this, the kids said…“Now do you see that not everyone does that!? Will you please STOP?”
And so now, year after year…I show remarkable restraint as I keep my hands and cheers inside the car.
For the most part. :)
The second, oh so embarrassing thing, that I have done regarding camp was during Caroline’s first year. On the list of “things you need to bring to camp”, it said “laundry bag”. One day when I was out I saw the cutest pop up laundry hamper you can imagine. And I thought…“why this will be just perfect for camp.”
That is until we got there. When Bill popped up the “pop up” hamper it seriously took up like 1/2 of the middle of the room. It was huge. Well, it wasn’t that big, but neither was the cabin. The bunks lined the walls and so the only place for a HAMPER was in the middle of the floor.
We quickly put it back together (only have you ever noticed that pop up things don’t pop back down as easily as they popped up?) and gave her a trash bag for her dirty clothes.
A trash bag that could fit under the bunks just like eveyone else’s bags.
We now laugh every year about the time “mom packed a HAMPER” for the camp laundry.
And although these next two aren’t really Darla stories (unless you count the fact that I didn’t send my daughter to camp with everything on the “required for camp” list), I thought I’d share with you 2 letters we’ve gotten from Brittany over the years from camp.
The first one was after second grade (her first year of camp).
It read:
Dear Mom:
You forgot to pack me a belt.
Love, Brittany
(apparently her jeans were about to fall down during her horseback session)
The next year I got this one:
Dear Mom:
You forgot to pack me a hairbrush.
Love,
Brittany
No “having a great time.” No “please come get me.” Just “hey mom…look what you forgot.”
I’m currently on stand by to see what I might have forgotten this year.
I’ll let you know.