Texas Grammy's Summer Camp 8

Last week we drove 10 HOURS to the middle of nowhere in Arkansas to meet up with Brett's family for Summer Camp. We all stayed in a 5 bedroom, 4 bath house for 4 days. His step mom has had summer camp with her grandson for 8 years and this year it was more of a family reunion. Brett's Dad and Ellen live in Qatar, Mike (Brett's step-brother) and his son Alex who is 13 and Zoe who is 6 live in Maryland and the rest of the family lives in Plano. It was nice to see the family and the kids had a blast. I well....I survived. My idea of fun doesn't usually involve the middle of nowhere, swimming in the lake with who knows what, having ticks on me and around me, bugs galore and the closest place to shop is a Walmart 40 minutes away.... but I survived! The best part was seeing family and eating and playing lots of cards. I keep requesting that summer camp be moved to the city. Maybe next year??
We had a Birthday party for Cade and Zoe because their birthdays are August 12th and 13th. We also had an "un-Birthday" party for Maddi and Alex. Becca got Maddi a shih tzu dog named princess in a bag. Grammy and Grandpa got Maddi movie star glasses, lipgloss, jewels, etc. It went so well with her fashion dog.
Notice that we are all wearing the same shirt. Nice, huh? We wore the same shirt as everyone else every day! Ellen makes us all matching shirts.
My sixteen ...I mean six year old and me.
Maddi, Zoe, and Cade enjoying their ocean cups ( a dessert with blue jello and gummy fish) while checking out the latest bugs that Grandpa caught. Maddi and Zoe freaked out when a ginormous spider crawled past them as they were playing in their room. It got put in a jar for viewing as well. Notice the camp shirt for the day!

What didn't make it into the jars were the ticks that we all experienced. Yes, ticks! Brett's Dad, Brett, and Cade went fishing and walked through brush to get there and came home fishless, but full of ticks. Well...we didn't know until later and so some of the ticks made the house their home. The next day as I'm sitting on the couch because I'm terrified to go outside I find a tick crawling on my arm. I about had a heart attack. I would have packed up and left right then and there, but I was afraid our things mights have ticks and then our car would have ticks and then our house, etc. I try to look on the bright side of things, so the good thing was they were little bitty baby ticks. I guess that's better than big honkin ticks?!? In the end we all had at least one tick, even baby Grace. We don't have ticks in the city!
Zoe, Maddi and Baby Grace (Joel and Sara's sweet baby girl).
We went and visited a lady with her miniature horses. I think she said she had 58 horses, she wasn't sure how many she had. They were so friendly. She also had some babies that were just weaned from their moms too. It was strange to see so many "midget" horses, but pretty cool. The kids just loved it because they were just their size.
Uncle Todd, Cade and Daddy were making airplanes for the paper airplane contest. They each made 5 and threw them off the balcony. It was quite entertaining.

Swimming in the lake with minnows, bugs, dirt, and ???? I like the lake but only out deep where I don't touch and can't see what's lurking. I finally got in on the last day after days of pleeing from Brett and the kids. Did I mention I'm a city girl? Maybe next year we can swim in a pool!

All in all Summer Camp 8 was a success. Thanks to Grampa and Texas Grammy for having us all!