I started off by headed to Lafayette for a night, then to Magnolia Springs for a night, then off to Camp Smile-A-Mile!
Jennifer, the camp director, invited the counselors to spend the night of the 4th up at the lake to see the fireworks, so Sam, Meredith, and I made plans! I drove to Sam's apartment, threw her stuff in my car, then we headed to meet Meredith at Sinclair's (a camp tradition) for dinner. Both Sam and I were staying for the entire 10 days at camp, so between the two of us, my car was packed out and it looked like we were moving in!
We unloaded our stuff into our cabin, made our beds, then headed down to the boat dock to watch the awesome fireworks! We had a front row seat and had lots of fun laughing and talking with our Camp friends!
We started off Camp with Jr/Sr weekend on Thursday, July 5th! It was a great, 4 day weekend with some awesome kids! All the campers at this session were going to be Juniors or Seniors in high school, or just graduated. They are an amazing group, and I feel so blessed to have watched many of them grow up.
On Sunday, July 8th, the campers from the weekend left, and in the afternoon, the counselors for weeklong camp arrived! It was like a mini-reunion for some of us!
Monday morning we woke up, had a quick breakfast, then Sam, Joey, Taylor and I loaded up in the Camp surburban with Bruce (executive director) and headed to Birmingham to meet the campers at Children's hospital and ride the bus to Camp!
We had an amazing week at Camp! Unfortunately, I can't post many pictures. A counselor from June Camp inappropriately photoshopped some pictures from June camp and posted them on facebook. The counselors had a meeting with the directors and we were told we could no longer post pictures to facebook. It sucks that because of the actions of one person, we cannot share our photos with our friends. Here are a few pics I think I can share since they don't have people in them!
I'm sure to people outside of our camp family, these pictures look totally random, but each one has a very special story behind it. Knowing that this was possibly my last camp session as a counselor, I took lots of pictures of what I see when I think of Camp.
Our very last circle up of July camp was very hard for me. I cried through the entire thing. It was hard driving away as well. Camp will always be a huge part of my soul, our campers and counselors will always be my heroes. There are so many people at Camp who have taught me so many life lessons, who I admire, and who I strive to be like. I truely hope that one day I am able to go back to Camp, even if it is just to visit for a day.
