All About the Z's!: August 2024

When we returned from the Camporee, we hit the ground running and the kids started school the next day. Zach had already started the week before, but Amy still took the opportunity for her "first day of school picture!"

Zach (senior), Kaleb (sophomore), Addison (grade 6)

Middle school here we come!

First day of school treat afterwards at Smoothie King.

Before school started (actually end of July), Addison dyed her hair (the underside) a bright pink to be similar to her cousin Emily who had done it a few years ago. We had to saran wrap her hair and let her sleep in it over night

Trying to protect her clothes

All saran wrapped up

You can really only see it when you pull the top layer of her hair back, which made Amy happy but Addison still felt good about having pink hair!

Random pictures:

Having your daughter hold your hand never gets old!

Bible study ladies here for Mission Conference - Kelli, Amy, Suzie, Nicole and Erika

What a beautiful butterfly and the flowers

An afternoon hang-out with Elin, Victoria and V's friend from the ICS school

And a boating outing with Addison's friend Michael

Continuing with the summer adventurers, the Zs flew out to Denver to make our way to Gillette - sans Zachary who is no longer in Pathfinders and didn't enjoy the thought of travelling to the camporee. The rest of us went to Denver and spent the night with Endersons (Amy used to work for Dan in the early years). It was a lovely evening of catching up with friends and playing cards. We had hoped to go to the Denver mint the next morning but it is a first come first serve and people line up at o-dark-thirty, so it was a no-go when Amy called that morning, so we spent a leisurely morning before hitting the road to Gillette Wyoming.

Dan and Lauri - what a beautiful view from their home in Castle Rock

Addison in 7th heaven with their tiny dog.

We spent the night and left on Monday to head out to Gillette. The drive was thankfully uneventful and we got there though after dark. This was Amy's first time - and wow, that is quite the event. The first night there were massive buses arriving, dust flying everywhere and general organized chaos. Amy was working at the AdventHealth experience, and was blessed to be granted an RV site and a golf cart. Wow, we didn't realize how much of a blessing that actually was until the week progressed - more on that to come. We were planning on Kaleb and Addison tenting (at least a few nights), but when we got there to register with our FLC pathfinder club, we realized that we hadn't actually clicked on the "please rent me a tent" and there were no double occupant tents available that night -- thankfully we were able to just take the kids and go to the RV -- the RV was perhaps the best one that we've ever had - very nice and comfortable. That night as we slept, the heavens opened and poured. The kids got up the next morning and proclaimed that Amy's mistake was the best mistake ever made and that they would be happy to stay in the RV the rest of the week. 😂 The poor people with drenched tents (inside and out) made that a very easy decision.

Sweet moment as we sorted out the tent vs RV situation

Speaking of storms, Tuesday had a storm come through complete with tremendous lightning and rain. The winds were so strong that things began to fly through the air, tents collapsed, water pooled in lower areas creating "lakes" in some poor clubs' camping areas. People were thankfully safe inside, but it was quite a traumatic experience for many. We were grateful that our family was all accounted for safely inside the Johnson RV playing games.

Playing golf, Enderson's taught us how to play

After the storm, there was a beautiful double rainbow - God's promise!

A picture of the Rocky Mountain pathfinder club area afterwards - just devastating.

Addison's birthday was Wednesday (which is how Amy ended up going in the first place as originally it was just Karis and the kids until Addison said "Mom, it is my birthday, you have to come!" 💗), so Amy baked gluten free brownies and grabbed some ice cream from the store and it was a lovely birthday gathering on Wednesday over the noon hour with some of her friends that were there at the Camporee.

Devin, Gianna, Erick, and then in the front it was Julian (Jackson's younger brother), Jackson, Elin, Addison and Victoria.

There were so many wonderful activities to do at the Camporee, it was mind-blowing.

Finishing up the AdventHealth indoor experience.

Watching the rodeo

Learning how to milk a cow

Panning for gold - at Amy's Mom's Cousin Beth's experience - really cool to connect with her.

Beth

Watching the FLC portion of the Friday parade - Amy and Kent J were the AH representatives at the parade in the stadium, so we stayed the whole time to experience.

One of the major activities, especially if you're a kid, is the pin-trading. Wow, that is amazing to see the pins from all around the world and to watch the fervor of pin-trading that happens! It is awesome!

Pin-trading with a Canadian club - and with the daughter of one of Karis' high school friends (Chad Dudar) - super neat.

Lots of trading at the headquarters - Addison is the one on the end with the blue hoodie.

trading outside the food truck area

Organizing himself

Comparing pins in the RV

While the dads enjoyed some downtime outside in the comfy chairs.

One of the best benefits of the Camporee is the ability to see friends and family from around the country!

Sister-in-law Rachel and cousin Gianna

So great to see family while we were there.

Long-time friends the Vohwinkels

In the evenings, they had the Moses live musical production - 60,000 plus townspeople coming to the show made for quite an interesting venue. It was incredibly well done - although the first night (Tuesday) was cancelled due to the storm, Wednesday night it rained after Part 1 was done (they had hoped to catch up from Tuesday's missed show) -- we were drenched as we drove the golf cart back to the RV, and Thursday we took advantage of the in-door theater after an AH event to watch it in the warm, dry indoors :). Friday they did the Friday and Saturday show (the camporee was cancelled on Friday due to an impending storm on Saturday, which thankfully didn't come to pass, but sadly meant that the camporee ended early) and we watched that live outside - we were able to sit in reserved seating as we were part of the AH group which made it nice that we didn't have to get to the show early and could go just in time.

We brought a blanket to keep warm!

A live Egyptian guard!

It is hard to try and capture the sheer size and scope of the throngs of people attending this!

A view from a drone up on the big screen TV

A special blessing occurred when Kieran C was baptized at the Camporee.

Once he stepped down into the water we had to watch it on the big screen as there were too many people (parents and families) right up next to the tank.

Addison was able to help out with the AdventHealth experience for half a day, so she was super excited to be "official" 😁

A few quick snaps of other fun moments -

Love the haystack vibes shirt we found at the camporee!

So grateful to have a golf cart to navigate around the site - it was a 1.5 walk from the FLC pathfinder camp site to the show!

Addison enjoyed trying to master this Ninja style course.

On Sabbath after the camporee was cancelled, we were able to explore the Pathfinder museum and then because we didn't leave until that night so we were also able to run around and look at folks taking down their camp iconic entrance structures - people are so incredibly talented and creative! We also went on Sabbath through the Sanctuary/Tabernacle museum - so interesting.