High Adventure, Day 3

Once again, I slept pretty well for camping.  All the reports I heard were that the cabins were hot, stuffy, and (in the case of the boys' cabin, but maybe a little bit in the girls', too) pretty stinky.  My tent was just perfect, though, and it was so nice getting a few minutes to chat with Craig before we fell asleep.

In the morning, we had a quick, cold breakfast for everyone (cereal, bagels, breakfast bars, muffins; that kind of thing) and then everyone had to pack up and clear out of the cabins.  We drove the kids to the field where they had paintball and dropped almost everyone off.  After watching the boys wrestling at the water park, I decided to skip paintball.  I didn't need to go to battle against these maniacs.  Instead, I headed to the main welcome cabin to get us checked out and pay tips to all our guides (something that was really bothering me!  We hadn't thought to bring cash so we couldn't pay them in the moment, and I was desperately trying to keep track of everyone who'd worked with us!).  I also tried on a cute shirt I'd seen at the gift shop and quickly decided it was NOT worth $70.

Then I went back to the paintball field to see the carnage.  And oh, my, I was glad I hadn't participated!  If you weren't wearing padded clothes (and it was pretty hot to be wearing anything extra), those paint pellets absolutely left a mark!  A couple of the kids were very bravely trying their best to not cry.

This was taken through the netting, so it's a terrible picture, but you get the idea

It took all my filtering abilities to not point out that these looked like hickies...

I got all the kids who were finished back to our campsite so they could sit in the shade and calm down from the paintball.  A bunch of them decided to play Old Maid, which seemed like a perfect calming down activity.

Luci, Ryder, Madeline, Sabrina

Once everyone came back to camp, we had a final devotional and then loaded up the cars and walked all around making sure we hadn't left any garbage behind.  We began driving and then stopped to do one final head count, then we drove to the closest Chick-fil-A for lunch.  Chick-fil-A was incredible-- they knew exactly how to handle a large group like ours while still taking care of their other customers.  Whatever your thoughts are on their food, no one does customer service like Chick-fil-A!  (Craig and I also got to walk one girl across the street so she could get Taco Bell.  I'm pretty sure it took them longer to get her one order than it took Chick-fil-A to help the other 33 of us...)

And then it was just driving home!  This time I was in the van with Craig, and I played DJ while he drove.  Everyone got picked up at the Dick's parking lot and we tried to send them all home with their stuff, but there were a lot of odds and ends-- like a camping chair???-- that were never claimed.

Tom and Donna brought Colton and Camille home a little after we'd arrived and it was so good to see my kiddos again!!!  The following day was fast Sunday, and Craig had challenged all the youth to get up and bear their testimonies about the things they'd learned on High Adventure.  (He rather pointedly explained that a testimony does NOT mean saying how much fun you had-- it had to actually be about the gospel!)  AND THEY DID!!!  The whole meeting was ONLY the youth getting up and talking about the things they'd learned-- it made me so happy.  I'm so glad I got to be a part of this whole awesome weekend!