Ben, Laura, Ted & Sophie: saranac: weeks 1 & 2

We are starting our 3rd week at Young Life camp at Saranac Village in upstate New York. Ben is the head leader this month and the kids and I are playing hard. Ben is leading the leaders that come each week, dealing with any troubles that arise, playing guitar at club and being the bad guy for the club run-on. He's fairly busy and it involves late nights. The kids and I are playing with friends and having a good old time.

There are 5 families, 3 young couples, and 5 single Young Life staff here as speaker, program, head leaders, summer staff coordinators, work crew bosses and camp director. There is 1-17 year old, 3-14 year olds, 1-11 year old, 1-10 year old, 1-8 year old, 2-7 year olds, 1-6 year old, 1-2 year old, and 1-1 year old. We all live in a house together. Each family has two rooms - 1 for kids and 1 for parents. There's one main great room and kitchen where we stay up way too late after long, long days. We're provided three most excellent meals a day in the dining hall, but have the kitchen for snacks and our own food when we're tired of the same rotation of food each week. My kids are in heaven waking up every morning and having their dear friends across the hall and someone to play with every second of the day. Ted (my extreme extrovert) is in complete heaven. Along with desserts after lunch and dinner every day, we will have some serious detoxing to do when we get home.

These are some highlights from our first two weeks. We don't have great cell phone service and I don't carry my phone around with me often. So aside from parasailing, I don't have too many pictures.

This property is unbelievable. It's an old great camp built in the early 1900's by a millionaire at the time. This boathouse was built in 1903.

We stopped at Niagra Falls on the way up. The kids were semi-impressed.

I was reminded of the great waterfall vacation of the early 1990's.

Before we moved into camp, I had Ted, Mary and Sophie at Lake Placid. It is such a cute little town that we go to about once a week. That's where the 1980 Olympics were held (think Miracle on Ice).

The weather has been cool over all. It has reached the 80's several days, but there's very low humidity. So it's gorgeous here. We spend time playing on the beach . . .

the girls collect a bucket full of muscles everyday. We even cooked some up one night.

And sometimes whine because we're tired.

Ted has become an expert kayaker . . .

and loves the paddle board.

Hanging in the hot tub. The boy on the right is the property managers son. Ben did summer staff with his dad back in 1996!

Seriously, the place is beautiful.

The kids dressed up for 50's tableau.

Ted and Mary danced together this week. They are the CUTEST. I would totally arrange this marriage in a heartbeat.

The kids helping prepare food for the assignment team party that they weren't even invited to.

There are all sorts of fun creatures to find. (That's a toad in case you can't see it!)

We went tubing on Week 2, Day 1.

The Bergs and the Tuels took the pontoon boat out one day on the fly. It was the hottest day we've had. We spent time playing in the lake, jumping off the boat and fishing. It was the best day by far!

There's an amazing nature center in Tupper Lake that is about 10 miles away. Saranac gave all the families a pass to go. We had a fun day there last week.

This kid loves the basketball courts!

The first week was very cool and rainy over all. And so far this week we've had two rainy days. So we've spent some time playing games, brushing up on our YL entertainment night skills and making the Guide House as chaotic as possible!