I have many wonderful memories as a kid of summer days spent at Camp Singletary. It is a beautiful state park a few miles from White Lake, NC with cabins and a beautiful lake. Back then it was my Grandma Heath who went with all of her brothers and sisters and their children. Three years ago, my mom and her brothers decided to start going again. So now my girls have grown to love this place (and all of the memories that are made there with aunts, uncles, and cousins for the week) just like I did when I was a kid.
It is such a beautiful place. It makes me sad that Aaron can't go with us, not only because we miss him terribly, but also because I know he would absolutely love it there.
You can tell from this picture that my beloved Tarheel State has been in a drought. The water is usually way closer to the beginning of the pier.
My experience this year at Camp Singletary was quite different from the years before. All of my hormones combined with the extreme heat that we had not had before (since we have been going in June, and had nice, warm days and pretty chilly nights) made for a miserable few days for me, until it finally cooled off with the rain that came in on Wednesday. It's hard to summarize the entire week in one post, but here's my best try to give some of the highlights, without being too long.
SUNDAY--We arrived at camp around noon and unpacked. It didn't take us long to start to question why we thought it was a good idea to go camping for a week in July with no air conditioning. It was so completely hot and downright miserable, that even the kids started to complain.
Some of them even started pouring water on their heads to try to cool off.
You can tell from this sweet, but sweaty face that it was hot. This is my sweet little niece Merry Grace, who bonded so nicely with me last summer, but had completely forgotten our fun time together and pretty much avoided me like the plague. =( I still love her to pieces though!
My little niece Ally Rae turned one on the day we arrived at camp and didn't seem to be bothered by the heat. She's such a cutie.
It was even too hot to sleep, but Luke was giving it his best shot. So because of the extreme heat, we decided to do something we normally don't on Sunday.....we decided to go cool off in Lake Singletary.
Everyone was having a great time until my nephew Dallen spotted something in the water.
Of course all of the kids started to scream, but the snake just stayed there on the bottom of the lake, even with all of the chaos. Thank goodness for Uncle Cory and Aunt Amanda who picked up all of the kids and put them on the pier, since the snake was right by the ladder. As soon as everyone was out, the snake came to the top of the water and swam away. He was just claiming his territory. And although he was gone, it ruined the cooling off party for everyone. I guess that's what we get for not keeping the Sabbath Day holy.
One the way back to camp, Sarah and Marleigh talked about how next time they would kill the snake with this stick they found, that way they could keep on swimming. Right.
MONDAY--It was another scorcher, with the temperature around 100 degrees. Since the kids didn't want to go back to the 'snakey lake', we went to White Lake instead and we all had a blast and spent the good part of the day there.
One of our floats had gotten a hole in it at the beach, and since the girls were fighting over the one good one, I went and bought Sarah this float, which she loved and had the best time playing with.
And when she wasn't playing with her new float, she had a great time playing with Uncle Neal.
And so did the rest of the kids.
All of the kids also enjoyed playing with Uncle Luke because he was launching them into the water. But he paid the price for being the fun uncle, since his sunscreen was apparently rubbed off by all of the kids hanging onto him all day and was sunburned pretty bad. Poor Uncle Luke.
TUESDAY--Another extremely hot day. In the morning we made necklaces and bracelets.
They turned out pretty cute. Then we headed back to White Lake again.
Uncle Neal being attacked and retaliating.
Sarah showed everyone how brave she is by jumping off of the pier.
Poor Kyleigh was so wiped out from all of the fun at the lake that she fell asleep at the table before she could eat her dinner.
The adults playing 'Mormon Rook', a new favorite game to play at camp. Our old favorite was spoons, which has been known to be pretty competitive and a bit on the dangerous side too.
And we had a karaoke party that night, sort of. The kids all loved it and took turns singing some of their favorite songs.
WEDNESDAY--The craft for the day was painting pots, which the girls loved. Sarah picked out this tiny little pot to paint, which you can barely see.
Then it started to rain and rained off and on all day, which was very welcome, as it brought cooler weather. Sarah and I took advantage of the weather and took some much needed naps for a good part of the afternoon. I woke of to the sound of loud thunder and looked outside of our cabin towards the mess hall and saw a fire. I thought for a second that lightening had struck in front of the mess hall and started a fire and was quite alarmed. It took me a few minutes to realize that it was actually the fire pit. That night after dinner, there was a water balloon fight.
Some of the kids wanted to save their balloons and started calling them their babies and got pretty sad when their 'babies' got busted.
THURSDAY--We did iron-on t-shirts for the craft. I made them for my nephew Dallen, and my neices Victoria, Kyleigh, Marleigh, and my girls. They turned out very cute. But then again, what isn't cute on this bunch?!
We then spent another afternoon at..........you guessed it, White Lake. Here's most of the gang.
Another fun day of playing, playing, and more playing. Everyone was starting to get tired. It's hard work playing at the lake all day, everyday.
Just ask my little nephew, Charles Allen, who actually fell asleep on his float in the water.
Sarah got out of the water and watched everyone play for a while before she fell asleep.
My brother Dale, who looks like he's catching some pretty good Z's.
After dinner that night, we played volleyball until dark. And then, as is the tradition, the adults gather in the mess hall (after hopefully getting the kids to sleep) to hang out and play games until crazy hours of the night.
