A Team Effort

We're back from another family camping trip!!

We LOVE camping! It's a great way to spend time together as a family.


Camping is a family tradition that my own family had growing up. We spent at least one whole week out of every summer camping on the shores of Seventh Lake, located just outside Inlet, NY. The very special part of camping on Seventh Lake is that the state owned sites are boat (or hiking) accessible only. There are no roads leading in... no modern restrooms... no electricity... only two pit toilets located near the 2 sites with lean-to's (meaning you dig your own hole if you camp at any of the other sites)... it's truly CAMPING!!

I have the BEST memories from those family camping trips. It's one of my favorite places to be and someday I hope to take my girls there too.

But after our 3 day camping trip to Raccoon Lake, here in Indiana, something important has occurred to me. Camping is truly a TEAM EFFORT!!! That's the only way that I can imagine my mother ever got us there with all the necessary supplies for survival. We always had enough food & drinks for the week. We always had the right clothes. We always had toilet paper... ALWAYS!!!

And when I consider the preparations, the planning, the packing and foresight that mom had to have, I am in awe of her skills! (There were no Walmarts nearby folks!) While Mom & Dad always held to the motto that "we are a team" and Chad & I were always given tasks to pitch in on the work, I realize now that Chad & I didn't carry the "heavy end" of that load. NO indeed!

We were able to go on those wonderful family camping trips because Mom and Dad were... and are... a TEAM. They are a beautiful example of marriage. They work TOGETHER. They each SHARE the load. Mom worked hard to prepare for camping. And Dad didn't come home from his day job, plop down on the couch and expect her to wait on him... nope. He pitched in too. They WORKED TOGETHER. There was never his and hers - never! Not in jobs and not in possessions. It will always be OURS in their book.

And so we went camping this week and worked TOGETHER as a family. We drove in to our camp site and used the modern restrooms nearby (not quite the same as my ideal camping trip to Seventh Lake) but... We did the work TOGETHER and then we played TOGETHER.


Today is Mom & Dad's 38th wedding anniversary. And today I am so very thankful for my parents and their wonderful example to Chad & I then... and to us, our spouses and children now.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY Mom & Dad! We LOVE YOU TONS!!!




P.S. I would be remiss not to wish my mother and father-in-law a HAPPY ANNIVERSARY also. Today they celebrate their 49th wedding anniversary.
HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!!

(... some day I'll tell you readers about my good-man-Charlie-Brown's & my weird number thing ;) )