Our Time at Oakbridge #2 - The Adventure

One of the things that Young Life camps do so well is provide kids with a week of adventure. Each camp is a little different as far as what activities are offered, but trust me when I tell you there is never a dull moment. The girls and I get to participate in a lot, but watching is almost as much fun. It is fun to see campers having the time of their lives and discovering the unique person God made them to be. Here are pictures of just some of the activities.

You can't really see him in this picture, but Loren is up there, on the high ropes course, guiding kids through the tightrope walk. In fact, he was up there for almost eleven hours, on a 3x3 platform, as every camper made their way through the course. It is always a highlight of their week as they are challenged and encouraged by their leaders and by their fellow campers. It really breaks down walls among campers and it physically demonstrates the trust you have to have in Christ. No matter where you are in your walk with Christ, the lesson of the ropes course is a good one. No matter how well balanced, or strong, or smart you are, if you don't have a harness(Jesus), you're not gonna make it.

On day three, we have the All Camp Water Olympics. This is such a gift to our kids! They have all these gigantic blow up, bouncy things that are also filled with water...like giant slip and slides and a slide that you climb up and swoosh down. There is a window of about thirty minutes between the time they set these up and the time that campers converge on them and we make the most of it. Both the girls are wild about water...they must take after their mama. (In case you are wondering, yes, I slip and slide, and no, you will not see any pictures of it.)

On night two there is a carnival during dinner. We have barbaque and then the campers can play all sorts of games where they win tickets which can then be redeemed to do all sorts of crazy things to their leaders...like pie them in the face (hence the picture), send them to the dunk tank, give them a hairdo made out of shaving cream, etc. It is really all designed to set the leaders up to be approachable and to make them heros. Oh yeah...there is also cotton candy and snow cones, which makes it another highlight for me and the girls.

Here is a leader at the carnival getting a bucket of water dumped on them by a camper at the "Splash Zone."

Hope thought it looked fun and managed to get enough tickets to send her daddy there. Here she is holding her hammer that she used to send the bucket full of water over...

right onto her dad, who was a very good sport about the whole thing.

This is such a small little bit of all that goes on in the way of adventure. There are also mountain bikes, a rock wall, a dodge ball/paint ball tournament, a Mission Impossible event, Glow in the Dark capture the flag, a dance party, and so much more. It is definitely a month full of adventure for my kids and I'm afraid we're gonna have some withdrawal when we come home. We are used to being entertained from the moment we get up until well after bedtime. Anyone want to volunteer to put on some spectacular events for us when we get home...just to bring us down slowly?

Coming soon...the post about all of our down time and what we do when we choose not to go to some of these activities and instead do whatever we please! Be prepared for lots of pool pictures...that is where you will almost always find us when we aren't at prepared activities. Yeah for the pool!