Camp Keola

This weekend was a breath of fresh air in more ways than one! It was the last of the camp weekends at camp Keola in the Sierra Nevadas. THe Mennonite churches from all around California have this camp site on lease I believe and get to use it every summer. It works like camp Freidenswald, but they do not get it for the whole year. I will be going back up in October to help close the camp for the winter. Kelsey, Jon and I went with the Carol Penner and her son (in high school) as part of their family. Every year a family takes the VSers as part of their family for this weekend of fun and fellowship with Mennonites from all over California. Most of the 70 or so people there this weekend were from Menno. Community (the MVS support church/congregation) and Reedley First Menno. As Grandpa said in his email, I met one of Lisa's old college friends and a few people that knew some other Liechty's.

We played LOTS of volleyball everyday,(3 hours on Sat. and Sunday!) lots of pingpong, and I learned to play pinochle!! I thought I should jump at the chance to learn and ended up loving it! THere was a lady there Ethel in her 80's who was just a hoot! She was a fireball with a great sense of humor and we decided we would have to get together again and have a card game night. I also went Kayaking and swimming in the beautiful Huntington Lake one day and tagged along with a few folks who took out their speedboat for skiing on Sunday. It was a great way to meet people from the Fresno area as well as fellow church members. It was a great mix of all ages and EVERYONE was part of the activities...not just the young teenagers!

The cabins were quite rustic and it got very chilly at night. I wore jeans and a sweatshirt most of the day on Sunday and always at night. The food was great! (We got to take home ALOT of leftovers!!) Kelsey, Jon and I skipped out on the last campfire (the speaker was rather boring) to go down to the lake and take some pictures together and then went back to the lodge to sit by the fire and just talk. We all seem to enjoy being around eachother which is very comforting as we don't really have a choice!! HAHA! When we got back this morning there was note from Danielle(who moved in last night and left early this morning to Kansas for orientation) that siad she has 14 boxes coming!! Yes, i said FOURTEEN BOXES! We are thinking, "where the heck is she going to put all this stuff she's bringing!?!?!" I think we might be psyching ourselves out with all these speculations of Danielle, but the truth is, she may be just lovely and fun and wonderful to hang out with. Here's for hoping!

Back to work tomorrow...it was a nice breath of fresh air to be off of work for an extended weekend and be in the mountains where there is literally "fresh air." Fresno's air quality is NOT GOOD to say the least. We get the smog and pollution from the bay area and other cities on higher ground. We don't have earthquakes like the coast, tornadoes like the midwest, hurricanes like the south...but we do have BAD AIR! Looks like i'll have to take multiple trips to the mountains!
:) Hope this blog finds everyone having a lazy Labor Day and in good spirits! Still missing you all dearly...

much love...

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