Who Thinks They're Gonna Have More Fun Than Their Parents?!?!?!

Hellooooo parents!!

We arrived safely last night to Castaway Club around 10:30pm! We got all of our bags to our cabins and then headed to club. I was surprised that about half of our crew was not only at club, but dancing around and laughing like crazy! It was AWESOME!!! We were quick to bed after that though so that we coud rest up and have a great day today. Tomorrow we have some awesome stuff planned and it is gorgeous out! We have some yummy breakfast, club, yummy lunch, some field games and free time, and of course more eating followed by some more worship and club! I apologize, I am usually I'm pretty on the ball with taking pictures, but it just hasn't really happened yet. I will leave you to the view we are waking up to here, have a GREAT day back home:)

YL Camp...The Best Week of Your Life!

I just finished up making a video from our week at Castaway Club. We had such a great time and looking at these pictures makes me want to do it all over again!! Push the play button below...it might take a second or two to start going. Enjoy!

Capernaum Greater Minneapolis - Castaway 2009 from Young Life Capernaum on Vimeo.

Cliff Notes...Again!

Hello again from beautiful Castaway Club!! I'm really sorry for the lack of posting and how short they all are! Here, again, is the past few days in reverse order...cliff notes style!

Conrad chugging an entire pitcher of water on stage at dinner

RRRRRRRR!!!

Allison and Celeste on pirate night

Jimmy and "Scotty too hottie" as the boys like to call him

Getting ready for pirate night

Lauren making it to the top of the rock wall

Nate leaving Vince in the dust

Kristen and Hannah scaling the wall

Aaron beating everyone at the dynamite dozen. He ate all of that in just over 4 minutes...and didn't throw up!

This place is awesome...

Yesterday we had the chance to go parasailing, which I will hopefully have time to post on tonight. If not, I will update when we get home...I'm guessing this last 24 hours is going to be pretty crazy, which is just the way we like it here at Castaway! Have a great night, we'll see all you parents tomorrow!!!

Dear Weather, Thanks For Cooperating

Alright...cliff notes version of yesterday in reverse order because that's just how the pictures load. I have to admit, I thought I would have ALOT more time to blog but it has been so busy and great here that I have been trying to squeeze it in early in the morning or late at night! Yesterday was gorgeous and a ton of fun. We got to go have some yard games, go tubing, some people did the zipline and BIG swing, we had some club time, and then we were surprised with a carnival and square dance!! It was a busy day and the heads hit the pillow pretty hard. We are having a blast...I can't believe the week is half over already:( Anyways, here are some pics...enjoy!

Brady got pied!

Hannah was out to get even from when I spooked her earlier in the day

Wow...that's alot of whipped cream

Hannah and Kristen just relaxing on the tubes

This picture warms my heart...they are just having such a great time together

Aaron leaving Jameson hangin'

Matt was having WAY more fun than Andy...he's doing a great job showing his brother the ropes this week:)

Erin flouring her leader

Tube races during field games

Nate wanting to do it himself

Brandon and Scott

I LOVE IT!!!

Ruthie and Rachael

These guys are having a blast this week

Alright, so that is Tuesday in a nutshell. I hope you are all having this much fun at home!! The weather is gorgeous this morning and we are on for the climbing wall. Have a great day; we'll check in tomorrow!

Evidence of Our Fun:)

Hello again from rainy Castaway Club! We got alot of fun in this morning before the skies opened up on us! We started the day with some breakfast and then it was off to the beach area for a volleyball tournament. After lunch we split into cabins to go banana boating. The boys got their turn and then it started thundering, so we are hoping to get the girls in on Friday.

Since there were no pictures last night, I'm just going to be done with words and finish this out with some pictures!

Padget and Nicole at Club Last Night

Most of the Crew Ready to Spike it Down!

Aaron and Jameson

Capernaum Racking up Some Points

Joe, Aaron and Ian Having Fun on the Banana

The Boys Having a Great Time...

...and the Boys Falling Off!

I Heard a Rumor That the Water a Little Chilly

So even though it's raining right now, everyone is still having an awesome time at Castaway...the proof is in this great smile:)

Hopefully the weather clears up, until then it's playing cards, heading down to the game hall, chatting in the coffee shop, and just maybe a little napping. Have a great day, we'll check in tomorrow with more updates!

Fastest. Day. Ever.

So I have good news and bad news...I'll give you the good first. The good news is that we made it to Castaway today right on time. The bad news is that it has been such a jam-packed, crazy, AWESOME day that I am way too beat to upload and post pictures right now! I know, the pictures are the good part...I promise double tomorrow:) I just wanted to let you all know that we arrived safe and sound and it has been great so far. The program team is hilarious and the speaker uses many different avenues of communication, so I think that Club is going to be really good for us! A few highlights: We were greeted by about 50 screaming workers all cheering our bus on as we drove up the driveway. That scene never gets old...it's so great to see the looks of pure joy and anticipation as our kids get off the bus and to see all of the work crew just welcoming them with open arms. Every time we come to camp I think to myself, "This is going to be an amazing week," and it always is in a different way.

Right after we got off the bus it was time for free time. Some people ziplined already, conquering some major fears right out of the gates (I won't name names, but Joe Blegen might have come through big and the guys were so proud of him after spending awhile on the top of the zipline:)...I LOVE IT! We had a great dinner, went to club and then had a little Capernaum dance party up on stage. Tovah got to realize her dream of being Hannah Montana, and then it was time to call it a night.

I went to visit the cabins before bed and I am just blown away by all of the amazing kids and leaders that we have on this trip. This week is such a huge privilege and I can't wait to see how it unfolds. Parents...thank you all again so much for trusting us to take your precious kids for a week, it is our absolute joy to be here with them. Have a great day tomorrow...I'll be back with pictures!!

"We're Going To the GRAND CANYON!!!"

Hey everyone! I'm so sorry for the sporadic posting...they have been having some troubles with the wireless internet here. We have SO much to share with you guys! I'm going to kind of do this in reverse order, starting with yesterday. So...as I'm sure you can tell by the title of this post, yesterday the kids were surprised with an all camp trip to the Grand Canyon!! The kids were so excited...Claire actually thought that they were joking. That pretty much consumed the whole day yesterday, and boy was it worth it! It was such a great opportunity to give a visual of God's love for us. You can't help but look at the little tiny part of the canyon we were in and think, "Wow, God is big enough to make this beautiful place and he loves ME more!" I think it's hard to imagine God's love and bigness, and when you see something like that it just blows you away. We had some great conversations surrounding the Grand Canyon and the kids even tied it back in to our cabin time talks later that night, so I know it left an impression on them.

The absolutely stunning Grand Canyon

Most of the group crossing paths

Van and Brett checking it out

Claire grabbing some lunch

It was amazing how fast the skies changed from sunny to cloudy

I have to be honest...after experiencing the Grand Canyon yesterday, it's hard for me to recall what we did on Wednesday (and I don't know how to turn off this underlining, which is really frustrating)! OH how could I forget?!?! Wednesday was our western night! We had a carnival and a huge dance which was hands down the best dance I have ever been to at a Young Life camp! Here are some pictures of our fun:

Water Olympics during the day

Nan and Alison heading to the carnival

Tom got pied!!

And so did Van...

And so did I...

Maria and Claire kicking off the dancing

Tom spinning Maria:)

The girls were having an AWESOME time dancing!

Isn't that awesome???

So that is the last few days in pictures. Wish I could post more but it's time to run off to club and finish up our last day at camp:( This week has gone so fast and we can't believe it's time to go home tomorrow. We are sad to leave but excited to see our families again. Have a great day!!

Zip Zip Zip

Alright, on to the rest of our second day at camp. After lunch we had free time, which means lots and lots of swimming! Brandon, Brett and Molly were all really excited to check out the slides, particularly the big fast yellow one! It's cool that this camp has an actual pool with slides, and then the zipline and blob are in a little man-made lake.

Molly almost losing her lunch:)

So we mostly spent our time by the pool, but then the girls decided it was time to head in and take a shower. The boys were on for the zipline at 5:00, so we thought it would be fun to grab some ice cream and go watch them. I mentioned before that this one is longer than Castaway, so I think it was a little more scary to actually let yourself go at the top from what the guys told us. Here are some pictures of Brett, Brandon, and Tom coming down:

After the boys all got done doing the zipline Brett decided that he was ready to try the blob. Tom went off first and then Brett jumped on to "blob him".

It looks like it could be a little scary to jump from the deck, but Brett did awesome. Then he got blobbed and we all got out to get ready for some dinner.

Tom and Brett celebrating a job well done

After dinner we found out that they had planned an entertainment night for us. It was hilarious and we all laughed like crazy. When we were walking out of the club room they surprised us all with hot chocolate and smores...this place rocks! After that we all headed to our cabins to hit the hay. The girls were in for a surprise though...we had a huge moth in our cabin, sick! It was flying around like crazy in our room, and everyone was having a laughing attack trying to kill it. Finally we swatted it down and Molly killed it.

I don't think I've ever heard Claire laugh so much...it was a great end to a great day! Today has been filled with alot more fun, an awesome club talk, and some GREAT cabin time! I am excited to share with you all tomorrow...until then have a great day, I know we will:)