Great Weekends!!

Hello all I am back.... after a great week end with great friends, and an awesome setting.

We had our annual Family Camp at our Church. Now my wife and I have not always gone to Family Camp, for various reasons and just life, but we have gone several times over the years.

This year our wonderful friends Cesar and Tami invited us to share a cabin that they had rented so it was technically not "camping" but we had the outdoor experience that two empty nester couples wanted LOL, no dirt, no sleeping on the ground, and no smoke in your eyes!!

The camp this year was up at a small lake here in Northern California called Lake Siskyou, located in the beautiful mountain town of Mt. Shasta. The setting was great, you have the beautiful mountain lake reflecting Mt. Shasta which soars 14,000 feet above sea level and is still covered in a white blanket of snow, so beautiful. The organizers could not have picked a better place to have camp. Our family has camped here at this lake off and on for over 30 years so we are familiar with it, but every time I go I am amazed at the beauty of God's handiwork.

We had a great speaker, wonderful music, and awesome fellowship with people who we see on a weekly basis at church but really we do not get to know in the way that you get to know people when you are out in the wide open spaces, and sharing a wonderful experience with. It is always good to see people in different settings, and to get to know them the real them, who they are, what their life experiences have been. I am always amazed and even humbled when I hear testimonies from people about what their lives are about, the paths they have taken. We had people from the ages of 4 to 84 at this camp so all generations were represented.

The thing that struck me as a 53 year old empty nester, who as of this writing has not been blessed with grandchildren, were the grandparents who were there with their grandchildren, just the grandparents and the grandchildren, no parents. And some of the stories about why they are there with their grandchildren are heart wrenching, children in prison, or into drugs, or have lost custody of their children.... the stories go on and on...but Grandparents stepping in to help raise their grandchildren. I have been reading about this and seeing this more and more but it really hit home this week end seeing those grandparents some not much older than myself and my wife, raising another family, when they thought they would be retired.

Our lives take many turns, and who knows my wife and I might one day have to help our children raise their children, I just hope that I will be able to do it with the love and patience that I saw this week end with our friends, running after 2 year olds, making sure that junior highers have things to do to keep them busy..... my hat is off to those grandparents who are helping raise their grandchildren..... you are truly amazing people and you are leaving a legacy for your grandchildren of love, commitment, and family.....

So another Family camp is over , and I look forward to it next year, and who knows we may have a grandchild to take to family camp.... but more importantly we have shared with some of the most wonderful people we know an experience that will become a memory for all of us in this tapestry that we call our life.......

Blessings to you Curtis and Sherrie