Back from Patrick's Point

We got back on Saturday from another wonderful Patrick's Point campout! I so enjoy being with these wonderful people for a week. Though, since we no longer have an assistant priest at our church, we couldn't miss Saturday night and Sunday morning, so it wasn't a full week. We got there a day late and left a day early. Still, a wonderful relaxing time was had by all.

We decided to do tie-dyeing again. Great fun, but lots of work. The most frustrating part for me is when all the kids are doing tie-dye, but lots of them don't know how, and I hear "Elizabeth! Elizabeth!" every 5 seconds. I want to spend good time with each of them, helping each of them to make the creation they want to create, but I just can't be in 15 places focusing on 15 different needs at once. Ya know? Anyway, I did enjoy it, and some beautiful things came out of it, but by the time I had some time to tie-dye myself, I was tired and didn't have any creativity left. So I'm thinking maybe we ought to do some more tie-dye here at home soon. Anyone want to join us? Just don't call "Elizabeth! Elizabeth!" every 5 seconds and we should be good to go. :-)

Last year I tried out baking bread in the dutch oven in the fire pit, which was great. This year's feat: doughnuts! I think my craving started out when Magpie chronicled her doughnut-making. And my thinking for making them while camping was: when do I have time to make doughnuts at home? Well, last night, apparently. See, I'm always saying that things like doughnuts and New Years Cookies are good to have a crowd around to eat them up, since it makes such a big batch and they're not really good the next day. But, at Patrick's Point, there was *too big* of a crowd. I ended up cutting each doughnut in half, and still not everyone got one who wanted one. One kid followed me around begging for another half. "*He* got a whole one!" Yeah, that's my son--sorry, he gets special treatment. So, my craving was still not satisfied, because I didn't get to gorge myself on doughnuts. I made another batch last night and now, my craving is sated. :-) I think I'll post my recipe on my cooking blog later, as well as how I did it while camping. Hint: it was pretty darn easy, actually!

We had our yearly talent show--actually, they decided to have two, one on Wednesday night and one on Saturday night, to accommodate the arrivals and departures of more than one hundred people. Hibi did a fantastic job on singing and accompanying herself on guitar a Green Day song, which Paul and I have never even listened to, and didn't even know she did. Ah, teenagers--I suppose it's a requirement that they listen to different music than their parents. Anyway, it was beautiful, and I'm looking forward to hearing more! I wanted to learn Brandi Carlisle's "Have You Ever" and I asked Paul to learn it on guitar. Being the contrarian that he is, he learned it on Zac's banjo instead. And since he's new at it, he didn't do as great as guitar would have been, but still he did okay. We performed it at the talent show as well. Zac didn't do anything for the talent show--I suggested he do some tae kwon do moves that he's been learning (he and Paul just promoted to yellow belt) but he didn't think that appropriate. Oh, well.

So, we left on Saturday early, about 9 am. Paul had already scheduled these Vespers services that I blogged about in the last post, and since there was no one to cover for him, he was it. Plus he was wanting me to help out with the chanting to help facilitate English and congregational singing. We thought we'd have enough time to drive home, shower and change, and get to the church for the 5:30 service. But there was a huge wreck on I-5 (of course) and it delayed us for more than an hour! When we got up to the site of the accident, it looked to us like it had involved a cow wandering onto the freeway. Ugh. Anyway, we were late, so we didn't go home, but straight to church. We pulled up at 5:20 and rushed in. We were both filthy--I hadn't had a shower since Wednesday and we both were wearing dirty clothes from camping. But you know what? Robes cover a multitude of dirt. :-) I don't usually wear one for chanting, feeling it inhibits other people from participating and creates too big a distinction, but I sure did on Saturday night! Not the least reason that I sure wasn't wearing church clothes. We got through it, even though Paul's hair really starts looking very greasy after not being washed for more than a day. And I'm sure we both smelled pretty bad.

And that's it! Patrick's Point over and done with for another year. Sigh.

We've thought about trying to start up a campout here in Oregon like Patrick's Point. I think we'd get people that are interested. It's so much fun! But I'm not sure we could ever not go to Patrick's Point. It holds a special place in our hearts.