Simple Gifts: Finally... a very late update.

The end of August found us on the road again, headed up to Washington for the Shield of Faith Labor Day weekend conference/family camp. We left Thursday morning and arrived at camp Friday evening. The weekend was a fun and encouraging time. There was speaking in the mornings and open sharing time and singing. Then the afternoon was free time. There was beautiful lake for swimming and boating in, a volleyball court, a climbing wall, and other fun things to do. After dinner there was another meeting time. The meetings were encouraging and convicting. One theme was complete dependence on the Lord. On Saturday there was a special time of baptism. One girl wanted to be baptized, so we all went down to the lake and her father baptized her. Then one by one many more people also wanted to be baptized. It was neat to see God working in people's lives. It was such a fun camp that when Monday came and it was time to leave it seemed like it shouldn't have been over already.
From camp we and the Keulens carpooled over to Montana. The original plan was to stay up on our old ranch in the guest house. But at the last minute it was being used as a school during the day. So, the alternative plan was to camp up on some land that Grandpa still owns up there. We got in to Missoula after 10 pm. Since we hadn't had dinner we stopped at Taco Bell. We all piled out and headed for the door not realizing that only the drive through was still open. After standing there reading the menu through the door and looking quite funny I'm sure (there were 15 of us in all), Mr. and Mrs. Keulen went through the drive through and made one large order and then we were on our way. By the time we made another stop at the grocery store and finally arrived at the property it was very late, and very dark, the field was overgrown with tall grass, and we were tired. Something about driving into a bumpy field at night and bringing our friends with us to camp there just struck some of us as really funny and we had a laughing attack in the back of our van. We were so tired that we did not even set up tents but just laid our sleeping bags on plastic. It didn't seem like it would rain anyway, so what did it matter? Well, at six thirty in the morning we woke up to drops of rain falling on us. Thankfully it didn't rain too much, but I slept in the car after that anyway :) We had a very slow morning that day. We moved everything down to the old schoolhouse that was not being used any more at the ranch. Then we ate breakfast, took showers, and explored the ranch a little. We went and got hamburgers for lunch then took a few walks in the afternoon. It was really fun to spend the day with the Keulens and to show them where we used to live. Before all going to bed we had a Bible study. We were glad to be sleeping inside that night because it rained all night. The next day they had to get ready to leave, but before they left some of us walked down to see the pond and also enjoyed looking at the old farm equipment.
After the Keulens left we spent two more nights there and were able to visit our friends the Browns and the Harringtons. When we left Montana we took several days to drive home. We went over to the Olympic Peninsula in western Washington. It was very beautiful there. One day we got to ride on the car ferry, that was interesting. Then we missed the next ferry so had to wait two hours for another one! It was a good thing I had brought a book. We stooped at a beautiful beach that evening just at sunset. Melissa took some beautiful pictures. Altogether it was a really fun trip with lots of activities pack in. Here are some of the pictures that we took.