Today my family came to Camp Longhorn to get me after my spending two weeks at camp.

 Google satellite map of CLH.

There were five long lines of cars waiting at the gate to enter the camp at 8:30am.  I think Mommy, Daddy, and Mimz were all in line three.

 Each car was given a large map of the camp.  My cabin is number 65.

V-Day  (Visitor's Day) schedule.

 As great as camping has been, all of the boys in my cabin were ready to see their families.  Last night we stuffed most of our things in our trunks and moved them outside.  So there was not much packing to be done.  This morning we put a final few things in our laundry bags.  I made a couple of mistakes in this process, like I put my pillow in my laundry bag and my damp, smelly dirty clothes in my trunk.  But I will learn and get better at taking care of myself as I grow up.

Last night we sort of pulled our mattresses off our beds and had a slumber party on the floor.

We were up early and had a quick breakfast.  All the kids waited in their cabins for their families to find there way to the kids.

 When I spotted my mom walking towards my cabin, I ran and ran until I reached her and I jumped at her.  She caught me and held me for a long time... 

...I wanted to cry and I did a little, but mostly I just hugged her while she told me how happy she was to have me back.  I wanted to start showing her everything, but we had to wait for Daddy and Mimz.

I didn't know Barbara was coming so I didn't make her a name tag.  I gave her a big hug also.

We started walking towards to parking lot (baseball field) and as soon as I spotted my dad and Mimz I started running.  My dad caught me when I jumped into his arms.  I didn't realize how much I missed my family.  I wasn't homesick, because we were so busy all the time.  It sure is nice to have family that loves me. 

I gave Mimz a big hug also.

First thing to see is Rattlesnake Down cabin.  Down means downstairs.

My family met my junior counselors.

We had time before the 9:30am cabin meeting so we walked over to the water park for just a few minutes.

 Mommy and me at a picture perfect spot in camp.

Welcome to my cabin!

I showed my family the bunk I chose.  It was an upper bunk and I told them where each of the boys slept.  There were 11 boys in my cabin.

There were three bunk beds on one end and three bunk beds on the other end and in the middle were four single cots for our four counselors.  Jeffery was our senior counselor and the other three were in-training and next year they can be senior counselors.

Jeffery introduced himself by saying this was his 19th year as a camper.  One junior counselor was in college and two were seniors in high school.

Jeffery explained to our families that on our first day in camp, when the sheriff said we should evacuate the camp because of a fire near by, we did an excellent job of following his orders.  In 45 minutes all 477 campers and all 100 councilors and staff  had boarded buses that the near by schools donated and each bus had a volunteer driver.  We went to Camp C3 and stayed there two nights.  Each person had a bunk with a mattress.  We all brought a pillow, swim suit, and change of clothes.  It was a major challenge for the camp and we were passed with flying colors.

We had a couple of little ceremonies during this cabin meeting.  We were given an envelope with pictures and awards in it.  There was also a list of the boys and their addresses.

This was a neat place to sit and watch everything.

We made a plaque that will be attached to the ceiling of the cabin.  Of course my name was last... alphabetical order.

Here are some plaques from previous years.

At the end of camp, I had these 48 merits plus about 15 more on another paper.

 Some toys I earned and my lanyard.  The safety pen is what held our merits we earned that day.

I earned these awards.... plus a blue ribbon (that I misplaced).  The blue ribbon was first place for the breaststroke for boys my age.  I was at least five seconds ahead of the second place guy.

Camp activities at which I excelled are circled.  My mile swim took me just under 43 minutes.

This calendar of events was posted on the side of the Library.  The Library is the restroom/shower room.

The blue building is the Library and it was nearby my cabin.

This is Old Faithful, our drinking fountain.  We would fill our water bottles here. 

I showed my dad my trunk.  It was missing the wheels and there were not to be found.  Hopefully we can order some more.  Mommy and Daddy carried it to Mommy's car....it was heavy according to my mom.

Our first water activity to show our families was The Blob.  It's a big long blown up tube that we jumped onto and boy was that fun.  We climbed up the Tower above The Blob and waited our turn to jump.  One counselor kept the Blog and the boys wet with a water hose.  Part of the object was to cause the other boys to fall off of it.  We learned tricks to help us stay on.  We all had to wear bananas around our waists.

The Blob rules.

I'm the kid on the far right, the one that does a silly dance.

 Another counselor stood on the side and kept track of how many boys were in the water  If one boy was in the water, he held up one finger real high.  If five were in the water, he held up five fingers.  He was constantly counting to eleven.  They were very serious about keeping track of everyone near water.    I think there were four Blobs all totaled.

My footprint.   lol

When we finished performing on the Blob, we had to put our banana life vests away.

Our next activity was at the three very long slides that dumped us into the water.  We were swimming in the lagoon.There are lots of other swimming activities but my cabin only had time to show our families these two.

We found the person we needed to pay for my allergy prescription that they had to go pick up.

The camp has two dogs.  This one is named ____________.

The last block of time was a free time for us to do anything we wanted to do.  I wanted to go to the Merit store but it was jam packed.  I sort of wanted to do like Morgan did and save my merits to buy something big when I have more merits.  I have more than 60 merits now.    And I was ready to head home.  I remembered how long the drive was coming up here and wanted to get our trip started.

I have not had access to an iPad or iPhone for two weeks.  It wasn't bad since we had so much to do.  But as soon as we were off the campground, I wanted to see the pictures that had been taken at camp and play games or look at videos.

We had one bit of excitement.  The low tire pressure light came on in Mommy's car.  About a mile down the road we pulled into the first gas station and Mommy checked.   We had a very low right rear tire.  Barbara has AAA so they were called and within an hour the big spare tire had been put on and we were back on the road.   A funny thing: Mommy and Barbara were both willing to open car doors and wait but I wanted Mommy to keep the car on so it would be cool, this was after spending two weeks with no air conditioning.  You would think I would be used to the heat.  It really was not a hot day, much cooler than it has been in Texas this past couple of weeks.  The rest of the trip was uneventful. Mommy and Barbara asked me lots of questions about my camp.  Mostly I was willing to answer.   It was almost 4pm when we got home and of course I wanted to go play with my friends.

I played all evening with Anthony.  I wanted him to spend the night at my house.  Mommy would have been okay with it, but Barbara said no, she was too tired to have that much noise tonight.  I ended up spending the night at Anthony's.

*******I'll write more about camp activities on Monday.