Dangerous Men

6 brave 14-16 year old young men decided to take on the "call to adventure" on our last camp session and be part of our Rangers Program at Camp Rockmont. This program has been dead because of the lack of leadership for the last 3-4 summers. Bringing back a program that pushes people physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually....a program where you only spend a couple of nights on camp in a real bed...a program where you are taken out of your comfort zone in a way possibly never experienced...a program that challenges young men to take on adventure and to contribute to the community they live and take from...a program like that has been a bit of a challenge to bring back. Why should they learn to contribute when we look at teenagers as useless and make "growing up" look so boring? Why should they be pushed to do something different when us adults and parents have been sticking to the same routine year after year? When is the last time we have done something that made our palms sweat and our heart beat faster in the anticipation? When have we given of our time and service to give all our good stuff away? When is the last time you stood by a cliff, an ocean, a roadside, to watch the wonder of the sunset and encourage the people around you to experience that kind of wonder! What I am trying to say is to our surprise we had a difficult time to get young guys to sign up for this kind of program. These 6 guys who were part of the first of many Rangers sessions are forever changed in some great ways. They came in as 6 individual young men and learned to work as a unit of one. They left as dangerous men. Ready for challenge and adventure and equipped to give back to the community they live in.

We spent the last 12 days backpacking, white water canoeing, trail running, rock climbing, and having an "adventure day" which you would just have to talk to an alumni Ranger about that day to find out more details! The instructor for white water canoeing called these young guys "dangerous men". What a great thing for them! They stood up taller, puffed out their chest, and then they started contributing more to the group because they knew then they had something to give. They weren't useless. They were dangerous men.

Enjoy the pictures. You can see them all on our facebook page under Rockmont Rangers.

This is Leo's toe. He slipped on a rock and hit another rock with his big toe.

It bent the nail half way back ripping it from his skin.

OUCH!

Looking Glass Waterfall in Pisgah. We all jumped into this freezing water and got wet.

We literally sorted through tons of tomatoes at Manna Food Bank.

It was a smelly job, but we were glad to help out.

This is some chicken of the woods mushroom that we ate with our dinner later that night.

It seriously taste like chicken!

This is halfway into our backpacking section.

We found a bunch of wild blueberry bushes on the trail. Best part of my day!!

Update Soon!!!

I am sorry I have left the blogging world lately, BUT we have been having an incredible time with 6 adventurous young men for the last couple of weeks. These guys leave tomorrow which mean Bryce and I are hoping for a little down time before we start back up on Sunday. Looking forward to sharing some stories and pics soon. Hope your summer is going good! Ours has been full of fun surprises and adventures.

Happy Father's Day!

I have always considered myself blessed to have such great parents. Today I give a shout out to my dad who has shown great love for me and has taught me many things. Thanks for being a great dad. I love you! I also would like to say Happy Father's Day to Bruce, Bryce's dad, who has adopted me into their family with great love. I wish I had a picture on this computer to share of you. Have a great day you two!

We call him Danger

This is in honor of my sweet, handsome, and adventurous husband...

Bryce's birthday was this past weekend on the 13th. We are pretty engulfed in work right now being that it is a summer camp and all. Free time is just not happening lately, but we are enjoying what we are doing and loving doing it together. We managed to sneak off during lunch Sunday and go out to eat by ourselves. What a treat! We hung out at the bookstore for a little while afterwards too. While we were out I had our team back at camp decorate our house and buy all the goodies to make homemade ice cream. When Danger walked through the door he was so surprised!!! They were all waiting inside screaming and blowing noise makers as he walked through the door. It was great!! We played games, talked and enjoyed some delicious dessert with our co-workers.

We have been married over 3 years now. Hard to believe, yet I can't remember not having him with me either. This year has been particularly good to us. It is not that everything is perfect or has gone how we have wanted it, but we have learned much and grown much together over the last few years. I think we are done figuring out some of the basics of marriage and living together, and have been enjoying the hearty meat of being one. I have always been madly in love with Bryce, but I am finding ways to show him my love better. I have known since day 1 that I have a dream husband. Our prayer has been since the beginning that God would use this marriage to bring honor and glory to his name. I am because He is.

I don't have some of our best pictures on my computer to post, so these will do. Some of you have been able to cross path's with Bryce to see what an incredible man he is, I hope more people get to do the same. I have learned so much from Bryce and I can't wait to learn more. He is my adventure partner, my beloved, closest friend, my handy man, the sexiest man I know!!! and we call him danger.

9 days in

Camp has begun!!! Staff got here last week and campers this past Sunday. We have been running around like crazy needless to say. We have a great team working with us this summer and we are pretty excited to see how this season goes. I wish I had more time to write and pictures to share, but I don't right now. Hopefully soon. We will be out for the rest of the week so have a great week.

Strawberry Season

Last year was the first year I have ever harvested strawberries. We found a great farm in South Carolina near Bryce's sister Judi. We had a great time picking strawberries and eating a ton of them while doing so!! I tried out canning jam from the strawberries we picked and it turned out great. The only thing I did not like about it was the massive amount of sugar you put into it!!! 6 cups of strawberries to 7 cups of sugar...WOW! This year we could not find the time to pick them ourselves so we bought them locally from a side stand down the street from us.

This year I decided to find a way to make jam with less sugar. I found a way to do it with half the sugar and just as tasty. Bryce and I LOVE our p.b. and j's. I mean really love them. When we are near a cheap place with natural peanut butter we stock up. This year we stocked up with homemade jam that we hoping will last till next season. We shall see...

There was one unfortunate accident along the way. Have you ever done something knowing you shouldn't but did it anyway, just for it to end up like the way you thought it was...bad? I knew I grabbed too many jars at one time, costly mistake. Very sad.

Part III

The final steps were adding the batting to the quilt and making the back. I wanted just one print on the back to coordinate with the front. I found out quickly for many reasons I was not going to be able to make that work. I had to come up with a different design and now 2 different coordinating fabrics instead of 1. After a couple of hours of planning, I made the back and attached all 3 pieces together. This is the final result. I LOVE it! I like the simplicity yet touches of detail here and there. The size is 45 x 60. Hope you like the pics.