Tribal Summit Down by the Lake - Saturday, July 27, 2013

I am reminded of the chant from the movie,  Horton Hears a Who?  "We are Here, We are Here, We are Here!"  "We are Here, We are Here, We are Here!"

That's how we felt on Saturday afternoon when we made it to the cabin in Maine.  Actually it's called a camp.  This must be a Yankee thing, or a Maine thing.  For me, the word camp conjures up an image of 100 girls running around screaming and multiple cabins and other places of recreation.  Not so up here, a camp is your family's place, the house, cabin, or whatever kind of structure you have near or on the lake.  Our friends, the Jacksons were instrumental in helping us find this particular camp; we were looking for something that wasn't very expensive, that would work for our family, not be too far for Jeff to go when he teaches, and would be close to our friends.  Suffice it to say, I think they would like us close by as well, so Kim definitely did some looking and calling around.  The lady we are renting from has apparently lived at this camp many years ago when her children were young.  It belonged to her family and they still use it.

 

Just a short walk down the steps from the front porch to get to the sandy beach and the dock.  Now, it may not look like much of a beach but it's perfect for our purposes and not very many camps have such great water access, much less a walk in beach.  We are looking forward to the multiple beautiful sunsets which are directly out over the water.

At the Jackson Place

The Jackson Crew and The Rowe Tribe have gotten together on Saturday evening for a summit by the lake.  I have "stolen" Kim Jackson's title for my title because I like it so much!  She wrote a great blog post, with some exxagerations of course, if you know Kim, you know what I mean, which you can read here.  We have known the Jackson family since early 1999.  She decided we didn't need to cook on our first night in and fed us Perry's Chicken Chili and the children roasted hot dogs over the fire.  Perry's parents, who live just down the road, came over too, and we visited with them again.  We have seen them over the years when they used to come for extended periods to Mt. Pleasant.  We met Perry and Kim's neighbors and their 3 grandchildren.  A very pleasant evening in the upper 70s with a gentle breeze and a fun time was had by all. 

Some of the kids from the 2 tribes, but not all!  Perry and Kim's crew (I'll call them the crew since they are both former military pilots), includes twins, Kyle and Clint, who are 20.  They were 6 when we met at East Cooper Baptist Church way back in 1999.  Ok, now I'm feeling old.  We had a just turned one year old, Scott.  Fast forward 14 years and we have delivered 8 more children and Perry and Kim obeyed the Lord's call on their lives to adopt children from China.  They now have 4 girls:  Rachel, Katie, Jenny, and Sarah.  And I'm not sure this is the end for them; I expect another adoption for them later on.  They have done such a wonderful job with the girls, who have blossomed under their care.  Rachel, who is 12 and adopted as a baby, has pretty much grown up with our Sarah Kelly, who is 12.  Now my girls are continuing to make friendships and lasting memories with their girls.

Elsie baby finds a friend.  We all couldn't decide if she liked the doggie so much because they have the same coloring or if the doggie is the same color as her "blankie"!  At any rate, Parker and the baby got along just great!

It's dark, we're all tired and happy, it's time to go to bed.  Goodnight Parker!  Goodnight Baby!  Goodnight Maine!

 

3 of the boys' guns back at our place; they are ready for adventure!