We went camping

I know we've only been home a little over a month, but Mebira has been doing so well that we thought we'd go camping. Our church has family camp from Tue-Sun each July at a campground about 1.5 hours from home. It is a great place to hang out with friends, they've got great programs for the kids, and good services and electives for the adults.

I went out and camped with the girls on Wed, and Arvid joined us on Thursday night at bed time. It sounded like a good idea at the time...and it actually turned out pretty well, but looking back on it I wonder if it was maybe a bit soon. Mebira is so easy going that she will go along with pretty much anything. It makes change (which for a lot of adopted children can be really difficult to experience) pretty easy with her. The only thing I regret is that the kids had so much fun playing with all of their friends, that there really wasn't much family bonding going on. When you have biological kids it's no problem to have them run off with their friends for a few days...but when you've only been together for a month, the bond is a lot more fragile.

Oh well, we made great memories, and we all had a lot of fun. Mebira was able to experience a lot of new things, and she handled it like she's been doing it her whole life.

I've included a few pictures so you can see what we were up to. The first one is of her cute hair. My mom's hair dresser is from Guyana so I had her do Mebira's hair the night before we left. I didn't want to have to fuss with it while we were away and this did the trick!

(Below) Some down time at home...notice Mebira's cute hair

(Below) The girls did almost all the dishes while camping. Ever time they did, they got 25 cents to go to the canteen and buy some snacks. It worked out great for all of them. Mebira is very meticulous...it took forever when she washed the dishes! :-)
(Below) The picture doesn't do it justice, but a professional face painter attends the camp and she did beautiful sparkly tattoos on the girls.
(Below) Mebira and her totally adorable cousin hanging out and colouring.
(Below) Yummy pancake breakfast!
(Below) Not the best picture, but I just had to show how she ate her pancakes. Just like injera, she broke the pancake and then used it to catch all of the syrup.
(Below) Trying out a friend's trailbike with Daddy.

(Below) Hanging out at the campfire.

(Below) Mebira's first smore...she seemed to like it but didn't ask for s'more. :-)

(Below) Wow - that looks yummy!

(Below) Oh the bliss of a car with a DVD player. After being in extremely close quarters together for the week, Arvid and I enjoyed the pure silence on the way home!