Tumalo Weekend
I was going to write this up last night, but I went to sleep shortly after putting kids to sleep. I slept 12 hours last night. *chuckles* My face looks all puffy this morning, a sign of how tired I still am, but oh, what a wonderful way to get tired.
I had forgotton just how much I enjoy camping. And this weekend wasn’t even the hard camping. There were clean bathrooms and solar showers, which was a mixed blessing. And since this was a big church group, no one went hungry. I only cooked maybe twice, everyone was feeding everyone else, especially the grandparents who started this tradition.
It was an interesting time for me, I saw families I knew when I first moved to Portland and haven’t seen in over 12 years. On sunday, we had a testimony meeting in the park. I saw that there were even more families nearby that I didn’t know had come, there had to have been at least 75 people there at that testimony meeting. Nothing like sunshine, a river and trees and good friends to make one feel closer to God.
The most interesting part of the trip though had to be the drive there. That might sound odd, is was all good, but that drive there was unbelievable. It’s a three hour drive, and we didn’t leave till 6:30. I won’t go into details, they were frustrating. Anyway, we are basically trying to get to Tumalo before the sun has been down too long and it’s real dark. Most of the drive was in the rain. Which I tried not to let worry me because I had looked at the weather reports and they said sun for the tumalo area. We passed some gorgeous country. Detroit, Oregon is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. I had the kids keep track of our progress by reading the map and checking off the towns as we went through. The fun part though was when we were going over the cascade, all that rain, became snow. A snow storm, at the end of May. And it was pretty thick. There was quite a bit on the ground when we went past it, it melted pretty good though by the time we went through there yesturday. Only the peaks kept the fresh snow.
When we got there, several of the dad’s came over and helped us set up. We then had alot of fun. E spent all her time catching lizards and climbing rocks. She must have caught no less then 5 or 6 different lizards. A had fun riding other peoples bikes since we couldn’t bring our own. He had a hard time, there were no kids near his age so he felt uncomfortable with the teenagers and to old for the younger guys. I know by next year he’ll be doing better, he enters the young mens program this year, so by next tumalo weekend he’ll be used to all the older kids. I spent my time getting to know old friends again. It was wonderful, I really needed that connection to some of the people who helped shape my life when I was a teenager.
This was a great weekend for me. I got to get away from the hassles of being seperated and on my own, I was reminded of what is really important and what I really want for myself. Everything I’ve been learning and experiencing over the last 12 months has solidified into a core part of my life now. I won’t say I had any major realizations in the forest, but a few things did click together. Watching a bunch of families with the mom’s and dad’s pulling together and being a team really was a good example for me to see. I had forgotten and the reminder was a good one.
