Summer Camp at Victory Ranch

I haven’t written in my blog for a long time. I have had a lot going on. I had tons of work to do in mid July to get ready to take a week off of work July 25 – July 31 to take a group of 20+ 3rd thru 6th graders to camp. It was a great week! We went to a new camp this summer since our old camp is no longer offering a local summer camp. We went to a place called Victory Ranch in Moreno Valley. There are things I missed about Centri-Kid, but mostly they were the modern conveniences of staying on a beautiful college campus vs. going to an actual ranch for camp. At Centri-kid I had my own room in our cottage, we had air conditioning, three full bathrooms, our porches, full kitchens and refrigerators. Ahhh, those were the days! But the kids really longed for a camp that was really “camp”. They got that at Victory Ranch for sure. When we arrived at camp you drive down a dusty road and encounter a cow pasture, horse stables and all the aromas that accompany cows & horses. We stayed in cabins with swamp coolers, we had invasions of biting red ants, we played games that the kids loved but the parent in me found disgusting or dangerous. The game “rhino snot” is forever engraved in my memory. Our clothes smelled so horrible after a week of sweating, playing with food, mud, riding horses, etc. We got home on Saturday late afternoon and on Sunday at church all the parents talked about how bad the laundry duties were. But it’s been a month since camp and the kids still want to share with me every chance they get about how much fun they had at camp. I am so grateful to have a job where I earn a lot of leave and am able to use my leave to take this great bunch of kids to camp each summer.