Family Camp & Remembering WWII

The Lord provided the opportunity for us to return to Family Camp this year! 
We were incredibly blessed by a week of fellowship, preaching, testimonies, hiking, yummy meals (no cooking for Mommas!), praying, Father/Son and Mother/Daughter times, and lots of wonderful families that shared their music. Praise the Lord for the vision of our dear friends who put this together to gather likeminded families and encourage each other!

Ahhh...a most thrilling experience! :)
Voice lessons brought to you by our dear mother & Mrs. Craig. 

Loved the different family concerts each morning and evening!

Crosby and Co. coloring during the Mother/Daughter session.

Toothless and tree climbing! :)

Boys and tall trees are a very good thing. :)

Early morning hikes...very fun!

Lunch time and business discussions.

Arm wrestling matches! Talk about serious energy expended in one place? 
Started with the littles in each family and moved up through the ranks.  

Father/Son Assignment: Build a boat out of cardboard and duct tape and paddle it across the lake with two people on board until you sink. Or swim. Or flip, sink and swim?!

Our streamlined, most seaworthy boat (ha!) was called "Bonners Ferry".

 Carver says, "We tipped. We didn't sink." 

Those of us cheerin' on shore witnessed incredibly creative engineering and near Olympic 
rowing and swimming skills. 

Christian. Manly things are good things!

This loosely defined but legendary game is called something with Mighty Noodles and Challenging Scoops. 
Not sure if anyone actually knows how to play but everybody including the littles loved it! 

And yes! The Second Annual Round of Family Feud was a wild episode of teamwork, hollering and guessing. 
The Bowers emerged victorious. By just a sliver. :)

We also made it to the town of Linden, TN for the Remembering WWII event.
Thousands of people attended throughout the day, thousands of tracts were distributed, and 49 WWII veterans came from across the US to share their stories. Our sweet friends, a homeschooling family with 12 children, started this 4 years ago in their YARD! Amazing! :)
Crockett was on paper boy duty following the battle re-enactment. 

Part of the security team in action!

One of many antique cars. We had a great time looking at these.

Small part of the very large crowd that came to watch the battle re-enactment.

Happy boys ready for battle!

Chapman gets the award for the cutest,
snaggle tooth newspaper boy EVER! :)  

Christian thoroughly enjoying someone else's lovely vintage bike.

Firetruck rides for the younger soldiers. Note the Nazi flag on the Courthouse which was later removed by courageous American troops! :)

Some of the jeeps and other original WWII vehicles in the encampment, which was also the temporary home to 600 WWII re-enactors for the weekend.

Amazing evening USO show. Many lovely old songs and speeches.

Fire works! Love 'em!

Things we now know about a re-enactment:
 Authentic WWII uniforms are lots of layers, lots of wool and VERY HOT!
 Red lipstick is a must, but thankfully there are lots of shades.  
Victory rolls are not edible. They are a hairstyle. :)