Family Camp Recap (Part 1: Ping-Pong, Panic Attacks, & Pottery)

We spent the last week at the Aspen Grove Family Camp in Provo Canyon, just above Sundance.  (it wasn’t really “above” Sundance, it was just up the road a few miles, but it would’ve been even cooler if it was literally “above” I suppose)  It was an awesome time filled with adventure, hilariousness, smallish animals, dancing, firearms, flying axes, singing, face painting, and, well, scum.  So here are a few things I learned or thought you needed to know:

• Climbing 70 feet in the air up a log/wall and THEN remembering my stupid fear of heights wasn’t my best decision ever.  I actually had a real-life panic attack while straddling a log on the aptly-named “HIGH Ropes Course.”  Oh, I finished the thing (mostly because I was being watched by a bunch of people I knew and because I had a rope around me so I didn’t die when I freaked out and let go of wall), but in a pretty humiliating fashion and gasping for air while having to immediately sit down.
• On the last night there we (like 400 of us) gathered for the final “show.”  The Mrs. HTF asked the announcer guy to announce that my son had lost his backpack, but that it has his name on it.  When the announcer asked if anyone had seen the missing item with Ethan’s name on it, my son, seated a few rows in front of us, quickly raised his hand, because he’d heard his name – to which the announcer smiled and told him to talk to the “lady in blue” (my wife).  The crowd cheered this development, but we just rolled our eyes.
• Kids singing/dancing on stage is always cute, until they turn like 11 or something, then they better actually know what they’re doing.
• The camp counselors, and there were lots of ‘em, took our kids for the vast majority of the day time.  They provided a detailed schedule of the activities they were doing so that the parents would be acutely aware.  I was surprised at how little I cared about those little schedules – except for the dropoff/pick-up times.
• One night we sent Allison (age 4) with our unsuspecting, too-kind friend to do Arts & Crafts.  She proceeded to convince our friend that she needed 5 different plaster figurines to paint (which cost $$).  The good news is that we came home with a colorful caterpillar, hat, shoe, unicorn and of course, a butterfly.
• Traci and I won the camp Mixed-Doubles Ping Pong Tournament.  But this was mostly because the semifinals were a forfeit and the finals ended up that way too because the guy tore his ACL the day before.  I like to say that everyone was too scared to play us.  Yep, Traci is that good.
• When we met the couple in our first round Ping Pong game I told the opposing wife that she looked really familiar to me, but I couldn’t place her.  I asked her name, maiden name, social security number and stuff that like.  She closed things down by saying that she probably just had “one of those faces.”  Well, several days later Traci ran into the lady at the BYU Bookstore and she told Traci that after the match she remembered that she’d gone on a date with me my freshman year.  I felt strangely vindicated and embarrassed at the same time…
• Pottery – WAY more fun than I expected.  Also, kinda cathartic, until the candy dish I was creating collapsed for the 4th time, then it wasn’t quite so calming.

As I was writing this I realized there’s way more to add, but this is already pretty long so….

To Be Continued…

There, wasn’t that awesomely dramatic?!