Post LLYC Pick Up Frio River Stop

Just an impromptu stop along the side of the river to reconnect before getting back home. They just kept talking and talking and talking, telling us remarkable stories of their adventures, before they passed out!

Laity Lodge Youth Camp LLYC - Addison's 1st Summer "BEST TWO WEEKS"

Cabin: Delta Babes (Since we got in last minute, off the waiting list, Addison was in one of the younger cabins with incoming 4th graders.) She didn't seem to mind at all and had such amazing things to say about all the girls.

Addison's Weekly activities:
Week 1: art and fishing

Week 2: mountain biking

Addison's Counselors:

1. Sophia
2. Madison
3. Claire
4. Jenna - Addie's favorite. So sweet and nice and she always sat next to me. She always swayed back and forth with me. She spent the night with me at sleepover.

Addie's description of her cabin's "sneak-out:"

• Delta Lodge was Addie's "brother cabin," and Jack one of the counselors, was sitting on their cabin porch late that night. 
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• Charlotte, Addie's best friend, while at camp, has an older brother Jackson that was in Carter’s cabin. 
• The girls were almost asleep and all of a sudden their counselors came in yelling to get up and get dressed in dark clothes and to get into bathroom quickly and get their shoes on. They had captured the boys' counselor, Jack, and blindfolded and gagged him with a tie around his mouth to keep him quiet and loaded him up in the truck, Beast, and all the girls had to get in the truck and lay flat in truck bed and “hit the deck,” and drove to “Pebble Beach” at Echo Valley and all waited there. They told the boys cabin that they had to bring "S'mores" in order to release Jack. All the boys from Delta came and with the S'Mores and they had to get introduce themselves to one each other. Then, the boys had to make the S’mores for the girls.

2 Weeks of Camp Confirmed Addison's Milk or Lactose Allergy:

• At check in, we just happened to mention Addie shouldn't have regular milk with cereal due to a possible mild issue, well, they treated her a child with complete milk allergy and Addison had no milk, for 14 days! It 
• Special free lactose free milk. Banana nut instead of Blueberry. No chocolate. Eggs with special lactose free milk. No mac n cheese. Only regular noodles. Outdoor meals, no nacho cheese.  Desserts- sugar cookies or popsicles. No brownies. No Corpus Christi cake.

Other Memories She Told Us About:

• Addie’s cabin did scenes from the movie called Trolls - Addie was Poppe. It was from when the Trolls escaped from the tree. 
• She purposely opted for ONLY cold showers and only took one "about" every other day! She showed us how she LOVED to climb the shower walls at camp.
• The fan at night made it amazing to sleep and she had NO complaints. She said she went to bed without sheet or blanket, but then would pull up a sheet sometime over night. 
• She said some girls brought "Foam mattresses" which made it SO comfortable!
• "Girls night in" - one night they had done a spa night which was so much fun, she said. They dressed as crazy as possible, even wearing her panties outside her clothes and on her head, which was okay, because all the boys were gone at "Boys Night Out," where they slept in the wilderness, under the stars.
• Counselor Pranks- While they were away at "Girls Night Out," sleeping under the starts, the boys came in their cabins and took off all shower heads and poured red fruit punch everywhere. They died the toilet water red and shower curtains all red. All the counselors mattresses were outside.
• During "Boys Night Out"- the girl's counselors, saran wrapped EVERYTHING! Bibles, and threw glitter in everything! They took one of the mattress pads and covered it in glitter and wrapped in Saran Wrap and hung it from the ceiling rafters and when they went to take it down, glitter went flying everywhere in the boy's cabins.

Differences they told me when I asked them about TBarM and LLYC:

1. 2 weeks is better than 1 week, more time to get to know everyone one
2. Pranks!
3. Way more traditions!
4. No schedule at all!
5. The RIVER!!!
6. More time hiking and in nature. Lot more land to explore
7. So much smaller, they knew everyone. They actually saw one another all the time too, and they never really saw each other at TBarM, last Summer.

Gifts for care packages:

• We left them each 2 full boxes of Krave cereal with Baggies to share with their new counselors and bunkmates, which they loved.
• Addison: I sent via Amazon, glitter pen tattoos and stencils and a book, in case she had time to read. Which she didn't outside of quiet time, when she would write letters and journal some. By the 2nd week she was too exhausted to stay awake during quiet time.
• They loved Candy
• YaYa, Aunt Julie and Meme sent them big care packages besides us.
• We emailed them 10 times over the 14 days, a couple of times, having YaYa, Ella Perkins and MeMe send them an email message. When I specifically asked about packages and she told me how some kids got ridicoulsuly amount of care packages and I asked Addie how she felt about that, she said, "It was so nice getting mail. It made my day. I liked the letters more than the stuff."

Addison's letter's she received:

Some of Addison's letters she sent:

Laity Lodge Youth Camp LLYC - Carter's 1st Summer "BEST TWO WEEKS"

Carter started talking about camp within 45 seconds of arriving and hugging him. The #1 thing he wanted to talk about were the "sneak-outs!" My heart started swelling with joy when I started hearing about such fun long-standing traditions they have.

He also wanted to tell us all about the "schedule," although he was quick to say that was one of the biggest differences about LLYC and TBarM is there really was no strict schedule. Which is what Carter needs, 2 weeks without know what the schedule is! But he went on to tell us that he could wake up anytime and go outside and play or hang out on front porch. While they were waiting for breakfast, the cabins had to do a trivia questions to see who goes to breakfast first.

"Sneak-outs," Carter speaking to us super seriously are "against the rules." "Austin, one o four counselors, the first day and got fired for talking about sneak out in front of Chandler." "We snuck out on “Beast,” one of the camp trucks at midnight on the 3rd night." "For Zion iniation, the counselors each of us a plastic spoon and said we had to keep it in our pocket, without using it or breaking it, for 24 hours. Then when we snuck out that night, we had to bring our spoon and make a “Z,” on the ground. Carter kept saying, “Zion does different things!" "We had to mountain climb, like hang on the side of a river on the way to camp sleep out, with a sunflower seed in our mouth for like 2 miles! I feel in the river. We had to carry a '20 pound rock' taking turns carrying it... it’s a Zion thing. We carried it to a rock pile by the windmill and then everyone pees on it!"

2 nights before the end of camp, carter went on another sneak out. They waited for central staff to go to bed. They witnessed another cabin sneaking out and originally thought it was cabin 4, the younger boys, but it was TriLove, their sister cabin. They literally crawled to the truck on their bellies and are in floor board of the truck. They went to the playing fields and to Devils Playing Field (? need to clarify name). They thought they were trying to find cabin 4. Carter felt strongly that they were in the empty playing field building and he walked over there (without a flash light) and door slowly squeaked opened and he walked inside the dark building, all by himself, and turned to the side and "there was a human body next to me but they wouldn't give me a flashlight." Carter yelled, "there’s a body!” And then like 20 girls came running and screaming out on all sides of him. Carter said, “I was SO scared and was twitching for so long!”

When I asked Carter about ever being homesick or sad, he kept saying he never got homesick, not one second!

Carter’s counselors:

1. Caleb Wheeler - From Tyler, TX and goes to Texas A&M University.
2. Austin Hays - Carter's favorite. From Kerrville and attending UT Austin.
3. Will Moody - From Tampa, FL and goes to North Carolina State studying Mechanical Engineering.
4. Braden Isenhart - Slept below Carter, From San Antonio and goes to Texas A&M University.

Friends: 

Carter said Bryson was his best friend from San Angelo. Judson was also from San Angelo.

Carter made a really good friend from Great Hearts.

Other memories he talked about:

“4 on 1” - handfishing for catfish. Sneak up on a catfish in a group and grab it! Carter said he touched 50 catfish but they didn’t catch one.

Carter cabin had to make a movie - they did several scenes from the movie Sandlot. Carson did an awesome editing job. They did the pool scene, from the movie. Then they did another “baseball” scene when jogged the ball all the way from the backfield to home plate. Carter was the pitcher. 

Carter said, "Cabin free time you could do anything. Sometimes we did kick ball or go to Catina. You can’t asked about the schedule! Or you loose Catina!"

One day, during the second week, he fell asleep during quiet time before lunch and slept all the day through lunch and a movie afterwards. 

Carter's Activities: 

Week 1 - mountain biking

Week 2- fishing and water sports like going Echo Valley to play on their water front

Letter's Sent To Carter:

Letter's Carter Sent to Friends and Family:

Carter's Drawing of the Cabin and how they would sneak all around the cabin during quiet time and use a bungee system to pass notes: