Camp photos

I was going to have Raia go back through all the photos from the camp photographer and choose the best to share here, but we're having electricity problems in this house, and she couldn't.* So, I'm doing what I can from my iPad and portable internet. These are the photos she already put on Facebook. Sorry if you've seen them before.

Bogdan and his counselor

Raia and her Karina

*Electricity is back now. The main breaker for our house burned out, and we had to wait for someone to come change it out.

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More explanation of some of the photos, added later: Raia got to be Asya's counselor. At first they were actually upset about it, and didn't want to be in a group together, but it turned out to be really sweet. That's why there are so many photos of Raia with that whole group of girls.

Camp #5

For the first day of the Hunsuckers' visit, our kids were still at church camp. Raia was a camp helper, so she slept at the church all week and got to be part of the extra teen fun activities in the evenings. (One night they went to Jump Park, played like crazy until it closed, and then walked all the way back to the church!) Asya and Bogdan were at camp every day, almost from dawn to dusk, but they slept at home.

Bogdan's very favourite part was the ropes course set up in the trees by the church. Raia said that of all the little boys, he was the only one who would do everything right away without fear.

These were some of the photos that Raia posted from that part:

I'll ask Asya what her favourite part was and get some more photos from Raia tomorrow....

And now they're gone

When Will's parents got here almost two weeks ago, I posted "They're here" on Facebook, and then didn't do much online after that. We had a wonderful visit with them, and now they're on their way home. You can pray that their trip goes well; it will be kind of long and slow. Their travel coming this was was really rough, so we're hoping this time will be much better.

So far, I only have a few of the photos from the first few days off of Bernie's camera. Julie also posted a lot of hers on Facebook, but most of those are only visible to her friends. Here's some of the fun in our street:

The boys

The girls

The babushki and everyone else:

Updating the photo and other stuff

We had a weird redirect going on here that I had to find and fix, and I realised that I should fix the really old kid photo, too. Apparently the one I had up was from 2014!

They would have been ages 3, 6, 8, and 10.

I have usually used Easter photos, so I'll went back to one that we got at Easter this year when they were 7, 10, 12, and 14 year old.

I also found this really old photo update post. There should be at least another one, but I'm not seeing anything.


Then a general update: the week is another camp. A friend counted yesterday and noticed that it's Raia's fifth this summer. It's church day camp this week. Bogdan and Asya are attending. Raia is an assistant counselor, so she even gets to sleep at the church. She left yesterday, and we probably won't see much of her this week, but we know that she's in her element.

Now I have one last week now to get ready for school.... And Will's parents will be arriving on Thursday.

I did get our July newsletter written, so if you're not on the mailing list for that and you're interested, come read. --->

Other camps

Other than the three camps that we have worked in this summer, Jaan and Raia also got to go to two others. (And there is one more coming up here, where Raia will work and Asya will attend.)

Back in June Jaan went to Vertical, which is a boys' camp in the woods near Poltava. He was there for 10 days. They lived in tents, cooked over fires, did all kinds of sports, and studied the Bible. Here are a few of the photos that the camp shared while he was there and since he's been home:

Then at the beginning of July Raia went to camp at the Azov Sea. She especially worked really hard in the other three camps, so we wanted her to have a chance just to be a camper. This camp was for our church and other churches from Kherson, which meant she was with all her best friends, and she loved it! Again, I took a few of the photos that they posted online:

Even there she was leading songs

More from art camp

When my team was rewarded for best behaviour

Starting a new painting

Just makes me laugh

Bogdan's group up front

Asya's group performing

Raia (jr counselor) and Nastia (sr counselor) greet their group

With her twin friends from church

Art camp

Remember art camp, way back in June? Our camera was used as the official camp camera, so it came back to us at the end of the week with 3000+ photos that I just haven't wanted to sort through. Now here are some that include us, just from the first day, so far: