End of the Adventure!

Today I decided to stick around after dropping Madison off for camp, and part of that reason is that I  could stick around.  All week we've been busy with Summer Xtreme preparations and meetings, along with the other usual church-related activities.  But this morning, I had a few hours to spend with the kids, simply playing the part of photographer, and capturing an average morning of the Edge ATA Adventure Camp.

I took a ton of pictures, but obviously most of the ones here will be of Madison.  You can see her here, exercising outside earlier in the morning.  That was obviously the best time to go out, this due to the cooler temperatures, but also because of the threat of rain outside.  All the kids were going from station to station, doing various physical exercises, like this classic rope one below.

The ropes are heavy, of course.  There were six tied up there at the tree, so a team of three could attack the ropes and see how high they could get them.

The next activity had kids along the wall, lined up and squatting down as if they were seated in imaginary chairs.  And that's when the challenge was given:

Pass the ball as quickly as possible down the line.  To begin with, the question was posed:  could they possibly do it in less than thirty seconds?

The kids were urgently passing the ball along, cheering one another on as they frantically tried to get that ball from one end of the line to the other.

In the end, of course there was all kinds of drama from Mrs. Edge, who didn't give their time right away.  The suspense was hanging in the air.  Could they have beaten the time?

The answer was of course yes.  They beat it and then some.  I think the first time they tried it, the time was at 19 seconds.  There were four attempts in total, and by that last time, they got it down to a little over 13 seconds.  Great job, team!

I took several group pictures after this, lining up the kids in front of the official bus, only because it had that big word "EDGE" on it.  To begin with, we had the kids posing as if they were in some sort of martial arts stance.

We also did silly faces, and other attempts.  I think there were one or two decent group pictures that came out of this photo shoot.

While Mrs. Edge was leading things outside, Mr. Edge was setting up the ninja obstacle course inside.  And as you can see here, the kids were excited as they went from one challenge to the next.

Here you can see them looking into the laser room, where all kinds of bright orange "trip wires" shooting across the room at all sorts of angles gave the kids a challenge.  They had to get through to get the ammo for their Nerf guns.

Here they are, waiting their turn to go through the ninja course.  According to Madison, they did courses like this each day, but this one was her favorite.

After kicking and punching the cushions at the start, the next step involved getting over the cushions that were fallen over.  Rather than hurdle them, Madison got the best time of all on this part by simply leaping from the top of one to the next.

The axe throw was hilarious.  Some kids had figured out how to do it, and others not quite.  Instead of a blade, there were suction cups, and you had to throw the "axe" with enough force to get it to stick to the wall or the window there.

Madison had one good shot, but she was just ready to move on from this section afterwards.  She still had a good spirit about it, laughing all the way.  The other kids were had about the same results too, although there were one or two that had a knack for this sort of thing.

Once she got through with this, and then got through the lasers, it was time to run through the other room, where there was a bit of a balance beam and some jumping from spot to spot - all while having dodge balls thrown at you.

This room was no problem for her at all, as she sped through, without really looking towards the dodge balls hurling at her.  The best thing to do is not think about it!

At least don't think about it too much!  Anyway, after this, the kids - and I loved this - all left that room and they all bowed out as they are trained each day, even though that wasn't mentioned and it was something that could clearly cost them time.  Still they did so, and were off to the target range.

Kids have been using the Nerf guns all week.  This was a smaller Nerf gun that everyone used, aiming to hit the small green army men lined up on the wall a good distance away.

Near miss!  These tiny targets presented quite a challenge to the campers, but they still had a good bit of fun with this last stop along the course. Because by the end of it all, it wasn't really about times so much as having fun, and in that regard, everyone was a winner.  Madison had her share of victories this week, but so did others, and most importantly, they had a lot of fun.  Madison had quite a few stories to tell by the time this week was over, having made some wonderful memories.  We're grateful for that, grateful for her to be able to do something like this.

Next week's camp is not quite the fun adventure camp that this one was, but she'll be back again each day for Rank Camp, which of course is all about meeting those requirements for a new belt ranking.  She'll be moving up, if all goes well, and getting herself a red belt by next Friday.  That's a big deal, just one belt shy of the black belt, which she's estimated getting somewhere by next March.  We'll have a black belt in the family!

The rest of the day was work for Mommy and Daddy, getting ready for a brand new series, and a brand new Summer Xtreme.  The new series, "Unleashed," is pretty much what we did last Summer Xtreme, although we've tied some other videos to that, and added a few new ones too.  We're filming new things, including videos of our Orange County children's pastors as well.  It's going to be a great series, just as the others have been.

The first message of it is one of my favorite messages of late, really setting up the whole idea of what it means to be "unleashed."  There are some nods to Captain Marvel, which is a good set-up for what we did tonight:  watch more "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D."  Yes, Madison is really hooked now.  We've decided to throw in a few Marvel movies, including the one mentioned above.  But also, we're going to watch things "chronologically," which means that in the midst of season one, we'll also be watching "Thor:  The Dark World," and "Captain America:  Winter Soldier."  Anyway, we're set on our viewing for a bit.

And we're set on our reading too, checking out another chapter of "Artemis Fowl" this evening.  None of us have any idea at all what's going on, so we're entering a whole new world here.  But it's fun checking out new books from time to time, and we're all along for the ride.  What makes this book interesting is that we're reading it entirely from the Kindle we have, a digital copy.  We've been downloading a few of these this season, including a few graphic novels too, like the Darth Maul series, "Son of Dathomir."  These have been free, and somewhat like the library.  It's been good to have new stuff to check out, and reading on the Kindle isn't that bad.  It's nothing like having a book in your hands, of course.  I may be old school, but having a book in your hands is just a special thing, and can't be replaced by a device like that.  We're talking about centuries of books here, each created in such a special way.  Some are just so well made, like a piece of artwork, and that's before you begin reading.  Records are like that too - or albums.  Whatever you call them, it's good to see this is coming back too.  We have a record player and from time to time we play music on it just because.  I have a collection of music by certain artists where I have all these jewel cases, the CDs from those artists, rather than some digital collection floating in space or on a hard drive.  It's difficult to be content with digital copies of certain things, when for me, nothing replaces the feeling of holding a book or a piece of music that I can play.  Eventually, we'll all shift away from that and go to a minimalistic place where there won't be stacks of CDs or bookshelves, and everything will be in virtual libraries.  But for the time being, I'm glad to have a fully stocked bookshelf.