We had the opportunity to go to Silver Birch Ranch in White Lake, WI this summer. My brother Aaron was the speaker for the week, and someone in their church graciously paid for our way. We may never know who they are, but the Lord does, and we thank them for giving us that opportunity; we loved every minute of it! The whole thrust of the teaching for the week was just getting to know who God is, and the only way to do that is to spend time in His word; however, that's hard for us to do in this fast paced world that we live in. The title for the week was "Life on the Fast Track...Downshift". Aaron did a great job teaching. I was so proud of him. As his oldest sister, it's hard sometimes for me to see him so mature, but what a blessing! We went to Family Camp, which is designed, of course, for families. We were served all of our meals (so nice not to worry about cooking!), and there were numerous activities to choose from. An average day was to wake up, go to breakfast at 8, sign up for activities at 9, chapel at 9:30, free time or adult activity at 11, lunch at 12, afternoon free for activities you signed up for or whatever you want to do, supper at 5, family activity at 6, and they served a snack around 7:30. The nice thing was that you could be as busy or as relaxed as you wanted. Madison and Hannah's favorite part of camp was the playground. It was HUGE with lots of ropes and climbing to do. After they finished eating any meal, they ran to the playground. It's in the middle of the camp, which is nice, because you can pretty much keep an eye on them from anywhere.
While the adults were at chapel in the mornings, the kids had their own classes. They split the kids up based on ages. They heard Bible stories, watched videos, and learned camp songs. They went on hikes and hayrides around the campus as well.
Sign ups included kayaking, rafting, water skiing/tubing, climbing wall, horseback riding, adult sunset ride, and specialty breakfasts. We signed up for two of the specialty breakfasts. One was the Buckboard, my favorite, and the other was the Logger's breakfast. On the Buckboard breakfast you got to ride a horse drawn carriage to Split Oak which was the site of the breakfast. The wranglers fixed scrambled eggs, and some kind of potato and bacon
concoction, which was out of this world! We got to try "Wrangler Sandwiches" which were fried peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Doesn't sound very good, but it was! The girls have me make them at home almost every day!
The Logger breakfast was outside by the lake. It consisted of blueberry pancakes and sausage patties.
We did a lot of things that were new to us, such as rock climbing, rafting, and tubing. Rock climbing was a lot of fun. The first time Aaron & Brittany took the girls while I went horse back riding. The next time I went with them. Hannah made it all the way to the top of one of the walls, and Madison just had fun climbing. I went to the top of one of the walls as well. It was pretty exhilarating!
Let's see, how would I describe our rafting trip? Hmm, well, it was an adventure. I've never been rafting before and it was just me and the girls in a boat together. Hannah was at the front, Madi in the middle, and me at the rear paddling and steering. Scary, huh?! Hannah kept trying to get us stuck on the rocks, which we did more than I would have liked, and I'm sure more than the lifeguard who was paddling around us in his kayak would have liked. Nevertheless, it was an experience that I wouldn't trade for anything. Good family fun! The last day of sign ups, the girls went tubing. Madison went with her new friend Patti, and Hannah went with Uncle Aaron. The pictures are priceless.
My favorite activity, of course, was the horseback riding. The camp has over 60 horses. You can adopt one, which means that you send money each month and that goes to caring for that horse. I rode a black and white paint quarter horse name Koa. She has one blue eye. I had to start off on the Intermediate ride which was just a walking trail ride. It was fun, but when you're used to running, it's hard to just walk. So, I took the test for the Advanced ride and passed! I was excited. It was fun to at least get to run a little bit. On the advanced rides, though, they put you on Tennessee Walkers because their gait is smoother. On the last ride I took, I rode a black and white paint named Stormy. He was perfect! On my birthday, I got to go on the adult evening ride. It was a lot of fun because it was in the evening. We left around 7 when it was still light and went to a spot by the lake to sing praise songs around a campfire and roast hot dogs and marshmallows. Then we left after dark and rode all the way back to the barn. I've never rode in the dark, but it was a lot of fun. Thanks to Aaron and Brittany for watching the girls so I could do that. I also had the chance to watch the head wrangler, Ben, break a horse named Houdini. That was awesome. It took a little while, but he did get on him. I'm including a picture of Ben and a video. Didn't get it all; I ran out of memory card!
What else? Let's see, some of the family activities were relay races down at the lake, Amazing Race camp style, human fooseball, but the favorite was the night at the races. We got to break up into three teams and spray paint cars to look like nascars. Then we had to push the cars around a course and stop at pitstops. At the pitstops we had to complete activities to move on to the next one. Some things included cleaning the windshield, checking the oil, making a human pyramid. Our team didn't win, but it was lots of fun.
Silver Birch is a great place to visit. I would love to go back again someday. If you're interested in it, visit their website at silverbirchranch.org
