Aunt Laura's Summer Camp

My niece, Natalie is 7. She's been asking to come down to visit for months and we just haven't made the arrangements. So, at the brunch for Grandmom's birthday, she asked again. "How 'bout tonight?," I asked. Well, she got so excited! Gabrielle, who is 10, decided she'd like to come, too. So, they drove back down to DE with us in "the Funk" and of course we didn't get very far before we all started singing the catchy song from the Honda Odyssey commercial, "Aw, we got the Funk, gotta have that funk..." And so it began, Aunt Laura's summer camp...

It was late when we got home, so not much fun stuff, just to bed. The next morning, we had chocolate chip pancakes, a camper's favorite breakfast, and decided to head to Brecknock Park to play for awhile.

The kids had a ball operating their fast food restaurant called "Fasties." Later, Jake left Fasties to open up a competitor restaurant, "Yummies." Ah, the imagination of a child!




Gab atop the castle

Hard at work at Fasties

The boss, Gabrielle, let Jonny take a break from making ice cream to pose for a picture. Jon just informed me that he thinks bosses should be boys. Excuse me????


After we got home and had lunch, Liz and Jon took naps while Gab, Nat, and Jake read some books and then played. Then, Andy came home from work and decided to turn the sprinklers on for the kids to play in (asst. camp counsellor??). They played sprinkler tag.

Nat running away from the "it"

Gab getting sprayed! What a great picture!

We all had a great time together. Unfortunately, as with a lot of campers, home sickness set in and Mommy and Daddy had to drive down at 9pm and pick up the girls (who by that point had showered, changed into pjs and fallen sound asleep on the couches in the family room) and take them back home. So, camp was cut short, but we had fun while it lasted.

We had to head to the beach by ourselves the next day... Lots of pictures of that soon to come, but I better go make dinner right now or I'll have four upset people!!! We Merkles like to eat!!! ha ha!