Good bye Session 1, Hello Mr. and Mrs. Glanders!

Saturday morning arrived bright and early-- just in time for us to pack up all our things, eat breakfast together one last time and go to chapel. I've loved seeing Devon the past two weeks. We met when she was just a little Blazer and have been friends ever since. It's been so fun to have cousins Maddy and Natalie here together.

Many summers ago I started a strange tradition with a CILT named Noelle where we choose a Pathfinder girl during chapel to be our new friend. It's supposed to be someone that we don't know but who looks really fun. That friend has always ended up being a CILT and then we can continue the tradition the next summer. This year Natalie and I picked Avery Tudor as our friend-- I have a feeling we made a great choice.

My whole family arrived last night to see Nick after his Adventure Trip and to visit closing campfire. I couldn't wait to see Baby Lincoln. He is just my most favorite little guy.

I was so happy to see Katie, Beth and Dave too. It's strange to not have them around this summer when I was so used to seeing them every day last year.

Back at the Longhouse porch we had to say good-bye to all of these new best friends. There were some tears and too many hugs to keep track of.

I was talking with Smooney about how it's not as sad to say good-bye to people we love now as it used to be. Now we're confident that if someone is really important than we'll absolutely stay in touch with them no matter how far apart we live or how often we get to see them.

Camp friendships have always been some of my very best friendships.

I jumped in my parents' car and we drove South to Nashville, IN for the wedding of Emily Westervelt and Eric Glanders, two of my best friends. I had the honor of being a reader during the ceremony and arrived early to get the low down. I saw Emily in her dress right away and she was so beautiful.

The ceremony was great and everything went smoothly. It was so exciting to see them announced as husband and wife and then run out of the church as everyone blew bubbles. We headed to his parents' farm for the reception. The decorations were beautiful.

Almost as soon as we arrived the heavens opened and the torrential rains started. The guests huddled under the tent to stay mostly dry and we thought everything was going ok. Then we discovered that the field down below where the cars were parked had started to flood and the water was reaching the doors of several cars. Jordan and a few other guys rescued some of them but unfortunately water had already leaked inside.

Eric and Emily, the newly married couple, arrived in ponchos to keep dry. If anyone could handle an adventure like this it's these two.

I'm so excited for them to start this next chapter of their story together. I'm such a fan of the two of them and was so glad that I could be here to celebrate with them.

Eric has two brothers and the three of them are extremely close. Charlie was there as the best man but Sam is overseas right now. They had this giant cardboard picture of him though to make his speech and be in all the pictures.

A fun crowd of camp friends all showed up for the big event and I was so happy to get to be with all of them.

I ended up driving back to camp late at night with the Elliots. My journal from the last year filled with letters and notes and cards, CILT binder, several evaluation folders and parent letters were all in the part of our car that flooded. At first I thought all was completely lost but only the things that had been written in marker had to be thrown away. My mom helped me separate every single page and put paper towel in between each one. We used four rolls of paper towel. Once I got back to camp I laid everything out on the floor of Choctaw to completely dry. Everything turned out okay but what a heck of an adventure.