Janelle's Art teacher, Sue Kay, does the chalk drawings at our local Starbucks. From time to time over the past year and a half she has had Janelle fill in for her when she's unable to do it. She took off several weeks over the summer including all of August, so Janelle was busy. Sometimes she brings a friend and much of the summer Kendall has helped out.
Their "paycheck" is a nice cold frappucino.
It's always impossible to describe the CLC Youth Retreat. Worthy '07 was a wonderful, memorable, rich time. This was Janelle's first retreat so it was particularly meaningful to be there with her and her friends.
Christoph did an outstanding job leading our care group breakout sessions. He started each time with a trivia contest between parents and teens on subjects like sports, movies, Bible, presidents. By the end of the retreat we were tied and the parents won the tie breaker question: What is the Maryland State crustacean? Not a hard question if you live in Maryland.
Latecomers were required to do ten push ups. After the first morning, most people were on time.
Repeat offenders had to do 20. Christoph had compassion on them and offered to do it with them. The kids counted very slowly when he was on the ground.
(He was grateful he and Janelle have been training for basketball together by doing 25 push ups every night for the past 6 months!)
Baptisms in the Chesapeake Bay.
The best Youth Pastor on earth.
Elise enjoying a surprise crab feast after the last meeting. She did an amazing job administrating this retreat (along with the best Admin Team.) She handled everything she was given with graciousness and a smile. I couldn't be more proud of you, my dear! Well done.
Yes Betsy, it really does look like the pictures on the website....
...and yes it was very relaxing.
Janelle finally gave in and decided to have 10 inches cut off her hair while we were at the beach. I don't have any "After" photos. You'll have to see her in person.
We had lots of fun on these hammocks. There were 12 of them beneath a grove of palm trees.
Elise, the photographer.
And last, but not least - meet Eugene. (My family insisted I include a picture of him.) He was about 4 inches in diameter, nestled in a huge web at the entrance of the resort. Each time we drove in or out of the resort we yelled, "Hi Eugene!" You have to understand my family. They're just like that. So we had to include him. For those of you who are squeamish about spiders - too bad. You probably haven't bothered to read this far anyway.
Janelle worked very hard and had a great time at 5 Star Basketball Camp this week. She stayed on the campus of Mt. St. Mary's College in Emittsburg for five days and did very little other than play ball - 9 hours each day - in the "hot box" bubble, which was really, really hot! (I sat in there just to watch a game and felt like I was melting.)
Janelle, Domonique, Haley, Mary, Lauren, Morgan.
Her team made it to the championship game at the end of the week.
About 150 girls attended the camp, but Janelle had the privilege of being coached by Tamara Bowie of the Washington Mystics, a real professional basketball star!
5 Star roommates. 
