Family camp

We had been looking forward to our church camp for a long time, and finally this weekend it happened - a long weekend, so camp ran from Friday evening to Monday lunch time. It's a combined camp with Grace, our nearest Reformed fellowship in Christchurch, and the venue is about halfway between Christchurch and Timaru. I would have liked to write a glowing report on the wonderful fellowship and spiritual food we experienced and I'm sure we would have, had not Caleb started vomiting at 7.30 on Friday night. We thought he might just have been car sick but the vomiting continued until late on Friday night, then started up again Saturday morning. Poor Caleb was pale and miserable. He started feeling better on Saturday afternoon though so could join in with some of the games and activities planned for the free hours of the afternoon. We missed the first two sessions though because of his sickness, having to sit in the diningroom and listen on speakers - not quite the same though. In the early hours of Sunday morning Aaron and I both were sick; Aaron was in the boys' dorm and so we were not on hand to help him or prevent him vomiting all over the inside of his sleeping bag and on someone else's sleeping bag. Gross. I was in no condition to help with the clean-up so Nick got stuck with it. It wasn't difficult to make the decision to leave camp early, so as soon as we could pack up on Sunday morning we left, getting home around 11 am - both for our sakes and so we would not infect more people. As it was there were at least two other people down with the bug that we know of. Aaron and I spent the rest of the day in bed. Caleb was completely recovered by that point, and Nick was super with stepping in as The Mom - unpacking, loading the dishwasher, reading to the boys, seeing to lunch and tea for himself and Caleb. Aaron and I ate nothing all day. Today, Monday, Nick caught the bug, and has been in bed exhausted. And such was our first experience of Marchwiel's annual family camp!Above: the camp speaker, Craig Lloyd (centre), enjoying a game of Boggle with Bronwyn, Grant and me. Below: Rene did himself a calf injury and could only hobble around after that.