Another Troyer Campout at South Beach

(Or as Will says, a McAnulty campout that the Troyers come to)

(Revised 8/10/06)
Our annual summer weekend at South Beach was so quiet this year. Dawn, we missed you and your family! Especially your family! Your children tend to really liven things up! It was fun having Brenden and Tamarick and Jenna for the day, but they weren't there long enough!

They were there long enough for Nick and Duane to get rich. It was sunny in the morning, but by afternoon the clouds were hiding the sun, the fog had rolled in and a chill wind was blowing. Galen drove the Suburban to the beach with the little boys, the big boys (Nick and Duane), and the adult boys, Kenny, my neice Melissa's husband and Will. It was quite cold on the beach, and Kenny told the boys he would give them $60 if they got completely wet. Of course they ran to the ocean and dived right in! Totally worth freezing!

Here's Nick bringing coffee to his Uncle Doug and his favorite cousin Kenny!

Molly brought her puppy Marley. It's nice my boys finally get to enjoy a dog without me having any of the inconvenience. Eric even got up at 6 a.m. to take him for a needed walk!

Anisa wins the Good Deed Award for the weekend. A little girl walked by crying for her mom so Anisa leaped up, took her hand and helped the sad but talkative little girl named Emma reunite with her family. "I'm only six. I'm the youngest in my family. They're all packed up and they'll probably leave without me. We have to go see some sharks. I don't like sharks. I don't want to see sharks...." Her older brother returned to the restroom where he was supposed to have waited for her and they all lived happily ever after. It reminded us of a church campout at Honeyman when Eric was about 3. He and his friend Heidi got on their trikes and kept going. We didn't notice they were lost until a nice gentleman returned them to us. After that we wrote our campsite number on our children's hands.

A nice policeman prowled by Saturday afternoon and Will asked if he could help him. He was trying to track down the source of an illegal smoke smell and seemed to think it was coming from our camp site. A member of our group had brought wood from some sort of evergreen tree and apparently it emits a smell similar to that certain illegal substance. No charges were filed.

Once again the weekend was over too quickly. Nick had to leave early to go to camp. Will really missed his help with hooking up. When we got there Friday, Will lounged around with a can of soda telling anyone who would listen how much he loves that kid while Nick unhooked and set up the trailer, "It's a good thing you weren't born first or we probably would have had about 14 kids." Now I need to follow through and get people over here for a barbecue before the summer is over so everyone can see the flag memorial here at the Tangent park.