Hello girls! The Father/Daughter retreat at Camp Barakel is open for registration! Dad, Lydia, and I have gone to previous retreats and we would like to encouraged you to attend also! Here are some pictures:
Barakel means 'Where God Has Blessed'. That is Camp Barakel's motto.
This is a picture of the West Side Chapel. This is where we would be having chapel sessions. The picture was taken during the winter. Lets hope we don't have snow for the Father~Daughter retreat!
Shear lake--Barakel's own spring fed lake. It is beautiful. They have swimming areas, paddle boating, kayaking (our favorite!), canoeing, etc. It is great!
This is Paul Gardner. He is always smiling and happy. Mr. Gardner is the camp director and will be one of our hosts for the retreat. He also leads the singing. The singing is great there! It's my favorite part!
This is the zip-line. I have never been on it, as last year it was still in construction. We did walk up to the platform though, is it ever high! Five people can go at one time!
This is on top of the zip-line platform. Look closely and you can see the far platform across snow valley.
Another thing we enjoy doing is the rifle range. You can shoot air rifles or (if you are over 12) 22s.
Everything there is so pretty. They have over 350 acres, plus the Huron National forest boarders them, so there is an additional 1,000 acres that can also be explored.
If you like to fish, there are fish to be caught. (Please don't ask me to fish with you though!).
Picture of chapel, taken from the balcony, which is actually a little museum. Lots of fun things to look at there!
The blob. Many people
love the blob, but I think it is scary and painful. You have to go on a 10 foot platform and jump. Then crawl to the edge and when the next person jumps, you are catapulted in the air. Poor Lydia had a boy that was twice as big as her 'blob' her, and she flew way in the air, flipped over, and landed on her face and side. Was she ever sore!
If you like mountain/dirt biking, they have bike you can use.
The blockhouse, Barakel's symbol. It has a museum in it. It also has honey bees that you can see at work. Very interesting!
One of our favorite things to do is kayak. It is so fun to go in the shallow parts of the lake, but still be able to skim over the water.
They have a fun climbing wall also. It is not a vertical wall, but horizontal. It also had some fun areas. In one part there aren't many grips on the wall, so you have to sort of monkey along the top.
It is really long!
Lydia did the whole thing, a feat that not many have accomplished!
You start at A and go to Z. That is hard enough, but try to keep on going right along from 1-10. Now THAT is hard!
This is the Thunder Express. It is a long corrugated tube (used under ground and such). You go down on sleds. It makes a lot of noise, and because of the angle, is really scary the first time, but after that, it is not scary at all.
Lydia at the bottom.
You sort of can see how long it is in this picture. There is a long way to climb back up!
The top platform.
Some of the boats.
I love this picture. It has such perfect reflections!
The north end of the lake.
One of the platforms on the path leading down to the lake. This is a good place to go at night. It is so quite, and there aren't as many trees, so you can see the stars and moon clearly, since there isn't much light pollution.
A picture at the chapel. The fireplaces are really fun. They have all sorts of things stuck in them, interesting rocks, etc. There is a paper explaining what each thing is and why it is there.
Another thing is the food. Camp Barakel has great food! And there isn't any preparation or cleaning up. (For us that is. Thank you to all the staff and volunteers in the kitchen who work so hard!)
When you send your registration in, make sure to check the SECOND retreat (September 25-27). Also, in the blank where it says 'what church or group do you want to be housed with' put "The Bright Lights group". That way, we will be housed together.
"Goodbye! We hope you can come to the retreat! It has really blessed our lives!"
Lydia, holding a large toad we caught in our yard.
This was several weeks ago, when we were planting our garden.
Team huddle! A picture that Lydia took at one of Grant's baseball games.
I showed you the eggs from this nest, so I thought I would show you the little bird. There were actually four little robins in the nest. They are grown and gone now.
See you later!