A Busy Holiday

Writing in the midst of a very busy, but delightful weekend.

Since moving so far away from our summer camp in Northern Michigan, we now wait until the extended Memorial Day holiday weekend to come up and open it for the summer. We used to do it a lot earlier as weather permitted, but we are here now, and having accomplished 90% of the "set-up" work, we can begin to enjoy just being here in the north with the blessings of good friends that share our park and some of God's finest work in the natural state of the Leelanau peninsula. It doesn't hurt that we've had some beautiful late-spring weather either!

A fluke in the calendar for this year and last, has my birthday falling on the holiday weekend. Normally today, May 24th, is a bit too early to fall during the three-day weekend. So, on top of everything else, I'm celebrating number 51 today. So yes, it's busy, but it's all good! That's right, I said good. Nothing wrong with 51. I don't feel it, and I don't think I act it most of the time. Just another number, and this one spent with our good friends and just enough pizza, cake and adult beverage to make it my kind of party.

But all of this fun does run down the batteries eventually, and so I'm about ready to "turn into a pumpkin" this evening, but before I do, I'm thinking about Decoration Day: the old name for the holiday that I still like to evoke in the remembrance of those in our armed forces that died in the service of their country. The numbers are incredibly large, as was their sacrifice. My prayers for those souls and the families that still mourn them. Thanks for all the joys and freedoms, many of which will be played out this weekend all across this great land, and in one very small example, right up here at a little camp in the northwest corner of lower Michigan. God bless.