Did you miss it?...

So Hawaii is fast becoming a distant memory, and I'm right into the life of a busy New Yorker!

Since I last blogged, we've had numerous break days, and Older Adult Ministries camp, farewells, two flights, and 3 'new york days'.

So, on our last break days together at camp, a few of us went to the local swap meet which is a kind of huge-scale market. I was reluctant to go at first, as the thought of shopping didn't exactly enthrall me. However, in the blazing heat, we trailed around a large stadium, going from stall to stall, and I must say, it was one of the most fun afternoons I've spent in Hawaii other than with the kids! Astonishingly low prices, lots of variety, and good company meant that we had a great time...and age the local economy a boost! And I got a tatoo.

We did a variety of things on the other days, includig our big farewell banquet at a nice uptown restaurant, and a visit to Pearl Harbor. This was a particularly moving experience, with guided tours, movies, examinations of one of the sunken ships, and seeing some of the survivors of the attacks there on the day, it was an emotional few hours.

On our last evening at camp, after going for another big dinner at another restaurant (it's a hard life) some of us decided that we didn't want to spend our last hours in Hawaii asleep...so we pulled an all-nighter. To be honest, I don't remember alot of that night, other than writing in people's books and spending time with people, I'm not entirely sure what else we did! However we did try and see our first Hawaiin sunrise after being assured of it's beauty. The plan was great, we were going to set our alarms for 5.30am just incase we forgot about it, and go and lie on the beach and watch the sun come up. The only problem was we forgot to not sleep, and ended up napping for half an hour...through the alarm! So we got up and went to the beach, but it was already fairly light, and clouds were obscuring our view of the sun anyway so it was a lost task!

Nethertheless, it was a good evening, and we enjoyed spending time with eachother before having to say an emotional farewell the following morning!

Just in case you thought you had misread...yes I did say I now have a tatoo. It's a little manly flower on my foot, picure to go up on facebook soon!

I'll put up a reflection on the whole camp at a later date, but suffice to say, it was an amazing experience, one I shall never ever forget.