As you may remember, this past week Sarah and Amy attended horse camp at our house. In preparation for horse camp, Amy (know at camp as Rose) cleared most of the walls and surfaces of her room so it would seem like a new and empty room. When she arrived at camp she unpacked and customized her room. When camp was over she repeated the process, loading many packed items into the trunk of our car (the camp bus).
The bus ride to camp was with Carl serving as bus driver Tim. Apparently they had to have a lengthy conversation with him to correct his erroneous impression that they were going to hoarse camp and would be speaking and yelling loudly. Once that was cleared up it became apparent that the bus driver didn’t know the way. Luckily Rose had a map. It was also fortunate that Sarah and Rose were adept at spotting the huge number of squirrels and chipmunks that kept darting across the path of the (parked) car so that the bus driver could slam on the breaks. Once the kids arrived at their destination, Rose looked up the details of Hoarse Camp and Tim went there for the week. That meant his voice was quite scratchy when he picked up the campers on Friday for their trip home.
Once the kids arrived at camp they made sure their horses, Peppermint and Chester, were settled. They unpacked and then it was time for dinner in the cafeteria with groundskeeper Joe and Cook J. The kids went to bed a bit late that first night as the excitement levels were high. Joe read some Harry Potter out loud to help Rose get sleepy. Sarah and Rose were up early the next day for a hearty breakfast of pancakes and scrambled eggs. When the final camper, A, arrived then the day really began.
Throughout the week of horse camp the campers made horse heads out of boxes with yarn for manes and attached the heads to long sticks. Sarah’s horse had an unruly plaid mane. Amy’s had a pristine white mane (Peppermint is a white horse) that Amy braided. Apparently the rode through the forest some mornings. They all went to the actual park most days and on one day A. strapped the Peppermint head to Rose’s scooter. At night the horses stayed in the stable on our back deck. One night at Rose’s suggestion we wore fancy clothes to dinner. Sarah wore some of her nicest pajamas and then donned Carl’s top hat and A.’s musical note scarf. The campers also made carrots, sewing and stuffing orange cloth with green leaves.
Fortunately, the care packages I made arrived in time for the campers to enjoy them. The most exciting items were the new markers and drawing pads. Rose struggled through the obstacle course on Thursday and wanted to go home early. I told her how much I didn’t like sleep-away camp and was always plotting about how I could run away and carry my trunk down the highway. We convinced her to stay since the bus didn’t come until Friday and also had a band (for real) coming Thursday night.
Thursday night Bandits On The Run gave us a personal, safe-distance yard concert. It was phenomenal. I highly recommend their music. One member of the band has had a huge impact on our lives. He used to be a Sarah-Rise volunteer 8 years ago, being the sole responder when I sent out emails to drama students at CMU and UPitt. He was amazing in the SR room and spent time with Amy so I could do SR time. He also told many friends, including Sc., about our work and some of them joined our team. Two years ago Bandits On The Run came through Pittsburgh and performed in our house. Our friend let Sarah play his small guitar and after the visit we decided to give Sarah a ukulele that Christmas. Fast forward to Thursday night…
While the band played, Sarah got up and played her air guitar. Then she scooted inside and grabbed her ukulele and spent the remainder of the concert strumming along. Amy did cartwheels. The rain waited. My face muscles were tired from endless smiling. What a wonderful gift of an evening. Now Sarah likes to say that she is going to jam with Bandits On The Run. I also learned that I can’t have their music playing during meal time because then the girls are too busy jamming to eat.
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