Gone Camping. . .

Well it's that time of year that Jessica makes her pilgrimage up to the Northern Country for good old camping fun. She actually left last week-end and although the house is considerably quieter we all miss her presence. Elizabeth especially has been asking daily how many more days her sister is away.

It always surprised me how much she loves to go up there, and how brown, dirty, scratched up, and mosquito bitten she will be when she returns home. This year she actually will go up longer than she has ever gone before. Until last summer she was gone one week, then last summer two and this summer three. She will be home in the short interim before leaving again for a week.

That week she will be going on a canoe trip and I am already dreading it. I just got used to the camps efficient safety record, but sending her out in a canoe overnight is just asking for trouble in my opinion. Her friends have been calling because like her they have the memory of a giblet and so they keep forgetting she's gone.

I miss her dreadfully already. To know that every year she gets older she passes more and more into that realm of leaving the nest is something I don't think I'll ever really get used to - this part of the parenting thing. I do have a much greater appreciation for what our parents went through that's for sure. I know when she comes home it will strike me again how much older she is, how much mature she has become and how beautiful she is turning out.