Correspondance from A Nine Year Old Girl

You really need to know Toots to gain full appreciation of what it is like to receive mail from her. This has been the LARGEST and MOST FABULOUS summer that Toots has ever known. She went to Montana with her father in June, to have a Daddy/Daughter trip and see some very good friends. They got their NATURE on in a BIG MONTANA SKY KIND OF WAY. We've done a trip with each of the pods as they've turned 10....and Toots and Burke went to Montana.

AND...Toots has gone to 3 OVERNIGHT CAMPS. You read that correctly: THREE.

It didn't start out that way. Holly was only going to go to one camp originally. Kanakuk. A camp in Springfield, Missouri, that my little brother went to for three summers growing up. A camp that is FABULOUS beyond measure. 25 days for Holly. She did 13 days last summer with Bo, by her side, but this year she was venturing out on her own and going for 25 days. In my mind it was equitable to my taking Bit and Bo to Italy, in June, for Bit's Violin Tour. I knew Toot's had it in her to go away for such a long time--when I was nine my parent's sent me to camp for a month, too. Grant you--they were living their newlywed year and my 9-year-old self was cramping there style.

However, in January I received an email from a friend asking if Toots would be interested in joining her daughter at fabulous camp located in the NC mountains that I had heard of for ages. Clearly, Toots was a summer camp kind of girl and I was pondering the reality of sending her to Missouri every summer, so I signed Toots up for a six day stater camp at Merri Mac, in Black Mountain, NC. Hoping that it might be the camp that she shifted towards in future years.

THEN.....my girl scout troop came a knocking. Holly went to Girl Scout camp when she was seven. Because she had watched her siblings go to camp when she was 4, 5, and 6--Holly was chomping at the bit to go to camp. Camp Mary Atkinson is a GSUSA (Girl Scout USA) camp in Garner, NC. It is OK. Nothing more, nothing less. Sparse, hot, buggy--and Holly went there for a WEEK! Two summers later some of her friends from her Brownie troop had decided it was time to make the leap and go to OVERNIGHT CAMP. So--in the 11th hour--Holly signed on for a very reasonably priced camp and went with SIX friends to Camp Mary Atkinson for six days.

37 days. Thirty Seven days and nights. Holly Elizabeth Hutcheson is living somewhere else this summer. I know it is good for her, for me, for us.... My brother quipped, "do you think she'll remember us?" And I responded, "bye-bye Toots--we'll see you when you turn 10." (in October)

At the first camp--I didn't even bother. I emailed her daily and I didn't mess with providing her with self-addressed postcards to send to Mommy Dearest. At the second camp she was given 3 postcards: one for me, one for Aunt Laura, and one for Aunt Becky. Bit must have told her to write to her as she was headed out the door because Toots wrote one postcard that week. It was half written to me and half written to Bit. However, Toots forgot to mail it and I found it in her filthy clothes when I picked her up.

Holly flew to Missouri on Monday, July 19, with her father. He took her to the baggage claim of the Springfield airport where she met the Ground transport team that was going to take her to camp. I provided her with DARLING Vistaprint notecards--and self-addressed bagillions of envelopes to her friends and family alike. I gave her six or seven to write to me over the 25 days.

I told her to write her friends at the onset of camp--that way they'd have her address and write her back. I went to my mailbox daily that first week.....

July 4th Week--2010

A Postcard that was NEVER sent.
Found in the depths of filthy clothing in a duffle bag.

Dear Mom Best first day of camp. PS I am in the best swim group. duh.
Love your little swimmer, Holly.

Dear Jenna I told you I would write so here it is. ILY
Love Holly

July 23, 2010 (postmark)
5 days into camp.....

Dear Mom I have the best counselors
I miss you. Heart.
Love, Holly

(hmph. is all i can say)

July 25, 2010 (forced postcard from camp)

Camp is great. Our view is great also.

It is very hot. {we sweat so...} even at bedtime.
I love you
Holly

July 26, 2010 (postmark)
Dear Mom My counselors are great
but 1 is soso

I love you
Holly

(a second letter was postmarked this
day...this might've been a tough day?)

July 26, 2010 (postmark)
Dear Mom There is a mean person in cabin 3. I'm in cabin 9. She said yuck it is annoying to look at your face.
ILY Holly

Clearly, a VERY hard day for Toots.

Then there is NO NEWS for a very long time. The camp nurse had called to tell me that one morning Holly fainted. About a week later--on August 7th I receive this beauty.... I am to assume all the other days have been fine, the 3 day OVERNIGHT CAMPING TRIP was great, the Daily DANCE clinics are wonderful. But this is the NOTECARD that arrives in our mailbox.....the one I've been waiting to get.....

August 4th (postmark)
Mom You said you wanted to "hear"
from ME- S0, I was at morning Bible and I said I needed to throw up and then I fainted, threw up and fainted again.

Love
Holly

(wow--is all I can say? Please tell me what I would've done if I had received this and hadn't known for a week that she fainted?)

In 48 hours--Burke and I will board a plane and fly to Dallas, Texas, and then another to Springfield, Mo.

We'll rent a car and drive an hour to K-1. There at around 4pm, we'll find Toots. We'll spend the rest of the day and into the evening enjoying the K-1 surroundings--going to her award ceremony for the Kickapoo tribe, we'll experience our first KLife, eat dinner at the Kamp cookout and we'll see what she has lived for these three and half weeks. Late that night we'll scoop her up into our rental car and head to the motel that is just a mile or two down the road.

We'll bring her home on Thursday, August 12, 2010. Who knows if any additional postal treasures will await me in the mailbox these next few days..... Holly is quite the correspondent.