Spring Hill

Last Sunday we took Nate and Maddie to Spring Hill Camp for the week up in Evart, Michigan. I'd been there before with the junior high kids from our church on a winter retreat and Cathie and Maddie had gone on a Mother/Daughter weekend retreat, but this was the first time for Nate and Maddie to ever go away for an extended time like this.

I've got to say, from the first interaction with their web site to register the kids, I was impressed with how Spring Hill operates. When we checked in, it got even better. Waiting at the entrance to each of the kids camps were 10 staffers, some on horses, some not, waving and cheering. They took us through each part of the camp - from luggage drop-off to registration check-in, with a staff member every few feet, talking to you and welcoming you. Once we checked in, the kids climbed on a fire-engine and were taken back to their camp-site to meet their leader. Cathie and I jumped on another shuttle which took us on a tour of the camp and told us about the camp and it's mission. We got to meet the cabin leaders and area directors and see where the kids stayed.

You have to check out this map of the camp. It's unbelievable . Pay special attention to the multiple, gigantic zip lines, ropes courses, skate parks, paint-ball courses, climbing walls, swimming pools and lakes. There are three separate camps in Spring Hill, one for each of the age groups. Nate was in Copper Country and Maddie was in Storybrook. The cabins are pretty awesome: things like tree-houses, rail road train cards, tee-pees and an old fashioned fort.


Being the first time away for an extended period of time, we weren't sure how they'd do. They were both pretty excited to be there and ready for us to leave. We were able to write the kids via the web site or drop them a note in the mail (thanks those of you who love the kids enough to drop them a quick note. My brother Jon did not feel that the kids were important enough to write them.)

We picked the kids up Friday morning, and it was equally well-done. There was a giant rally for each of the camps where they talked about what they'd learned throughout the week and each cabin area got up and did a song. They then took you back to a medium-size group with your kids cabin group to hear more about the week, and then to a smaller group with just your kids leaders where they talked about each kid and gave them an award for one of their great character traits they'd seen throughout the week.

Nate and Maddie loved it. Nate was in a sports camp, where they tried different sports throughout the week: Roller Hockey, Lacrosse, Skating, Rifiles, Archery and a bunch more - all combined with the blob, the zip-lines and the flying squirrel. Nate's cabin would get up each day at 6:45 and not get back to their cabins until 9 or 10pm. They were going all day long. Maddie was in a camp that did crafts and an assortment of activities - zip-line (on a smaller scale) and tons of other fun stuff. Maddie talked non-stop about it from the time we picked her up to the time we got home. The songs they learned were hilarious, some of the same songs I'd learned at camp, however-many years ago that was. Her and Nate were in the back-seat singing these songs and sharing stories with us.

Spring Hill emphasizes the spiritual aspect of camp, wanting kids to grow in their relationship with God. The kids were just as excited about this part of camp and what they'd learned as they were about the zip-line and other things. They camp home excited to continue on reading the things in their bibles they'd been learning at camp. The whole thing was a very cool experience for us as parents and for the kids. We'd send them again in a heart-beat.