Cragged Mt. Farm

Sunday night, around 9:30 pm., my family and I returned home from Cragged. We, and most of the members from our church, head up to Freedom, NH, and spend the weekend at this camp (Cragged Mt. Farm) that my Uncle Henry owns. This year, there must have been 30 people there! I'm going to list the families that came:

Chidesters
Kresinas
Supps
Faringtons (only Ken and Ryan)
Riddles (Bradly's couldn't make it...she's at collage)
Halls (Ethan and Sarah, then Milinah, Rebecca, and Joanna)
Heberts (including Nathan and Sarah...Mrs. Hebert couldn't come)
AND (drumroll please)... Emily Mills!

I'm kidding, that's a bad picture of her. (right)

That's a little better.


We took two cars. Mom, Emily, and I were in one, and Dad and Charlie were in the other. Mom and I wouldn't have survived without Emily.
We, like always, lived at the lake! The water was freezing! I never went all the way in, only up to my waste. We had great weather the whole time, God was good.

Charlie and Collin fished every day, whether it was morning, noon, or in the later part of the day. They cought a lot! Collin cought a 5 pound monster!

One thing that I found really funny, was when we (the boys) went on strike.It was 8:45 a.m and breakfast still wasn't ready! We had to speak our mind! So while the ladies continued making breakfast, we planned an attack.

The Guys: "What could we do?"
Seth: "We could light some fireworks!"
The Guys: "Great thinking! Let's do it!"

So we followed up on our plan and grabbed some fireworks that Charlie and the Heberts had brought up. We innocently walked over to the front door, lit a match, and then...BANG BANG POP POP POP BANG!!!! That noise was, of course, followed by screams, jumps, and who knows what else. It was pricless!
You can't go to Cragged and not go on the little hike behind the camp. Well, we were too destracted by the awesome obstacle course that is en route. Here are some great pictures.

Everyone in this picture is trying to stand on a plack of wood that I'd say is about 3 ft long and 3 ft wide. It was hard, too say the least! (below)

After we tackled the obstacle course, we set off for the short, easy, but enjoyable, hike. Even though it is a really short hike, it gets REALLY STEEP at some points! I got some good pictures of us at the top.

Isn't that picture of Moriah sooooo cute?

Once you get up to the top you can see for miles! No picture can show how awesome it looked.

We had a Bible study every night in the clubhouse. Since we started it after supper it sometimes went till 11:00p.m! Dad, Daniel, and Mr. Chidester shared short messages. As you can see below, Brendon, Graham, and Collin Riddle, were all meditating hard over Daniel's message.

We had a huge triathlon, it was great fun! On my team were: Isaac, Milinah, and then Rachel. First we had a running race down to the lake. Nathan and his team took first on that one (obviously). Isaac ran the first half, then I took over the second leg. We surprised ourselves and ended up taking second! After the running race we hopped in a canoe and set out about 200 yards past the docks. This was quite the race! We, and all the other boats started to make a wild dash to one of the two docks. Once we reached the dock we had to make a full circle around the dock. Bonk, Bang! Someone elses canoe came up and cut us off! We were only pushed farther and farther from the dock, I think the winner of that one was Ethan Hall's team. Then, last but not least, the bike ride back to camp up Swett Hill (Swett isn't a spelling error). The power biker for our team was Isaac! Nathan (surprise, surprise) took first in that one, too. Here's a picture of Mr. Hebert climbing Swett Hill.

Once everyone got back we, added up our team's times from all the races. Nathan and his team took 1st, my team took 2nd, and I forget who took the Bronze. It was a lot of fun, probably too much fun.

Instead of blowing up the girls' cabin we boys decided to display some fireworks for everyone to enjoy. We set up all the remaining fireworks in the area just before the soccer field. When the evening Bible study was over we called everyone outside to watch the fireworks. We didn't have those little ones which go 4 feet in the air and have little sprinkles. No we had huge fireworks, the ones that go 50 feet in the air and then explode making them look like the fireworks you see on 4th of July! Everyone loved it.

Just like every year, Sunday was a rainy, gross day, which was good, I'd rather the last half day be ugly, than the first. The Chidsesters left early at noon, then everyone slowly vanished from Cragged. We were all saying, "We should make the stay a week instead of four days." But sometimes if you stay too long... it's no longer as special. So we will see what happens next year.

All in all, we had a GREAT time being with everyone and I think that that trip will rate up there as one of the BEST EVER!