Living The Dream!

garyl62

garyl62

Active member
While I'm guessing all of us who have kids want them to live their own lives, learn from their experiences, make choices that they will never live to regret, and for ourselves, not live our lives vicariously through theirs, I have to say I am a little jealous of my son tonight.

Tomorrow morning he will leave with 6 friends to travel to Duluth MN and hike the Superior Trail for 4 days. After that he's headed to Iron River, MN (Hagerman Lake actually) to work as a counselor at Covenant Point Bible Camp until the middle of August. This is the forth year he'll be working at the camp. What better way for a 19 year old to spend the summer than enjoying life in the north woods and hopefully molding the lives of some young kids as he shapes his own life away from the pressures of everyday activates, school, work, unknown influences, and his parents.

Here's praying he has a great summer!
 
D

Deleted member 10829

Guest
That's cool garyl62! Sounds like a great experience and a fine young man.
 
indy_500

indy_500

Well-known member
And here I thought I was living the dream as I just pulled in my driveway after a 14 hr day.
 
L

lenny

Guest
Gary, it gets no better than that and my hat's off to you for great parenting skills. I've meet your son and no doubt he is a young man of integrity following right in the footsteps of his dad. I like the part where you talk about : "he shapes his own life away from the pressures of everyday activates, school, work, unknown influences."

Not to divert the thread away from it's topic but for my family we do a combination of home school and public school,,,meaning my 2 youngest are home schooled and next oldest in public school. I have people who sometimes are frustrated with me because we made the decision to home school 2 of our 4 kids. The complaint I often hear is about their social development and in all honesty is a poor position to hold and not all to bright. If I am seriously concerned about a child's social development than they should never be allowed to step foot in a public school because that is where the behaviors we don't want our kids to develop propagate from. I mean think about it, we do all we can to bring them up in a healthy responsible manner and when they go to school we have to "undo" all the crap they are bombarded with and if things sneak by, look out on how it may manifest itself. Sending kids into a environment where they are running wild so to speak in not a healthy thing. Teachers can hardly discipline anymore and the academics is intertwined with a worldly view of morality. So when people jump my case about home schooling I tell them I am protecting them from the social pressures of immorality, poor attitudes and undisciplined kids. Just so happens my child in PS is solid and not swayed by ignorant wild people, at least as far as I can determine today.

So with all that said, congratulations on a job well done raising your kid. It's obvious you were serious about bringing him up with Godly standards and it shows. In today's world it's becoming more rare to do what you have done and how well your son has done. Seriously, how do you measure success? You just proved you know the answer to my question!
 
garyl62

garyl62

Active member
indy_500 said:
And here I thought I was living the dream as I just pulled in my driveway after a 14 hr day.
Click to expand...

Oh, but that paycheck will get you a lot more toys than the $180 a week he's making!

lenny said:
Gary, it gets no better than that and my hat's off to you for great parenting skills. I've meet your son and no doubt he is a young man of integrity following right in the footsteps of his dad. I like the part where you talk about : "he shapes his own life away from the pressures of everyday activates, school, work, unknown influences."

Not to divert the thread away from it's topic but for my family we do a combination of home school and public school,,,meaning my 2 youngest are home schooled and next oldest in public school. I have people who sometimes are frustrated with me because we made the decision to home school 2 of our 4 kids. The complaint I often hear is about their social development and in all honesty is a poor position to hold and not all to bright. If I am seriously concerned about a child's social development than they should never be allowed to step foot in a public school because that is where the behaviors we don't want our kids to develop propagate from. I mean think about it, we do all we can to bring them up in a healthy responsible manner and when they go to school we have to "undo" all the crap they are bombarded with and if things sneak by, look out on how it may manifest itself. Sending kids into a environment where they are running wild so to speak in not a healthy thing. Teachers can hardly discipline anymore and the academics is intertwined with a worldly view of morality. So when people jump my case about home schooling I tell them I am protecting them from the social pressures of immorality, poor attitudes and undisciplined kids. Just so happens my child in PS is solid and not swayed by ignorant wild people, at least as far as I can determine today.

So with all that said, congratulations on a job well done raising your kid. It's obvious you were serious about bringing him up with Godly standards and it shows. In today's world it's becoming more rare to do what you have done and how well your son has done. Seriously, how do you measure success? You just proved you know the answer to my question!
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Thanks Lenny, but I won't paint as glorious of a picture as you did. He, nor I, have been perfect, or anywhere near it. He's made some of those decisions he may regret, yet he's managed, and I hope learned, from them. I just hope he continues to learn, grow, and as his mother always says, "make good choices".

As far as living the dream, I just wish I had the opportunity to live and work in the environment of the UP that some of you all enjoy on a daily basis. I know he'll look back and be grateful for the summers he's had in the Northwoods.
 
E

elf

Well-known member
[Tomorrow morning he will leave with 6 friends to travel to Duluth MN and hike the Superior Trail for 4 days.


Do you know what section he'll be hiking? We'll be on the trail near Silver Bay this weekend a couple different times doing some short sections.
 
I

indybru

Member
garyl62 said:
While I'm guessing all of us who have kids want them to live their own lives, learn from their experiences, make choices that they will never live to regret, and for ourselves, not live our lives vicariously through theirs, I have to say I am a little jealous of my son tonight.

Tomorrow morning he will leave with 6 friends to travel to Duluth MN and hike the Superior Trail for 4 days. After that he's headed to Iron River, MN (Hagerman Lake actually) to work as a counselor at Covenant Point Bible Camp until the middle of August. This is the forth year he'll be working at the camp. What better way for a 19 year old to spend the summer than enjoying life in the north woods and hopefully molding the lives of some young kids as he shapes his own life away from the pressures of everyday activates, school, work, unknown influences, and his parents.

Here's praying he has a great summer!
Click to expand...

Awesome, good luck and good health.
 
garyl62

garyl62

Active member
elf said:
Do you know what section he'll be hiking? We'll be on the trail near Silver Bay this weekend a couple different times doing some short sections.
Click to expand...

All I know is first night was Beaver Bay, second Split Rock River, third Gooseberry River, then forth is Crow Creek Valley. I'm guess his first night was last night, so today they went from Beaver Bay to Spilt Rock, then so on.

They are a group of about 7, mix of guys and girls, all 18-20. It would be so cool if you happened to run into that group and made some comment about Gary on John's site. Would just blow them away that "Dad knows people everywhere!" Hope you have a good weekend out there too!
 
O

onlypolar4me

Member
Really Cool !!
I went to Church camp in northern MN, off and on,(growing up on the farm some years it didn't work out),
my kids went to the same camp every year they could. It is a great thing.

Brent
 
garyl62

garyl62

Active member
Well had a chance to talk to Ben for about 2 minutes this afternoon. He said they had finished the hiking, picked up the cars, got some food in town, and now were heading back to the campsite for the final night. I asked him how it was and he was actually searching for words because it was beyond what he could describe. He's into the old school 35mm cameras, and he said he's shot 2 1/2 rolls of film and its all "golden!" Sounds like it was great and he's ready to go back. Hope the rest of the summer keeps pace with this first weekend.
 
J

jmvette427

Active member
LIVIN THE DREAM! I heard a great quote: We want to wake up saying remember when? rather than we should of, could of , would of ! jim
 
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