"That's Good! No, That's Bad"

When I was a kid, one of my favorite stories my mom would read me was called "That's Good! No, that's Bad" by Margery Cuyler.  It tells the story of a kid who traveled through a jungle after getting captured by animals at the zoo.  The story goes on to how somethings look bad, then are good.  Some look good, but then they are bad.  I'm going to explain my last week in the same way, somewhat.  I thought it would make things sound less like complaining if it was evened out with a lot of good.

That's Good!
       This week is Junior Camp! Your senior high campers are gone!
No, that's bad.
        The campers this week were so much more needy than Junior Camp 1.  They were adorable and so cute, but on a funny note, I have never seen so many boys cry in one week! I have personally gotten a lot less sleep this week than last, all because of asthma problems and getting a bad cold halfway through the week.

That's bad.
       I had math homework due Thursday and a test on Friday.
No, that's Good!
      Thanks to Luke Mosiman, I got my homework figured out, and then I went to take my test, and I found out it was movied to Sunday! I'll do it tonight when I get back from ice skating.

That's bad.
       I've been sick this week with a bad cold combined with allergies and asthma.  It hasn't been fun, and I was living in a room with mice.
No, there's some good.
      I really had fun before I got sick catching the mice.  By the end of the week we caught 5 of the little critters, two at the foot of my bed.  Isn't that lovely?  But the room we were living in usually didn't have naive high school girls in there that left food everywhere.  Plus a summer camp is always going to have some sort of mice problem.  It's a given.  The picture is of the first little guy we caught.  I then got this Mickey Mouse Band-Aid in memory of the two mice we caught on the same trap.  This just goes to show that girls can handle anything! Plus I actually slept in a different room half-way through the week... ok, maybe we can't handle quite everything....
Katie also decides tot ell me today that she has Day-Quill! Well you can bet I got a hold of that real quick! I'm already feeling better and I'm super excited this evening to go ice skating with a great crew of staff!!

That's Bad.
       It's hard to take care of things like getting your hair cut when you work at camp all summer.
No, that's Good!
       We have this new staff member named Jana who is a licensed stylist that gave me a trip yesterday, and has a whole list of staff that want their hair cut.  Of course, if I was going to completely do something new, I'd wait for the great Janie Strickler, but for a quick trim in the entry way of the lodge, Jana does an amazing job.  Especially with my super special craft room scissors.

That's Bad.
      Someone just looked in the craft room and asked if they could organize it and clean it. It has several maintenance problems that need attention as well.
No, that's GREAT!

      This person is Alison's mom, and she revolutionized the craft room for the summer though some very well chosen donations.  When she asked to organize, I told her that despite it's chaotic look, I do have a plan and many things do have a place. She was so very nice about it and later stopped in and just straightened everything up.  She also asked me what the craft room needed.  Now, if you've ever been a person to buy art supplies, you would know that craft room supplies cost a pretty penny.  There's a lot that we have to make due with in the craft room because of it.  Also it takes time away from campers and others when you have to make trips to Wal-Mart.  I've always understood it.  I got so excited when I was asked what I needed, so I gave her a list of about 8 items.  I asked for a pencil sharpener, cause the only one we had was in a storage closet.  I asked for embroidery floss, puffy paint, mouse traps, and metal rings to make little books.  Now, I'm sitting in the craft room with my list of things to do and no idea how to do it all when Alison comes walking in with bags and bags of blessings from Mrs. Koch.  I got a hand crank pencil sharpener AND a mechanical sharpener!! I got 6 or 7 of about 25 shades of embroidery floss.  I got a mass of metal rings, a whole punch, and 3 sets of 15 of small puffy paints, plus a set of pen puffy paints.  She got me more than a dozen mouse traps and 2 rat traps! The best thing of all I think is a new pair of scissors.  I had just bought about 3 the previous weekend for the craft room, but they had already been dulled from Senior High camp.  I got LEGIT scissors.  They have a spring in them and everything.  I told her I would give her a hug every time I saw her, and I could never thank her enough for what she's given me.  We needed those things so badly.  I was going to cry with happiness, no joke.  I wrote "Donated by" on the pencil sharpeners so that everyone will know how much of a blessing they are.  Also, on Friday, Luke Shipper came by the craft room and fixed all the things I wrote maintenance request forms for the first week of camp!! I got the light cover put back on my light fixture, I got my drippy faucet fixed, AND.... wait for it... I GOT MY DOOR FIXED AND A LOCK!!!!!!!!! That is my biggest battle in the craft room over the summer.  People think that they have all access to everything in the craft room, and that is just not the case.  The lock isn't a legit lock with a key and all, but those who think they can just wander right in there will be stopped.  Secrets, secrets!!

I'm going to have to end this blog here tonight, because our trip to the ice skating rink is going to begin soon.  Hopefully I'll tell more later!!

But Always Flexible!

Hello hello!

It's been a long couple of days, but I have a million reasons for not writing anything.  Senior High ended with a bang, and I can answer any messages sent my way about it if you'd like to know more about how it went, but for now I don't have the time or energy to write about anything but relevant information.  I have 15 minutes at the moment to say as much as I possibly can.  Hopefully after my math test tomorrow I can write more.

So far this week I have 3-4 separate jobs that I am trying to take care of this week.  I am craft room facilitator, which is what it says on my contract, and that involves keeping the craft room functional and to take care of all crafts.  It's a full time job in itself.  Junior campers are not known for their responsibility, and having 20 in the space of one hour is hard to keep track of. I have also been taking care of the kiln and clay this week, though you can possibly wrap that up with the facilitator job.  The clay has to be set on fans to make sure it reaches the bone-dry stage, and then fired in the kiln at 3 different levels, hours apart.  I almost forgot to change it up to medium during supper and ran over to the building to make sure I did it.  A new job that I've had since Tuesday is the job of Media.  I've been taking pictures for the camp website for the last couple of days, and it gives me a lot more respect for the camera man, Andy Ott.  It's not the easiest job to walk around to all of the camp areas and try to get good photos.  Wacky Water Wednesday was REALLY hot, and to take pictures at that all day long in the 90 + degree heat, it's not exactly the life of luxury.  I got a bit of a tan though, and almost 400 pictures.  I'm hoping to get some of those photos for my artwork, cause there were some great ones.  Sue's camera is SO great :D! My 4th job is mouse catcher extraordinare! My traps, which were a gift from God, truly, have caught 5 mice in the last 3 days, 4 in my living quarters, 2 at the foot of my bed.  It's been a long week.  

Something great happened for the craft room at the beginning of the week, and I want to tell all about it, but at the moment I need to go to bed.  The staff is all coming down with all sorts of sickness, myself included, so major prayer would be helpful.

Contract: Craft Room Facilitator... but always flexible! (Oh memories from Summer 2010...)

Sister, Sister

     Just want to say how excited I am to have my sister here at camp!! She's having a great week :D

Who Can Stand Against?

This has been a crazy last 24 hours to say the least.  It had very extreme highs and some pretty low lows. But God overcomes in the end.

To start the craziness, I had one of my campers come up to me to say that I had another camper in the room crying and saying she wanted to go home.  Oh shoot.  Homesick Junior campers I can handle, but senior high? I get very fed up with homesickness.  Believe it or not, I love being at home.  Despite spending my last three summers here and my school being in a different state, there is nothing better than being with my family in Ackley, Iowa.  I hate missing my sister showing her rabbits at the fair, and helping in my mom's classroom.  I'd love to help my dad with the painting at his new addition on the shop, but I'm called to other places at the moment.  To miss your family after a couple of days to the point of hysterical tears really grates on me.  But I prayed for patience, because I know I'm about to have a challenge on my hands.  This camper really has come so far from the girl she was the year before.  She was a big problem for her counselor last summer,  and I didn't have a single problem with her until yesterday, which I think is truly amazing.  Me and my camper sat and talked for more than an hour, and all my words I know were God's, cause I can't possibly have come up with the words that came out of my mouth. We talked so much and I learned a lot more about her.  Her father is refusing to talk to her until she's 21, so I don't think they've met.  It makes me appreciate my dad all the more, even if he doesn't teach me how to stop the sled before pushing it down the hill! (Love you Dad!) She has several sisters, one being her twin.  She LOVES her mom, and from all the stories that my camper tells, she's doing her best.  I also got alerted of a camper that has brought contraband items to camp.  I've reported it and I'm so glad we have such a good staff that knows how to handle these things.  I think people think that kids that come to camp are all Christians who already know enough.  That is rarely the case.  We get every type of person imaginable.

At chapel, the speaker shared the gospel message in a beautiful, meaningful way.  And it was beginning to storm.  The spiritual world knew what was happening.  He asked those who would like to accept Christ as their Savior to stand, and to have Him be the center of their life.  Not just to keep them from hell, but to always strive for His purpose.  And as these kids stood, a huge torrent of rain lashed against the building.  Satan was not happy.  The speaker then asked for those who had things to confess, and to bring to Jesus once again to stand on their chairs, and though not as profound as that first lashing of rain, you could sense a tremor in the storm.  Several campers who we know and love stood up on their chairs, and I was so proud.  Hopefully the people of our churches can hold them to their new promises.  It was beautiful, and my previously homesick camper accepted Christ! A few of my other girls recommited their lives, and one wanted to talk with me a bit.  So we headed out under the awning of the AC and chatted.  She was sick of being one person at camp and another at school.  She was suicidal this April and was just so overcome that she could not stop crying.  Meanwhile, it is still POURING outside.  I brought up the rain and how Satan wasn't too happy with us.  I presented an idea that through the school year we be accountable to each other; that we don't fall from our promises to do better in our walk with Him.  As we're making this promise, another huge gust, mostly icy wind, blows under the awning.  I say, hey, let's run out from under the awning and yell BRING IT ON SATAN! And so we do!! It was such a freeing experience!! We were drenched by the time we make it to our cabin and my other girls just stare at us in shock.  Yeah. It's raining outside, did you know? :D

There is so much more I need to tell you all, but it will have to wait.  The rest of the night was extremely entertaining, but I only have a minute left of my time off.  Please pray for my off and on homesick camper.  This morning was a bit of a disaster, and I'm running out of patience.  Please pray for the campers and the staff, for most of us, mainly staff, are just exhausted.  But lives are being changed.  Love is sacrifice, and that's what we're doing for these campers.  It's greater than anything I could ever do this summer.

Your love will always be enough

It's senior high this week, and it's one of the most challenging weeks we have here during the summer. It's also one of my favorites.  I always feel like senior high is the place where staff and camper alike all learn something that can greatly impact their life.  I would encourage all high school age kids to come and be impacted.

I have 6 girls in my cabin, and things are going really well.  I have 2 former staff, and they are great.  I have one that was a MASSIVE challenge to her counselor last summer.  She had to be given her own counselor it was so challenging.  But I am extremely pleased to say that I have had no problems with her what so ever.  I want to thank my mom for the new shoes for my birthday, cause that freed me up to give my camper one of my pairs.  I think I might just tell her to keep them at the end of the week.  I don't really need them.  But yeah, it's going well with my campers.  The girl still needs prayer though.  They all do.  I was taken aback our first chapel thinking of all the different situations these campers have come from.  You have ones that don't want to be reached. You have campers that came for a friend and that friend is going to ruin their week.  There are campers that came to find a boyfriend or girlfriend and nothing seems to stop them from reaching their goal.  Often we find campers with much deeper problems and addictions that must be addressed.  It's such a wide variety.

On a lighter note, my birthday was yesterday.  It was absolutely incredible.  Best birthday I have ever had, hands down.  My parents came up on Sunday to drop of my sister and Keela, and we did presents and my mom brought TONS of food.  And Mom, the staff is in love with you.  The puppy chow is almost gone and everyone wants me to say thank you.  I decided to get up at 6 in the morning for a quiet time. It's not every morning you turn 21 ya know!

It was a great day though.  I had several hours before breakfast, and my best friend Katie Strupp comes in with a Birthday Princess pin for me to wear throughout the day with 6 Disney princesses on it.  She also gave me a Disney Princess card, washcloth (odd), and bracelet.  She's been hinting at everything for weeks and it's been driving me nuts!!! I go to breakfast and everyone who knows me, and some who don't wish me Happy Birthday.  Alison has me come over to her cabin, and she gave me a Disney bubble wand and an Avengers card.  She also gave me a really cute pray bracelet as well.  My friends know me so well.  I told several people that I've gotten more Disney Princess stuff on my 21st birthday than on my 6th.  People just know me better now :D. I had kinda spent the entire day shooting people with my water gun my momma gave me, so heading into the water game we played in the evening, I knew I was kinda getting what was coming to me.  But Andrew Vik calls me up and says for my birthday I need to have my 7 Dippy Dips.  If you don't know what this means, it refers to the man in the Bible who was told to dip in the river 7 times to get rid of his leprosy.  For me it was just a way to celebrate apparently.  So they have me climb into a oil barrel filled with water, as high as the bottom of my rib cage, and have me dip 7 times.  THAT WATER WAS FREEZING!! But I have seriously never had a better birthday.  A few of my campers have made cards and they were all wonderful.  I also had a small God moment that evening that just made it all that more perfect.  Alas, my time off is almost to a close.  In my next blog I'd like to tell you of the sessions we've been having.  They are so great, and they're something special senior high campers get to do.  Keep the prayers coming.  There are several atheists here at camp hearing the Word unadulterated by the world.  Prayers made a world of difference.

I seriously love my friends. Message for Mom: Did you find Vals' water bottle? Facebook or e-mail me if you did, because I found one and we're not sure if it's hers. LOVE YOU!

Junior Camp 1 Quotes

Camper 1: Justin Bieber? All of his songs are about girls so I don't like him.

Camper 2: Justin Bieber must take medicine to make his voice so low

Camper 1: You don't have to eat it if you don't want to.
Camper 2: It's a cookie, I'm going to eat it!

Camper 3: That was Amazing Grace? You forgot the 'my chains are gone' part!

Camper 3: I like this counselor! She sings a lot

Pastor Joel: Who wrote Amazing Grace?
Not My Camper: Lady Gaga?

Camper 4: These boys asked me to play Titanic and...
Me: What's Titanic?
Camper 4: It's when the boys come and save you because you fell off  the boat.

Not My Camper 2: I saw this same story on Veggie Tales!

Not My Camper 3: I'm thankful for the pastor because now I can say the new testament backwards.  I can't even do it forwards!

Not My Camper 4: I learned a new word.  It doesn't really mean anything.
Camie: What is it?
Not My Camper 4: YOLO

I love campers :D

Beautiful, Beautiful

Tonight is one of those nights that you just want to sit out and reflect, or have deep talks.  Those seem to be the most beautiful of nights.

I just got done sharing my testimony with about 5 of my camp friends.  I have a Junior Camp testimony that I share quite a lot, but I also have a complete testimony that I only share if it's relevant to the situation.  These girls are some that I'm closest too, and it's great to be comfortable with people enough to share why you are the way you are.  I'm already thinking of next summer and how horrible it would be to not be with these girls.  Many friendships say they'll last forever, but I honestly know that these friendships will.  I know Katie Strupp will be one of my bridesmaids.  Most likely Autumn and Alison too.  Bethany is becoming one of my close friends too, and I bet by the end of the summer that she'll be on that list too.  You can't understand these friendships until you see how well we know each other.  I LOVE these girls so much.  

Lights out is coming up soon so I need to leave, but things are really going well still. I get to go on a kayak trip tomorrow on the Mississippi and I can't wait!! And hopefully a trail ride as well.

Alison, me, and Katie :D

Integers and Oddities

These past couple of days have been so weird.  And I have plenty of reasons for the title of my blog.  

When we last left off, I was heading back down for lunch, and I had a great time that afternoon with archery.  I talked this camper into having a competition with me.  If I won, he had to go get me a pop from the canteen (using my money of course).  If he won, I would buy him something.  I wasn't allowed to leave the archery area, as it was my shift, and so that was my best bet to get some caffeine for the afternoon.  I won by 5 points :D.  Yay me!! The poor kid was NOT happy, and he would not follow through on his word, so Daniel told him he'd be pulled from the real archery competition if he didn't follow through on his promise.  Daniel told me that the kid, who he had known for a couple of years, was just mad that a girl beat him. :D  That night at chapel we had a little celebration time for the kids that had accepted Christ.  I had 5 of my 8 stand up! They hadn't even talked to me at all, and I know several of them had already accepted Christ away from camp just months before.  I think they were a little confused, but it was great to see them proclaim their faith in front of the camp anyway.  They're precious kids.  Saturday morning was a sad thing, cause I did not want them to leave at all.  I hope I get to see them again.  Last week I think will be my favorite week of the summer.  Though an even better one would be pretty awesome as well! :D

This weekend Katie, Alison, and I went to Prairie Du Chien (spelling) and picked up a few things for the craft room.  Our green paint smelled like rotting peas, so we DEFINITELY needed new.  We ate at the Skinny Dip, which for any Ackley people, is kinda like a drive up Gus and Docs.  It was amazing! We then watched Monty Python, which was supposed to be amazing but I was bored through the entire thing.  But something hilarious happened during this time.  I was sewing a dress for myself while the movie was playing, and Alison looks up and says there was a mouse in the ceiling light! I thought she was trying to pull my leg, then Katie sees it too! So I stare at the light above my head and then I SEE IT!! These little pink paws are just chilin' on the plastic covering of the light!! Start yelling my head off and it scurries away.  I go tearing out of the lodge yelling for Camie.  She tells me to catch it alive so I can feed it to the python!! I love camp! 

Now, you have read about me having a college class, but nothing about how it's going.  I honestly had no idea until Sunday.  I have two sites that my information is on, and none of them said anything about homework or tests or even anything math related.  One of the sites said I needed something updated.  So I had someone look at it, and they tried to tell me I needed a 30 dollar update.  I was not happy.  Then I'm sitting with my computer, and Nathan R comes over and asks me how I am, and I ask if he knows anything about Macs.  He then proceeds to tell me I need to download Google Chrome.  I let him, because I'm desperate, and then BOOM! I have all this extra stuff on my websites!! I have 50 questions to finish that night and a test the next day.  First question: write an integer between two decibel numbers.  WHAT IS AN INTEGER?! I finally figured it out and finished the homework.  The first 5 questions and the textbook freaked me out until I realized I did this all before in high school.  I even ended up getting 100% on the test in 11 minutes the next day!! My next test is on my birthday.  Hopefully it will be that easy too!

This week we have the camp rented out to a church group. It's very different from other camps, but it leaves perfect amounts of time to finish projects all over camp, from weed wacking to painting projects.   I've been in the craft room, obviously, and we're getting a lot of things done and had a lot of new crafts made.  I made this just today.  

It's with a VHS case!! We have a bunch and I'm so excited!! I'm going to add a strap!  I need to go out to my cabin, but I will update on more of the projects later on.  I love my craft room!

It's Friday, Friday... The Very First Friday

Wackey Water Wednesday was a blast.  If you were at all concerned about my ear, don't be.  I used a, ear plug and didn't allow a single person to dump water on my head.  Splashing was a go, though.  Logan would have been sad if he wasn't able to splash me a little :D.  The drops are working really well, so I don't think I'll need that surgery.  It was a really good time, and I got to take two of my girls on one-on-ones in the canoes.  One-on-ones are when we can give our camper private time to talk to us about thier questions and to see where they are in their walk.  The two I talked to are from divorced parents (they're sisters), and they'll be split up.  It was incredibly sad listening to them talk about it.  Even more so for the youngest, because I don't think she's quite old enough to understand.  The girls got to choose where they were going though, so at least they have a choice. They are very fun and sweet and I'll be sad to see them go.

We had the medieval festival/carnival after that, and that was really fun.  We had the picture booth I had painted last week, a dunk tank, pretzels, food booths, face painting, sword fights (with paper swords), and a whole lot more.  The Junior campers were just exhausted however, and it really came out during the carnival.  Because of this, the campers went to bed almost a whole hour early.  It was wonderfull!  If you were wondering, this is what a basic daily schedule for this week looks like:

6:00 am Lindsay's Rise and Shine
7:00 Campers Rise and Shine
7:45 Flag Raising
8:00 Breakfast
8:45 Pit to Palace (cleaning the rooms.  My cabin has won twice!)
9:15 Chapel and T.A.G Time (Time Alone with God)
10:30 Rotation 1 (me: photography)
11:20 Rotation 2 (Hour off)
12:30 Lunch (my counselor meeting)
1:15 Flat on Back Time (NAP TIME!) (Doesn't always happen sadly)
1:45 Free Time
3:20 Instruction Hour 1 (Crafts)
4:20 Instruction Hour 2 (Crafts)

And then the evenings are always something different. We have supper, and a game.  This year we've started memorizing bible passages, and my campers are good! So proud.  Tonight we have Skit Night, where the staff has prepared a little show for the campers.  It should be a lot of fun!!

Time to head down to lunch! Hope you're all having a great day!
Lindsay

Campfires and Photographs

Oh Wow! I can't believe it's only Wednesday! I feel like I've lived an entire year in these last four days.  After posting yesterday's blog post, I had a fantastic Dumb Lindsay moment times 2, and I have to tell you about it.  I will remember it all summer!

So, I was putting my things away to join my kids for lunch, and I saw a spider. If it was a Daddy Longlegs I would have just left it, but it was a dark black one and I wanted it to die.  So I looked around and couldn't find anything to kill it with.  My shoes were by the door so that wasn't an option.  I spied a 24 box of crayons, and so I chucked thi sbox down on the spider.  Instead of killing the spider, the box of crayons exploded ALL OVER the staff lounge! I'm just great like that.  I picked them all up and hurried down to the dinning hall to tell Katie Strupp and Alison Koch, cause I aways tell them when I do something silly.  As I'm explaining this story to Katie, I swing my arms around my head to emphasize the word 'everything,' and I smack my arm right into a campers plate of meatballs and pasta.  Got everywhere.  Oh my goodness.  I laughed about it for hours after.  Andrew even commented on my apparent happiness at our counselor meeting right after.  Gosh I'm good...

Anyways, campfire was good.  Decently good.  Got the fire started with 2 matches! I have a lot more I want to say, but not enough time so I'll tell more of Cabin 200 tomorrow!

A little Tim Tebow action there!

Turn Around, Turn Around

Wow! Yesterday sure turned around in a hurry! Me and the girls had a great time together after lunch during free time.  We decided that we were going to go creek stomping (a creek walk). .  Just a tip, always make sure your campers go to the bathroom before such trips.  It completely slipped my mind, and once we were in the water, 6 of my 8 girls said they needed to go.  The poor guy counselor in charge of creek stomping was so mortified! His face was priceless, and I still feel the urge to laugh here the next day every time I see him.  But we had a lot of fun splashing each other and chasing tadpoles.  The counselor even caught a really big crawdad, and the girls were facinated, but still didn't want to touch it!

I'm in charge, sort of, with the two craft instruction hours that follow the free time.  Logan and his friend Wilson are in that, and we had fun too.  A friend of Camie's is in the craft room with me, and she is a genius.  We have a ton of old t-shirts from past summers, and I now know how to make bags, headbands, vests, and hanging vests all? from t-shirts!! I'm so excited! No more 7 dollar headbands from Wal-Mart for me! Just give me a t-shirt sleeve! She promised to show me more amazing stuff throughout the week.  

I don't have a lot of time left of my hour off.  I spent part of it setting up my college class I'm taking though June and July through Ellsworth.  It shouldn't be too bad, though a few people have already told me I'm crazy for doing it.  Camp outs are tonight, and my cabin will be paired with one other for the meal.  I hope I get to light the fire! I find it extremely entertaining.  Once I even had a one match fire, and I speak of that with much pride!  

My homesick camper had another small episode last night, and I had another join her a while later.  As soon as they wake up they're all fine and dandy and ready to have fun, but the nights is when the tears start flowing.  At least I know my girls come from loving families.  Prayers would be extremely welcome, since the incidents almost always overlap the half hour I get to have devotions with them, and those are very important.  

It's been a great turn around from the first night, and thank you for the prayers!

Lindsay

Bethany and I

We're ready to greet our new campers!!

I'm Alive Awake Alert Enthusiastic. WOO!

This week we have the Junior Campers. At least, that's what I have.  We're also having Young Teen Camp at the same time, but separated.  It's made for quite an interesting challenge, but it seems to be going well so far, even though the staff is already exhausted!

For my cabin, I have 8 lovely girls, all from the same town.  The majority of them are relatives in some way as well.  I've got ages from 9-12 in that mix.  Makes the cabin dynamic very interesting.  Prayers are much needed, as always, but I have a few specifics in this cabin.  Last night I had a very VERY upset camper.  She was very homesick, and it was completely random too.  We were sitting there going through our Happy Camper Conduct (a contract we have the kids sign to say they'll follow camp rules), and then she suddenly sounds like she's hyperventilating. Thanks to some of my friends on the staff, we got her calmed down and she is perfectly fine this morning.  But my ladies would NOT go to sleep last night.  Our 9:30 lights out turned out to be more along the lines of 11:30 still talking.  Two of my girls claim they were up at 2 still.  I hope this all means that they'll sleep tonight!  The funny thing is is that when I got up at 6 for my own private devotions, they wanted to be awake too! So if what a few of these girls say is true, some only got 4 hours of sleep.  That also means that I need to be concious of that when the girls say that they don't feel well, or if they start to nod off in the middle of the afternoon.  Hopefully I'm not nodding off with them!  One of my girls also has a phobia of thunderstorms, so prayers for good weather would be welcome as well.

On a more funny note, Miss Katie Strupp decides this morning that I need to practice leaping into her arms for our skit.  So I do.  Then she half drops me on purpose and lets me swing upside down!! I do that with litte little little kids! Not someone who's 20 years old! Our media man also got it all on tape too! That better be on the staff video!

The title of this blog is an early morning cheer that we sometimes do, and me and Katie lead it for Flag Raising this morning.  I just hope you caught the sarcastic tone of it right now :D

First Weekend Off... Now What?

Hello! This is going to be just a quick update.  I mostly spent the day painting with several other people.  Here are a few pictures.  I was a really fun day, and I got the best compliment I've ever gotten from Andi. She said I reminded her of Camie, and that is just the biggest compliment I've ever gotten.  I admire Camie and everything she does very much.  There are a million painting projects to finish before our time off tomorrow.  Wish us luck and please pray for a good weekend for our staff! And for a good amount of sleep; we're exhausted!  First weekends are always when we learn how to sleep before a week of campers.  Good Night!