And a summer went by...

Well technically, there's still summer left. It's not over. Definitely not. But still, a lot of it has gone by, as evidenced by the people who are flocking to college, the cooling weather, the pretty leaves beginning to appear on deciduous trees, and in fact, the calendar. I hope you guys had a great summer. Mine, as you've seen rather sporadically, was also great. Busy, but great.

My last week of camp went well. I was particularly excited because Sunday evening before the family campers arrived, I was informed that some friends of ours would be camping that week (for those of you in the homeschool circle, this would be Cheyenne Ada's family, minus [sadly] Cheyenne Ada herself, but including her eldest sister + husband). It was the first week that I had actually previously known campers, so I was excited to have some familiar faces to talk to!

During this last camp week, I actually wrote down like a page in the back of my devos book, with the intent of using said scribbles as material for a blog post. Here they are, with my after-the-fact explanations in brackets:

-Monday night, serenading Strawberry Hill with Moose on the Loose [a camp song. It's about a moose. He drinks juice.]
-Considering after said serenading that it probably would be considered a distraction. [Distractions here being the ultimate offense. Not penultimate, but ultimate. For real.] Oh well. One cannot live one's life under the shadow of "what if Joel had been there?!"
-Chris, Hannah, and I did two wagon rides [i.e. led the silly songs during the 20 minute wagon ride]. Lots of fun. Nathanael [tractor driver] even joined in, singing and doing the motions (while driving)-- including putting his hands up on the roller coaster [a small hill. It's BC's version of a roller coaster.]. We all screamed at him. I later saw a couple people who said they'd been on my wagon, and they indicated that it had been fun.
-Capture the Flag: scrapes and bruises. Stupid road. And we didn't even get first place.  [Internally wincing here. Ouch.]
-Plumbing leak: still under investigation. Getting very close to solving.
-that awkward moment when you get an encouragement note and you can't decipher the handwriting...
-Sunday night craziness: "Doin' him well...delish!" Next morning: "Last night's conversation is starting to set in..." I'm here for you, friend...
-Jo [roommate] talking in her sleep, sitting up in her sleep: "Okay, I'm done talking in my scary voice now!"
-changing messy diapers-- Carson :( [Thankfully he was wearing a one-piece outfit the day his diaper got so full it fell off, otherwise it would have been worse than it was. And that was pretty bad.]

That last item leads nicely into my next topic: nursery. Vanessa, Emily, and I were the chosen ones. Chosen nursery ones, that is. See, when we have family camps, we offer a nursery for the smallest munchkins so that their parents can enjoy chapel, the other adults can enjoy chapel, and the speaker can enjoy chapel. The first week, we just like had one child, and he was cute and angelic and good. And I even got moved out of nursery into the 2-5 year old chapel because at Bethany Camp, we don't need 3 staffers to one child. The second week we had 3 kiddos, I think. We had a little girl who sat on my lap for most of it, but she was good and didn't cry. And we had two boys, one who was very big and liked to throw things, but they were good and played well together. And the last week (week 4) we had like 3 kids who seemed to take turns coming, and they were good and only cried some of the times. Buuut, the third week. Oh, the third week. My goodness...week three.

So, like, Monday night, week 3, we set up the nursery for the first chapel. And I use "we" in the sense of "the maintenance boys." It was their job to set it up for us twice a day. So they set it up, and we were like all excited to meet the new children, cause we'd seen some of them move in and they looked small and cute and bursting with infant goodness. Enter child 1. And child 2. And a screaming child 3. And suddenly child 1 and 2 are screaming also, and as children 4, 5, and 6 are handed in, they likewise join the cacophony. Except the littlest one was only 7 months old, so he didn't really cry, but he did need to be held, or watched if he was sitting up, because he had this nasty habit of face planting at the most unexpected times. And then he cried.

 I don't think they stopped crying at all that evening. We sorta had a constant roar for the hour and 10 minutes of chapel. And the kitchen staff and maintenance staff and media staff were moved with compassion and pity and came and offered words of encouragement to us as we soothed unsoothable babies, and then they were moved with a sense of becoming deaf and moved away. In fact, on Tuesday, after the morning chapel, the maintenance team gave the nursery workers a gift. Really, I think it was the best gift I have ever received. Here, let me show you a picture.



 Now, if you're anything like me, you're staring at this small yellow packet and wondering what in the world it is. But if you turn it over and read the directions on the back...


...it all makes sense.

I am happy to say that by the end of the week, we had minimal crying. They would cry a bit when they were dropped off (possibly for old time's sake), and then would get distracted by toys, windows, flies, or other objects such that they could play until they got picked up. It was a challenge, but please understand I'm not complaining. I hope you see the humor in it (as I'm starting to)! It was one way we could serve the families throughout the week, and even though it had its moments, we were glad to do it.

To give you a slightly better idea of what a family camp week day looks like, I took a picture of Thursday's schedule.

As you can see, we have various activities in the morning that we sign up for at our 8 am counselors meeting. Babysitting is a big part of family camps, and the afternoon activities are listed too. Thursday evenings are a little different than normal, because the adults have a special dinner while the kids have a picnic (and teens eat in the bistro). Then they have an auction, where they sell items that families donate, and the proceeds go directly to a specific camp fund. 

To close, here is the link to my Summer 2012 facebook photo album: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.512283412118855.133151.100000116021992&type=3&l=c12c80a973

Have a great week, everyone!