Family Camp 1 and Youth Camp 1

Oh hey...I should blog today before I go off and vanish for a couple weeks. And this time I will try to hyperlink the pictures for you.

So two weeks ago (like, not last week but the week before) was our first family camp. It's where a bunch of families come and basically have their family vacations at camp. Here's a quick, one-paragraph summary of that week: Our support staff kept all of their positions, and those of us who are counselors (hint: that's me) were given assignments every day. During chapel time twice a day, we were all assigned either to the nursery, the 2-5 year old chapel, or the youth chapel. That way, the parents could focus on their adult chapel without worrying about little kiddos. I spent most of my time in the 2-5 year old chapel. We played some games, sang some songs (Father Abraham, Jesus Loves Me, those kind of songs), listened to a Bible lesson, and made a craft. Then, during the activity times, we were assigned a specific activity that we would go run. Thatway the parents could split up from their little kids if they wanted to, and they could go play soccer while small munchkins made sand castles or drew chalk art on the basketball court. And during mealtimes, the counselors were interspersed amongst the families to assist where needed. So that's that.

Last week was the first youth camp. Let me explain a tad how the youth camps are run. We have two camps running concurrently, split up by age, and these two camps are on totally different schedules. The 3-5th graders are called Discoverers, and the 6-8th graders are the junior highers. So we've got our 4 little kids cabins and like 6 big kids cabins and we keep th elittle kids and big kids separated. I had a cabin of 5 Discoverer girls. They were all 8 years old except for one nine year old. Here we all are on Day 1: http://photos.bethanycamp.org/p768631268/h9b083e4#h9b083e4

Here they all are, getting ready for their swim tests: http://photos.bethanycamp.org/p768631268/h3c87a042#h3c87a042 In order from left to right, we have Mackenzie, Haley, Jade, McKayla, and Alicia.

So...our theme for this summer is Superheroes. Which means that each cabin makes up its own superhero at the beginning of the week, and then later on in the week, they have the kids dress up their counselor as the superhero, and then take pictures of it...and then put them online. Last week, my cabin's superhero was unfortunately Crazy Penguin. I'll let the picture say the rest :P http://photos.bethanycamp.org/p556944517/h1f450759#h1f450759 And this is all of us Discoverer counselors, portraying our superheroes, Jordan as Banana Man, Vanessa a Raunbow Woman, me as Crazy Penguin, and Luke as Oak Man: http://photos.bethanycamp.org/p556944517/h1f450759#h786b77c

We had a pizza party one of the nights: http://photos.bethanycamp.org/p556944517/h2703f486#h2703f486

Playing gopher ball... http://photos.bethanycamp.org/p556795851/h2997aeee#h2997aeee

This is a water game that somehow turned into "Get the staff!!" I got soaked. Completely. http://photos.bethanycamp.org/p548221800/h32849c20#h32849c20

Obstacle course: http://photos.bethanycamp.org/p548221800/h20cf8dff#h20cf8dff

This is Mackenzie and me going down the water slide, snapped milliseconds before I plugged my nose. Those slides terrified me, but Mackenzie and I went down like 7 times and now I can stand at the top and jump onto the slide instead of sitting at the edge and just sliding. I am making progress :)  http://photos.bethanycamp.org/p548221800/h21a8bb82#h21a8bb82

Okay, here's a funny story. So during staff training, Joel warned us that some time during youth camp weeks, he would usually take the counselors to the little superette in Sinclairville for ice cream and a chance to relax and hang out without all the kids. That happened on Wednesday evening (actually, no clue what day it was, but I think it was Wednesday), when Joel told Jordan, Luke, Vanessa, and me to get n the van. He was just like, "Get in the van." And then he hopped in and took off going like 60 miles an hour roaring off to Sinclairville. We figured out what was going on halfway there or so, walked in, grabbed some ice cream, and made our way to the back where they have little tables set up. And because it's Sinclairville, their decorations consist of stuffed fish and deer heads mounted on the walls. The one directly above our table was white. Joel was making conversation, and he pointed out that the deer head was white. So I, being all logical and stuff wondered out loud how long that thing had been hanging there to get that white. Those of you who know more about deer that I do (like...all of you) may now start laughing as hysterically as Joel did. Apparently, there are albino deer who come into this world white. And so that one was an albino deer that got shot and stuffed and hung. So, joke of the week. Haha.

Anyhow, this week I will be doing the same thing...different girls, same schedule. Friday morning I will be heading off to encampment, so I'll be missing like the last 26 hours of camp, but it should all work out fine. As far as i know, I'll get back from encampment on Saturday, and then I'll head back to camp Sunday evening (that's two weeks from today). Hosanna will be leaving Saturday (I think?) for encamoment, and then coming home with me. So we'd appreciate prayers for all of this...me for camp and then med staff at encampment, end her, well, it's pretty tough as a basic at encampment...they keep you challenged!

And now I'm off to pack! See you all later!

Sr High Week

I took all of like one picture this week, and I don't even have it on this computer. BUT...Bethany Camp has a great PAO multimedia team (is that what they're called in the non-CAP world? It's the people who take pictures and post them online.). So I am currently going through five albums to try to find some good pics to share with you.

My week consisted of preparing food, serving food, cleaning up, and eating the food. It was a very food-oriented week, which was cool. Another thing that was cool was I found out on Friday that one of my good friends there is the niece of one of my mom's best friends in high school.

This picture is the guy who was our special speaker all week. His name is Mark Davis. http://photos.bethanycamp.org/p637081454/h2acfe8b#h2acfe8b

These slides go down into the pond. I went down once, and i got water up my nose and it hurt and then my lungs hurt and I coughed and stuff. But right before I went down again, they ended swimming time, so I was saved by the bell :P http://photos.bethanycamp.org/p806560733/h3097d949#h3097d949

This is a picture taken inside the bistro (that's a long e sound...beestro), whoch is like the snack and games shop. We had all our staff classroom training in here. And the guy in the white t shirt on the right was our other special speaker for that week. http://photos.bethanycamp.org/p806560733/h2561f694#h2561f694

You can kinda see the end of the water slides in this picture: http://photos.bethanycamp.org/p806560733/h32b6c12b#h32b6c12b

This is most of the kitchen staff...I think it's just minus three of us: http://photos.bethanycamp.org/p884772576/h1d4554e8#h1d4554e8 Except the guy isn't actually on staff...he just liked to serve meals to the kids.

This week is the first family camp, so we'll have lots of families coming in. I think Joel said we'd have like 115 (or 150...not sure which) total, with 86 of them being kids. I did not dare to ask how many were under the age of 5, but my guess is that 85 will be.

And with that, I'm going to go finish packing, eat some food, relax, and head on back! How are everyone else's lives going?