I am finally caught up on sleep, I think. I just spent the last week of my life hiking around Quaker Ridge camp for the ABCRM's Front Range Camping. It was one of the best, and possibly most difficult, weeks of my life.
I suppose I will start on Day 1 and give you all details of the week that I can remember. This may be long, so if you have to come back and finish reading later, I'll understand.
Day 1 ..... Sunday, June 15.....
Jami, from Gillette,and I set out to leave my house at 8:30. We didn't get out of the house till 9:30. Our friends Mary and Mike, from Nebraska, had come to visit and we wanted to spend as much time as we could with them. James said that they didn't leave until noon, so it was a good thing we didn't wait till they left to leave for the camp.
Well, anyway, we set out on the road and Jami and I got into talking about something and I missed my turn in Colorado Springs to Woodland Park! :-S That was very frustrating. We had to take a 10 minute detour to get turned around and back on track. Anyway, we got to the camp about 11:00 and unloaded our belongings into our cabin. The cabins the elementary camp was in are actually big lodges. They have 8 rooms and 2 bathrooms with shower rooms. I got to have my own room (which later on I will tell you why that was a blessing.)
The stress began!
This was my first year coordinating camp and I really did not have a clue as to what I was to be doing. Well, I had somewhat of an idea, but I was very nervous when those kids started showing up. I got a phone call just as the kids started to show to tell me that one of my male counslors would not be there! Talk about starting the day out bad! So I had to assign my camp pastor as one of my male counselors. (In the end it worked but starting out I am sure he wasn't too happy.) I ended up having 25 2nd through 5th graders under my wing, with 8 counselors to help me. It was fun!!!
The campers got checked in, and dinner was served by the Quaker Ridge staff. Then we had to join the whole camp, which was all grades (2nd -12th) for a rules and expectations and a praise and worship time. That seemed to work well and then we had campfire. Oh those kids did not want to settle down! They were soooooooo hyper, and LOUD. I think my hearing is going to take a while to recover.
After campfire I had to leave camp and run into Woodland Park, which is only about 10 minutes away. I had forgotten to bring a bunch of stuff, so I just went down to get the stuff. That started my week off badly, because I didn't get back untill about 11:30 and didn't get to bed till 12:30. At 1:00 I heard a big thud and thought it was just something outside falling against the building.
Day 2 ...... Monday, June 16 .....
Rise and shine at 6:00 in the morning because the girls were up and loud by that time in the morning. I had a feeling this was going to be the death of me! The big thud I heard in the night was one of the girls falling out of bed. She landed on her knees, but just crawled back up into bed and went back to sleep. Strange, but glad she was ok.
I woke up this day a little more confident in my abilities as a coordinator. We had breakfast, then the campers went to clean their rooms in the cabins and the counselors and I had a staff meeting. We organized things for the day and decided on how activity rotation would work.
We then went to chapel, had a camp photo taken, and went to the athletic field to play games. OYE..... I found out just how out of shape I was. The kids were playing a couple of games and I decided that the counslors needed to join in and play with the kids. So, thanks to me, we played a game of capture the flag... Counselors v. kids. Dumb, dumb, dumb. There were 25 of them, and only 9 of us. You would think that would be even, but they are all used to running around like wild animals. We adults weren't in any shape to do that in the least.
They won!
My favorite time of the day was coming up after lunch! NAP TIME... or what they call FOYB (flat on your back). I was so tired from the lack of sleep the night before that I was looking forward to sleeping! Alas, that was to escape me. I wasn't paying attention to the time and only got back to my cabin to get about a 5 minute nap before the girls were up and were loud again. I really should have moved my room from the same side of the cabin as them, but that would have been the smart thing to do, and I wasn't thinking like that!
Activity time was next. I have to explain how this went. We had 3 girls "rooms" and 3 boys "rooms." So we paired off a boys room and a girls room for "family groups" for the week. This seemed to work really well and they got too know eachother well.
Unfortunatly since Pastor Alvin (camp pastor) had a group of boys so he really did not have much down time to plan for the lessons later in the day/week. So he asked me if I would take his boys and watch over them during activity time. I agreed and we started out swiming! That was a lot of fun. They have a really nice swimming pool at this camp. Then we had Canteen, or for those of you who know WYOBA, snack shack. Once done with that, one of the other counselors and I took the family group to the horses.
YEP... they have horses. The kids are so lucky that have so many activities to do. There a couple of girls decided that they didn't want to ride horses. I wanted to ride so bad, but they have a 250 weight limit. I knew that I was just a couple of pounds over, but I decided that I would be ok not going. A little disapointing, but I thought I could go back and take a short nap.
Didn't happen! I got sidetracked into talking to a couple of people, so I didn't get a nap. Once the kids got back from horses, we went to archery! Oh man, that was a lot of fun to see the kids do that. We had 2 boys cabins and a girls cabin (because of some mixup) but everyone got to shoot some! Even the counselors and I got to shot. The problem was that the bows were just a little too small so I couldn't get a full pull when I would go to shoot. We got to do 9 rounds. Out of those 9 rounds, I snapped myself 5 times with the string! It hurt SOOOOO BAD! It formed a welt and gave me a HUGE bruise on my arm for the rest of the week. It was ugly. The picture to the left was taken on Saturday after I got home, so if you can imagine, it looked a lot worse than that picture!The kids had a great time. Only 1 of them were snapped by the string, and he only did it once. One of our girl counselors was the only one to get a bullseye the whole week! I was happy for her!
Dinner time came and went, then we had worship and family groups. That gave me a little bit of free time. I just relaxed for the 30 minutes I had without kids. Then we hiked out to the outer campfire. This hike is about a 10 minute hike and none of us really knew where we were going. We just happened to take the correct turn at the fork in the road and came upon the campfire. It was so much fun.
We taught the kids the song "Children Go Where I Send Thee." It is a screaming song. Literally. The boys are on one side and the girls are on the other and they try to out scream each other. I figured with that, and a couple of other screaming songs (Little Red Wagon [more about this later]) they would not have voices the next day. I certainly wouldn't I thought. We tried to wear them out, but it just didn't seem to work. Dan and I stayed behind to put out the fire once the kids left. (Later I relized that just two of us was a REALLY dumb idea).
Joy of all joys... I got back to the cabin and was ready for bed by 10:30. All the girls were asleep so I crawled in bed and had the lights off by 10:45. I tossed and turned for a while, and was just on the verge of sleep, when I heard crying and shuffling around. I dismissed it as another girl falling out of her bed, when I got a knock on my door. UH OH... not good when you get a knock on the door. I got up and one of the girls had puked all over her bed and threw up a couple of times in the bathroom. EWWW! I hate puke. But the counselor, and CIT (counselor in training) got the stuff cleaned up and I took the girl to the nurses cabin.
Not thinking, was I, that the nurses would be sound asleep and I would not be able to wake them up by knocking on the door. Luckily, each coordinator had a walkie-talkie to connect to all the others and the camp director Mike. So I called Mike, told him my situation, and he called one of the nurses on the phone. She got up, let us in, we had to scrounge around to find some kind of blanket for the girl and eventually Mike gave up his sleeping bag for her to sleep on in the nurses cabin. (NOTE TO SELF FOR NEXT YEAR... bring extra bedding.)
I got back to my cabin at 1:00. Another late night.
Day 3 ..... Tuesday June 17.....
Again the early morning light came too soon and the girls were not exausted like I had hoped they would be! Up with the sun at 6:00. This week was not going by fast enough!
Breakfast, staff meeting, cabin cleanup. OH.... one thing I forgot to tell you. If you look at the map of QR you will see that there is something called the "Stairs O' Death." They are not kidding you when they call them that. Every time the girls had to go eat any meal, they had to go down them to get to the dining hall, and back up them to get the cabin. Down was not as bad as up. Over the week the girls ended up counting and there are between 55 to 58 steps (no one was certain.) However, these steps are not normal stairs. It is a set of stairs cut into the side of the mountain. It is about a 100 foot climb to the top and the stairs are NOT even. Some of them are as tall as my knees, some are just like regular steps. Needless to say, Stairs O Death is like the stair climber from hell! It killed. Every person who attempted to go up them, had to stop somewhere in the middle to catch their breath. Even the most in shape of the kids.
Anyway, at our staff meeting we decided to go for a hike that morning and do our worship somewhere along the hike. It ended up being about a 2 hour adventure. But it was just enough to give the kids a taste of what was to come on Thursday when we hiked to the top of Soldiers Peak! During our chapel time out on the trail, Pastor Alvin discussed with the kids what they should do when they feel like they want to quit the race. He told them to stop and pray, saying "HELP ME JESUS!" That little prayer became our motto for the rest of the week. We would say it when we needed just the littlest encouragement, or the most courage. It was one thing that the kids really took away from camp.
That afternoon I still did not get a nap. I had to go into town and take the girls sleeping back to the laundry mat to wash it so she would have something to sleep in. I also had to get the supplies for CAMP OLYMPICS! Oh, those of you who ever spent much time at WYOBA would know what that is!!! Jami and I planned out the games on our hike. I was soooo excited for the games. It really fit well into our theme of the week too.
I suppose I should explain. Our theme of the week was the Amazing Race, based on Hebrews 12:1-3. "Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted." We talked about this race that each of us is running and did a lot of comparison to the Olympics coming up in August. Therefore, Camp Olympics, was perfect.
Needless to say, those of you who know what camp olympics is, you know that it is nothing like the REAL Olympics.
HEHEHEHEHEHE.... I was so excited for this night to come. We had a bunch of "games" planned. So after dinner the kids went on a hayride, we had chapel with a visit from the pastor and his puppet (I can't remember the puppets name) and family group times and then the games began!We stared out with the most disgusting game of them all! The CHEERIO BLOW!!! Yep, I made them all do it too!! This game is where you have a cheerio, put it in one nostral, (yep part of the nose), close the other nostral with your finger, rare back, and blow. You try to shoot the Cheerio as far as possible. It was soooo disgusting!!! We had a couple of kids with some "danglers." Boogers that hung out their nose when they were done blowing! What a way to start of the night!
We continued with a game I called PUFFY TOP. Each team, we had 3 (family groups), got to choose 1 person to sit in the middle of the room. The rest of the team was split into two and part went to one side of the room, the rest stayed where they were. The person in the middle had a shower cap put on their head, and shaving cream all over the shower cap. The rest of the group had a bunch of Cheeto puffs (the balls) put in front of them. The object was to get as many cheeto puffs to stick on your person's head as possible in 1 minute. There were cheetos flying everywhere! It was so much fun to watch, but it made the biggest mess. We didn't have a broom so we just left the cheetos.
Next was the infamous LICK N STICK. The teams picked another person to be in the middle. This time they all had to gather round that person and lick LifeSavers and stick them to the persons face. After one minute the LifeSavers would be counted. It was gross, but the kids loved it!
I had no idea what to call the next game so I came up with the name THE NOSA YOLKA. You might be able to guess what it is. They had to get on their hands and knees and push an egg across the room without breaking it. The first team finished, or the last to break their egg, would win. One team broke their eggs pretty fast. The second team took a little longer in breaking their eggs (each team got 2 eggs). The third team won after the second team broke their last egg. One girl just did a face plant right into the egg. It was gross!!
The LAST game finally came about 9:00. I called it the OLYMPATHON. This one was the best game. We had prepared paper bags before hand with a food item in each bag. There was one bag per person. Each person on the team had to go pick up a bag, open it, and eat the food item that was inside as fast as possible. This is where I become cruel! Here is a list of the things that were in each bag (there were 10 bags).
2 Saltine Crackers
chocolate pudding
banana
5 Rollos
8 oz can of Seirra Mist
5 Oreos
Fruit by the Foot
Bag of M&M's
Popsicle
Packet of Kool-aid (unsweetened)(blue)
The kids were halarious. They had to show me their mouths before they could get back in line. I still cringe thinking about the Kool-aid. They made such sour faces, and their whole mouths turned blue! They loved it though. I could hardly calm them down when we finished the game. I think the adults were having more fun laughing at the kids then the kids were. We have some fun pictures of this, I just don't have them yet. I'll post some when I get them.
The kids got to bed about 10:00 that night and all of them passed out. They were sooo tired. I did to. I finally got to sleep before 11:00.
Day 4 ..... Wednesday, June 18 .....
This morning I let myself sleep in some. We didn't have to be at breakfast till 8:00 so I let myself sleep till 7:30. I just covered my head and let the girls and their counselors do whatever. I wanted to sleep.
Breakfast came and went, as did staff meeting. Unfortunatly, Dan had to leave that day, so I had to take over watching his boys during activity time. Luckily it was family groups for activities and I had paired Dan with Jami. Therefor I was with someone I could relate to more! We did morning worship and then we had activity time for the morning. We were assigned to play frisbee golf, mini golf, and volleyball for 1/2 hour rotations.
The first 1/2 hour went off without a hitch. We played volleyball with our group. Our next rotation was to the Frisbee Golf. This is where the "fun" started. We had just started the first hole and were working on moving our frisbees to the hole, when Jami yells to me "JESS, WE HAVE A BEAR!" All the kids point, and I look, and indeed, we do have a bear. A smallish, cub. Where is the momma? went through my mind. I FREAKED. I called on the walkie to the other coordinators and Mike and they said to go to the Canteen and have all the kids go too. So we, walked/ran to the Canteen and I gathered all the other kids up into the building too. I then assigned a counselor to come up with some games for the kids to do while I figured out what was going on.
The QR camp staff went looking for the bear, but never found it! That frustrated me. This "cub" was the size of my kids. I didn't want them getting hurt. That took up most of my morning. Later on I found out that just after I called the other coordinators, the Middle School camp saw Momma bear walking along in front of them when they were at chapel. TWO BEARS... TWO BEARS. One small and one big. Keep the kids calm and keep the kids close. No going out late at night alone!
No nap again. I was too hyped up from seeing the bear and figuring out what to do with the kids. They were told that they could not be in groups less than 3, and that they must be within sight of their counslors, or a counselor, at all times!
After nap time, we had crafts. I stayed in the cabin and decided that hour was a great time for me to take a nap. Oh, what sweet relief. I got a nap, finally. It felt sooooo good. I decided to skip canteen too. I let Jami take charge of the canteen money and stayed in bed. The kids then got canteen, and then split up for activities. I didn't have to worry about Dan's boys during this activity time because they weren't going in family groups this time.
I am glad I got that nap. I would have probably had a breakdown because I was so tired, had I not gotten the nap.
We did dinner, then we had chapel. Pastor Alvin had invited another puppet, P.J. to join us for Chapel. She was voiced by Annie Wamberg. She was halarious and did a great teaching time with the kids about Noah's Ark. After chapel we watched the movie "Evan Almighty." Then everyone was to break out into their family groups and discuss the movie, and how it related to our theme. I was sceptical of the movie. Never seeing it, I was nervous that it would be nasty to Christianity and the story of Noah. I was very surpised that it did a fairly good job of depicting the story and being very kid friendly.
I gave a bunch of the counselors a break during the movie. They could go an do what they needed, or wanted to do, during the movie, but had to be back before it was done. During that time, James came to camp to take Dan's place. Once the movie was over he joined his group and it was lit he had been there all week from that point on.
I realized as I laid down that There would be no more campfires in the outer campfire, with me and 1 other person staying back alone to put the fire out!!! The bear came from that direction. I was not going to be going out there again!!! :)
Day 5 ..... Thursday, June 19 .....
The week is almost over! I was excited, yet disapointed all the same. I was becoming more and more unpatient as the week continued and I think it was just the lack of sleep. We woke up to trash cans all over camp dumped over. Booboo (as we had dubbed the cub) and possibly Yogi (as we dubbed the momma) had been back overnight. They made a mess of the camp.
This day we decided was the day to tackle Soldiers Peak. This hike was up the mountain the "easy" way. HA! We left at 9:45 and did not get to the top till 11:30. 2 hours. We did have to wait a couple of times for kids and counselors to catch up. I was the encourager the whole way up. Now, I am not in the best shape of my life, but when I need to have energy, such as throughout the whole week, I am really really good at pretending that I have energy. Therefore my body believes it and I really do have energy. Kinda backwords thinking, but it works. Those stragglers on the hike up really did not like me by the end of the day!
We got to the top and the view was just gorgeous. Here are some pictures....
Oh, to be on top of that mountain. It was wonderful. Then we had to come down. It didn't take us nearly as long to get down, but it did take us about 45 minutes. We had lunch in a meadow at the base of the mountain the went straight back to the cabins for FOYB. Then we had canteen... I finally got to have canteen time! Then we all went swimming. It was a great way to chill after our long hike.
We got to have dinner outside the canteen again (we did it on Wednesday too, that is why the bears came back). It was pretty good food. The kids then went to the chapel and got to enjoy a concert. I, had to run into town again. This time to get some stuff for the male counselors to prank the boys with. I'll get to that in a bit.
I got back and we built a campfire in the canteen (there is a fireplace) and roasted marshmellows and had S'mores. It was really nice, but the whole time I was thinkng to myself, we need to be making lots of noise so the bears don't come back!! So, we had fun, the kids were so wound up that the boys were literally just running in circles yelling and screaming. I told the counselors that if they could calm them down before bed, good luck!
Needless to say, they werent going to calm the boys down. Here is a little background. Earlier in the day, I guess the boys were sitting on their porch to their lodge and this huge beatle with huge long antenas landed next to one of the boys. They all got up and started screaming and running away from it. THOSE BOYS ARE SCARED OF BUGS! So I was asked to pick up some gummy worms and bears while I was in town. During S'mores time, the counselors went and put the gummy stuff in the boys' sleeping bags. Cruel, I know.
Anyway, I guess before they went to bed, they had a talk that they all needed to be in "God's Army." Not sure where it came from, but it worked to keep them all off their beds before the time came. On the count of three, all three rooms shut off their lights and the boys crawled in bed. The room with the youngest boys had a little boy said to his counselor Ben, "Um..... Ben.... there is something in my bed." Ben then asked "What is it?" The boy answered, about crying, "I don't know but it is squishy...." Ben then leans over, asked him if he is ok, lets just him know its a prank, then yells, "BUG INVASION!" I guess all the boys jumped up and freaked till the lights were turned on and they found out it was gummy worms and bears.
I guess it was halarious. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall. Of course, guess who the counselors blamed it on! ME... Oh well, I had my own tricks up my sleve. I had a little pow-wow with the female counselors in my room before bedtime. It was the only semi-quiet place, and it didn't smell really bad (I'll explain in a sec.) So we planned that at 5:30 on Friday morning we would wake up all the girls and go over and sing the "Little Red Wagon" song to the boys and wake them up! The thing you have to understand though is that this song starts out quiet and as you continue on to "Second Verse, same as the first, a little bit louder, and a little bit worse" you obviously get louder and louder till you are screaming. We also added the little touch of pounding on the side of their building too! I'll get to all that in the next segment.
So we told the girls to get good sleep and be prepared to wake up early. They loved the idea.
As for the stinky rooms. Our lodge did not have screens on the windows, therefore, when we were out of the cabin, we tried not to leave the windows open (ie booboo and yogi). So, all their wet and stinky clothes from the week just festered. Oh man, you would walk into one of the girls rooms and it would be like hitting a wall. OH... it was bad. My room had a screen on the window so I could leave it open. It was nice, so therefore, when the counselors couldn't take the stinch or noise anymore they would come into my room.
Jami and Maida (one of the other female counselors) and just left my room and shut the lights off, when Jami and I heard the garbage can on our front porch go over. We both got out of bead and snuck to the front door to look out. There was Booboo digging in the trash. We had a ball on our porch too and he started playing with it. He bounced it a bit, the it started rolling towards him and he ran off. It was so cute, if it wasn't so dangerous.
We got to have dinner outside the canteen again (we did it on Wednesday too, that is why the bears came back). It was pretty good food. The kids then went to the chapel and got to enjoy a concert. I, had to run into town again. This time to get some stuff for the male counselors to prank the boys with. I'll get to that in a bit.
I got back and we built a campfire in the canteen (there is a fireplace) and roasted marshmellows and had S'mores. It was really nice, but the whole time I was thinkng to myself, we need to be making lots of noise so the bears don't come back!! So, we had fun, the kids were so wound up that the boys were literally just running in circles yelling and screaming. I told the counselors that if they could calm them down before bed, good luck!
Needless to say, they werent going to calm the boys down. Here is a little background. Earlier in the day, I guess the boys were sitting on their porch to their lodge and this huge beatle with huge long antenas landed next to one of the boys. They all got up and started screaming and running away from it. THOSE BOYS ARE SCARED OF BUGS! So I was asked to pick up some gummy worms and bears while I was in town. During S'mores time, the counselors went and put the gummy stuff in the boys' sleeping bags. Cruel, I know.
Anyway, I guess before they went to bed, they had a talk that they all needed to be in "God's Army." Not sure where it came from, but it worked to keep them all off their beds before the time came. On the count of three, all three rooms shut off their lights and the boys crawled in bed. The room with the youngest boys had a little boy said to his counselor Ben, "Um..... Ben.... there is something in my bed." Ben then asked "What is it?" The boy answered, about crying, "I don't know but it is squishy...." Ben then leans over, asked him if he is ok, lets just him know its a prank, then yells, "BUG INVASION!" I guess all the boys jumped up and freaked till the lights were turned on and they found out it was gummy worms and bears.
I guess it was halarious. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall. Of course, guess who the counselors blamed it on! ME... Oh well, I had my own tricks up my sleve. I had a little pow-wow with the female counselors in my room before bedtime. It was the only semi-quiet place, and it didn't smell really bad (I'll explain in a sec.) So we planned that at 5:30 on Friday morning we would wake up all the girls and go over and sing the "Little Red Wagon" song to the boys and wake them up! The thing you have to understand though is that this song starts out quiet and as you continue on to "Second Verse, same as the first, a little bit louder, and a little bit worse" you obviously get louder and louder till you are screaming. We also added the little touch of pounding on the side of their building too! I'll get to all that in the next segment.
So we told the girls to get good sleep and be prepared to wake up early. They loved the idea.
As for the stinky rooms. Our lodge did not have screens on the windows, therefore, when we were out of the cabin, we tried not to leave the windows open (ie booboo and yogi). So, all their wet and stinky clothes from the week just festered. Oh man, you would walk into one of the girls rooms and it would be like hitting a wall. OH... it was bad. My room had a screen on the window so I could leave it open. It was nice, so therefore, when the counselors couldn't take the stinch or noise anymore they would come into my room.
Jami and Maida (one of the other female counselors) and just left my room and shut the lights off, when Jami and I heard the garbage can on our front porch go over. We both got out of bead and snuck to the front door to look out. There was Booboo digging in the trash. We had a ball on our porch too and he started playing with it. He bounced it a bit, the it started rolling towards him and he ran off. It was so cute, if it wasn't so dangerous.
Day 6 ..... Friday June 20 .....
5:30 am came way too early, but we all woke up. We trudged across camp, very quietly, surprisingly, and woke the boys with the Little Red Wagon song. They were not happy with us at breakfast. I got scowls and frowns. I was even called a hypocrite. They said that I was the hypocrite for telling them to get a good night's sleep them waking them up "in the middle of it." I just laughed it off.
Chapel and family times took up much of the morning. I didn't attend those because I was preparing for our game time after those. The kids were rounded up onto the athletic field and played capture the flag, boys v. girls. They loved that since the boys wanted to get the girls back for that morning.
Then I brought them all towards the main area of camp where we had set up kiddy pools with a bunch of water ballons. The counslors all took one and saved it till the end. They were going to ambush me! I only got a bit of water on my shoes and legs, so they failed. But oh, how they wanted too get me!
Alas, lunch came and went. So did nap time. I didn't get a nap that day either. I stuck around cleaning up the different things that I needed to. The kids went to activities. This time they got to do Bungee swing, crafts, or horses. The I went out to the bungee swing during the last hour of activities. It looked like so much fun! The problem is that it really is for kids under about 120 pounds. So, no bungee swing for me! However, I did get to launch a couple of kids. Here are a few of the pictures of it.
Then I brought them all towards the main area of camp where we had set up kiddy pools with a bunch of water ballons. The counslors all took one and saved it till the end. They were going to ambush me! I only got a bit of water on my shoes and legs, so they failed. But oh, how they wanted too get me!
Alas, lunch came and went. So did nap time. I didn't get a nap that day either. I stuck around cleaning up the different things that I needed to. The kids went to activities. This time they got to do Bungee swing, crafts, or horses. The I went out to the bungee swing during the last hour of activities. It looked like so much fun! The problem is that it really is for kids under about 120 pounds. So, no bungee swing for me! However, I did get to launch a couple of kids. Here are a few of the pictures of it.
I wish I would have gotten a picture of me launching. But this last picture kinda gives you an idea. Really, to launch these kids, you have to be pretty big yourself! It was fun. All the kids got to do it, and even our CIT's got to do it. I really think that WYOBA needs to put this up! They could really use something fun like this!So, anyway, after dinner we did our Talent show. A couple of the kids sang. Some did skits (which they made up on their own and were kinda confusing) and some did skits which a lot of us know so well. I was the person "Centi" peed on. The counselors did the "is it time yet" skit, where they all ask is it time yet, down the line. No is the reply, until the certain time, and then we all uncrossed our legs one way, and crossed them the other. The last skit we did was a skit with two of the male counselors and I. It was the grossest skit! I came up on stage with some peanut butter, jelly, and bread. Sat down to start to make a sandwhich, because I was starving! The two guys come joggin in, dripping with sweat, and decide that they stink and need some deoderant. One of them loves using peanut butter as deoderant and the other loves using jelly. If you look at the picture above, the guy in the camoflage shirt was one of the guys. So, they use up the peanut butter and jelly I was going to use to make my sandwhich. Oh well, I say, and take a peice of bread and wipe some jelly off the underarms of one, and peanut butter off the underarms of the other. Then i stick the two peices together and take a big bite!
The kids went NUTS!! EWWWW! GROSS!!! DISGUSTING!!! YOU DIDN'T JUST DO THAT DID YOU?!!!! Then I stopped chewing, and pulled a peice of armpit hair out of my teeth!! That made them go over worse. I had one girl gagging, and one just rolled over on the floor and wouldn't look up!! It was great! See if you can figure out my secret!! :) I then took a second bite. I had so much fun. We then rapped up the talent show and went to the Canteen for Rootbeer, marshmellows, goldfish, and a T-shirt signing. As quickly as they were grossed out by me, they were chowing down on the goldfish.
It was still really light out when all the T-shirts were signed, so I told the counselors to go hide around the camp and we would send the kids in groups to find them. Not the smartest thing to do. Just as I was quieting the kids to get them into groups to go out, one of them points out the bear, walking along, abut 100 feet from the Canteen where we were. Crud.... another plan ruined. However, how was I to get ahold of the counselors!! Two of them came running back into the Canteen, they had seen the bear. They called the other counselors cell phones and got them to come back. We came up with some other "indoor" games to play and make lots of noise with the scare off the bears. That wore the kids and adults out and we sent them back to their cabins early to get packed up. The girls all walked back together in a line sing Little Red Wagon at the top of their lungs.
Once in the cabin, the girls knew that the boys most likely would retaliate, and they filled their water bottles and put them in the hall so if the boys did, they would be ready. Needless to say, I had to approve of what the boys were doing, so I knew that they were going to come over at 4:30 in the morning. I told the 3 counselors to wake up at 4:20, open their windows (so the noise would be loud) and come into my room. We then all went to bed.
Day 7 ..... Saturday June 21.....
My alarm went off at 4:20. I got up, put my sweatshirt on, and waited for the counselors to come into my room. The 4 of us snuck out the back door of the cabin, which convenietly was in my room, and walked very closely together to the Canteen. We had decided that the 4 of us would jump out and scare the boys on their way back to their cabin, since they had to go right by the Canteen. We sat and watched them make the girls get up. A couple of girls came outside and started to spray water on the boys, but the boys were prepared. They had a 5 gallon bucket full of water! 2 girls got wet!
They took about 5 minutes to make sure all the girls were up and then headed back towards their cabin. We came running out of the Canteen with our hands up going "roarrrrrr" like a bear. A couple of boys screamed and tried to run. The rest weren't fazed. It was fun. We then went back and went to sleep for a couple more hours.
The last breakfast came and went, and we did a small get together before everyone was to leave. We all said our goodbyes and Jami and I drove home.
I didn't get a nap taken, but I did sleep well that night. I was glad that camp was so much fun. There are somethings that I would like to change if I coordinate again next year, but that will be for another post. This one is long enough!
