And so it ends.

So, I realized that I never really had a blog to end my summer. I guess I just got so caught up in leaving camp and coming home. First off, I will share how the summer ended. After a crazy week of counseling, the weekend work went well with the exception of my allergic reaction. Sunday arrived and I got my new cabin of 4 girl. And let me say these were the most well behaved girls EVER! God totally gave me a blessing that week after my horrifying week before. I loved getting to hang out with these girls. The last week of camp was a very small week, which I think was good for the last week of summer. Very relaxed and simple. Then summer came to a close. The last weekend was full of cleaning cleaning cleaning. Literally that is all that occurred Friday and Saturday. But it involved more hanging out as a staff as well which is always the best. While cleaning out Big Creek (the biggest place on camp...which took over 8 hours to deep clean) me and Faythe got to people watch out the big windows, which def led for some good times. Saturday closed with a final dinner outing as a staff, which was nice.

My parents and Marc arrived on Saturday which was so amazing to finally get to show them (well my dad saw at the beginning) camp and why I love it so much! It's only been a part of my life for the past 7 years or so. We then hit the road on Sunday, and finally got back to California on Monday night. And now I have been home for over a week, which is weird. But good.

If only one blog post could detail every best part of summer..but that is not even possible. My summer was amazing, and I am so blessed that I got the opportunity to experience it. I got to live in the AMAZING creation the Lord made, work with amazing people I will never forget, and just grow and mature on God's path.  I learned so much about myself and God this summer, way more than I expected. I just feel like I experienced so many things for me! I mean, I met the best people, I am so much more comfortable driving now which is very good for me, I have a bit more confidence and feel that I slowly am not asking as many questions......maybe. I also now enjoy country music a lot, will most likely watch the office on my own terms, and miss the great outdoors. I can tell you that the view of dead grass due to the ridiculous heat of CA is just not as enjoyable as the beautiful greens back in Idaho.

Like I said, one blog really can't sum up the summer, so I tried my best. :)

Allergic Reactions

What a week/weekend! I don’t even know how to find a way to simply sum up the week. Let’s start with the fact that this was my first week of ever being a camp “counselor”. I have technically been program staff all summer which is different than being a counselor. As a counselor, I had a cabin of 5 5^th/6^th grade girls. I was super excited about this and it sounded pretty simple. I love kids and only being responsible for 5 didn’t seem too hard. Boy was I in for a shock. Being in charge of these girls reminded me two things. 1) I don’t want daughters and 2) I don’t miss being in 5^th and 6^th grade. These girls were just so up and down and full of drama! They would whine and hate each other than love each other 5 minutes later. They also just did not want to do anything but sit and talk about or to the boys! Let’s start with the quick story of boys. The campers all arrived around 4 on Sunday.  Monday morning 2 of my girls started “dating” these 2 boys. By the afternoon 1 girl had already broken up with her boyfriend, and by the night they were back together. They then once again broke up Tuesday afternoon, which left the boy heartbroken and crying his eyes out. The other girl broke up with her “boyfriend” by Tuesday night as well because on Monday it had caused a friendship to end because of jealousy issues. This was one of many tear fests I had to control.

To make matters worse, Monday I was hanging out with my girls in the grass when all of a sudden my lip felt swollen. I figured I had bumped it and there was nothing to really worry about. I then realized that it had gotten bigger, and figured I should ice it to get the swelling down. After going through 2 bags of ice within an hour, I realized the swelling had not gone down at all, but my lip had actually gotten a lot bigger. I then showed somebody who had seen it earlier, and they were shocked at how much bigger it had gotten. On my way to getting another bag of ice, I ran into Clint who is an EMT and figured I should show him my lip. He took a look, figured I was having an allergic reaction to something, and decided I should take some Benadryl. I did that as well as got another bag of ice, in hopes I would be fine.  2 hours later, not only had the swelling gotten bigger, but it had spread to the other side of my lip and part of my eye. Things were not looking good. We decided to call an ER nurse who told me to just watch out to make sure it didn’t spread to my throat or tongue, and to hype up the benedril and find some day time allergy stuff for the next day. After consuming 3 Benadryl’s figured I would be completely knocked out for the night, got woken up because a sick camper from another cabin needed to sleep in our house because we had an extra bed. At 2 am, the swelling in my lip had gone down, but not gone, but the swelling in my eye had gone up. The next morning, lip finally was getting better, and the eye was about the same. Luckily, after some zurtec, by the afternoon I was back to normal. Things were looking good.

By Wednesday night, I had hit a wall. I got some new swelling in my eye that day, and my girls were just beyond corrupt. They had turned into to terrors and I had a mental breakdown. I was very disappointed in myself for not being able to do the job I was so excited for as well as I could. To make matters worse, after my mental breakdown, 3 of my girls were ABSOLUTLY convinced there was a ghost in their room. After long discussions about ghosts not being real and them especially not being in the room, girls were having their own breakdowns and refusing to sleep. I lost the battle and had to get another staff member to come save me who ended up sleeping in the room with the girls because I had to sleep in the hall way because I had another room with 2 girls in it. Friday finally came, I was no longer swelling in the face, and I felt some relief. Then my work weekend started. 

Friday went extremely well and the group I was working with was full of awesome kids. Although I was dead tired and burnt out, I knew I could get through the weekend easily. Until this morning…

I thought I was done with these ridiculous allergic reactions, but this morning I had big hives all over my head, and one HUGE hive between my hip and thigh. I didn’t even know what to think. Things felt okay until about an hour after waking up realizing my eye was swollen as well. Deciding to give up on anything, I popped another Zurtec and just went about my day. Luckily someone who is here this weekend is a doctor’s assistant and at she said the bumps on my head were fly bites, but then once I informed here about the one on my leg it came down to the conclusion I am breaking out due to stress. It is the only logical thing to think. As of now my head has lost some bumps, and the thigh is exactly the same.  I can only hope that morning brings me a fresh start of being normal. Tomorrow starts the last week of camp. I have a fresh group of 6 or 7 7^th and 8^th grade girls, so I can only pray for the best. I will give you the update on how it goes on Friday.

=]

The end of ISA

Idaho Servant Adventures has come to an end. And let’s just say we went out with a bang. 143 people in the final week! What an adventure that was. Over the summer each week would vary on being full of really awesome people, to having really immature and ridiculous people. This last week was full of both since there was such a huge group. I really liked a lot of kids, but then there were a lot of kids who really didn’t want to be there and complained and whined the whole time. But I still felt like it was a decent week.

After my stressful Monday, things got better. Well until Wednesday. Every week I usually get the privilege of being the lifeguard for kids as we float down the river. I am pretty sure I am the only staff member who a) doesn’t swim very well, and b) has never been officially lifeguard trained. (I just have the certification to guard our swimming hole and river)We carry a dry bag with our first aid kit, although no one ever gets hurt, which is good considering our dry bag generally fails and our first aid kit gets soaked.  On Wednesday, I didn’t realize the first aid kit was not with us on the bus and so we didn’t have it to take down the river. Me and Eric decided since we never really use it anyways because no one ever gets hurt it wasn’t a big deal. So headed down the river just like a usual tubing adventure. Because it is the end of summer, the river is so shallow you really could walk the whole route we use, and river rocks are pretty sharp. There is one section (which I HATE) that is just rapids and sharp rocks that you hit the whole way through. If I had the choice I would just walk it, but it is dangerous to have a group of people walk through the fast water, so we just hope no one gets a popped tube and head down. Well on Wednesday a girl lost her tube and stumbled through the rapids spraining her ankle. So here I am being the “lifeguard” I am almost going straight into panic mode. As the girl gets to me she is bawling and freaking out because of the pain. I get everyone else out of the water (because luckily there was a beached area next to us) and think of what to do. Long story short I used my guard thing as a way to elevate her ankle and walk her through the rest of the river. Then, once I reached the end, I pushed her to the side of the water kind of like you would dock a boat, sent all the other kids with an adult back to camp, left one adult with the girl, and ran across camp to find help who luckily turned out to be Clint who is an advanced EMT. I survived that one. It was exciting and scary at the same time. But I did what I needed to do and felt good about it.

Now that ISA is over, I get the pleasure of being a camp counselor the rest of summer. I am actually really excited about it. Next week I have 5 girls. They are in the pioneer group which means they are 5^th and 6^th graders. It should be a lot of fun! I can’t wait to hang out with these girls and just have a blast. Things should go well these last two weeks, and then I get to make the venture home and go back to life in California. I really miss my family and friends and love of my life so that is what I am looking forward to enjoying. I will be for sure posting another blog sometime next week to give details of being a camp counselor for the first time. Be on the look out! =]

Questions

Here is a question. Confidence and being sure of something you are doing, are those the same? I know a lot of times I lack confidence in myself, but when I am searching for answers to be sure that what I am doing is okay or correct, is that being unconfident? This may sound confusing, but I am just trying to figure out why I feel the need to ask so many questions. I sort of feel like I am so afraid of failure, that if I ask a question to someone else, if a mistake is made it doesn’t fall completely on me. I have heard many times that asking questions is a good thing, but lately I haven’t been feeling so good about it. It seems ridiculous, but now instead of just asking the question whether it is dumb or not, I sit and ponder inside my head for a while on whether the question is worth asking. Then as I am debating the question forever I just sit there and doubt myself feeling like I will most likely pick the wrong thing or say the wrong thing and just epically fail. I know that is an awful thing to do, but I just never know.  I feel like I am wasting a lot of time doing that. (Although I suppose I am wasting a lot of time asking the questions) People always say you can never ask too many questions or there is no such thing as a dumb question, but lately I just get such negative feedback for asking any sort of question. (even when I am pretty confident that it is a good question.) Maybe I just need more life experience? Or maybe I just need to deal with failure. One day I will figure it out.

On a good note, I got to drive a nice big truck around town today. It was kind of thrilling. Too bad the day was stressful because so much happened. In a nutshell, I couldn’t find the store I needed, turned around 1000 times, finally found it, didn’t have what I needed, sent to a closed store, dealt with ridiculous things at Wal Mart, filled the back of the truck with brush by myself, had to fill up gas jugs for the first time, tipped one over to where gas spilled in the truck, then spilled gas on me, thought the truck was going to blow up, made it back to camp JUST in time (which is technically late) and then finally took a breath and got through the night. I feel like it is just one of those weeks. Maybe it is because there are 143 people on camp! Plus some ranch camp, and oh yeah did I mention there will be 150 japanese foreign exchange students floating around? It is a fun week! I am very excited that God blessed camp with so many people to experience Jesus in the great outdoors. Can’t complain there. Anyways, I feel like my blog is sort of negative..I will try to post a positive one this weekend. Guess it all depends how the rest of my week goes. 

20 more days until my summer in Idaho ends. =[

Retreat Weekend!

Another week down, and another week started. Here I am at week 9 with only 3 more weeks after this one. I can’t believe summer is almost over! Time really flew by. I am excited to be headed home to see friends and family, but I am really not ready to leave camp. It will be so weird (but nice) to having my own room. And a tv? And unlimited internet? So crazy! But back to what’s been happening. Last week was another successful week of Idaho Servant Adventures. A bigger week, but everything seemed to run smoothly. Had some awesome groups! They were great, a little bit slow and got off task quickly, but still a lot of fun.  But the weekend was well needed.

This weekend we had our staff retreat at this big huge rec center. It was nice to see some of the Lutherhaven staff that I have not seen since the beginning of summer and catching up on their summer lives. We also had this huge pool area full of heat and chlorine to hang out in. Went down a waterslide, and swam in the lazy river. They had this like toilet bowl part that I totally got stuck in twice. It was a fun experience though. I worked on my cribbage game as well. (Yes I am learning how to play cribbage. It is all the rage at camp.) I am slowly getting better at it. There was also this really fantastic worship that we had. If I had to have one complaint about the retreat it would only be that it went to long. We did not leave the place until 1 am! Did I mention that I was up at 6 am that day? It was a long night. We headed back to Lutherhaven and me and 2 other staffers decided to sleep on the beach. It was pretty legit. (But kinda cold) The sun woke me up way earlier than I wanted, but that was okay. I got to enjoy the view from the beach and just relax. When we finally headed back to camp we decided to make a very quick pit stop and the local rock jumping spot on the river. ME being the scaredy cat I am jumped off the little one which was like 8 or 10 feet high. But that was thrill enough for me. I tried to watch a movie when we got back, but I was too tired and ended up taking a 3 hour nap. It was well needed.

Funny story about my nap..I woke up all of a sudden, realized I was in an empty room in the middle of the day, freaked out, jumped out of bed, was disoriented in the middle of my room trying to figure out where I was supposed to be because I thought it was a week day and we had stuff to do. I finally realized that it was Saturday, and it was okay I was napping. Thankfully no one was in the room to notice my little freak out. I am sure it would have been hilarious to see though.

I don’t have much to catch you up on. I have intention to post a more though provoking blog sometime this week, I just didn’t want to make this one feel lengthy. Hopefully those of you who are still reading my blog and getting your fill!

Survival

Today finally began another week of ISA. I can honestly say I am sooo happy about that. The Catholic’s were great and all but very exhausting. The schedule was just crazy and all over the place and I just felt on the go constantly. It was very exciting to be off for the weekend. And this weekend was a mix of fun and sadness.

Bear, or Michael, left camp this weekend. =[ It was sad. But before he headed out we had a nice staff dinner at the Snake Pit, and then went into town to see Harry Potter! Not getting back to camp until almost 2 am was not the best, but it was still so much fun! Especially since one of our other staff members, who went on vacation for a week, and then spent another week at our other camp, was there, and it was the perfect place to reunite. Running across the theater in excitement was hilarious.  It was a good last night to spend with Bear. Then, on Saturday, I got to go with him to the airport to send him on his way. David, Leah (2 other staffers) and I got to take a camp van into Spokane and say our final good bye to Bear. To take away our sadness we spent the day doing lots of fun things. We went to the mall which is such a luxury; we then went to a coffee shop to spend a bit of time on the internet that we lack at camp. I got to use Facebook and it was really exciting. After some internet, coffee, and a new phone for David, we headed off to Costco to buy lots of candy for camp. I love shopping for camp because we buy so much stuff that I just feel ridiculous. After a nice little Costco run we stopped for Panda Express which was a nice meal to splurge on. We then finally headed back to camp, and found even more excitement.

At around 9:30 that night, a bunch of us were gathered to head up to the helipad for some bonding time, when a panicked woman runs into the office say that about a mile up the road a RV caught on fire and is starting to spread to the trees. In case you forgot, camp is in the middle of the national forest. Forest fires are no good. As she is panicking, Clint, our camp director, and local EMT, is trying to secretly get his firefighting gear out and ready considering he is the closest one to get to the station. It was really exciting to watch him put on his brand spanking new fire suite (never used) and then peel out of the parking lot to race down the road and get a fire truck and some more crew. Needless to say the fire was put out and no one was hurt. (Except the RV which was burned to the ground) There was a lot of excitement in the night. I also played my first legit cribbage game and kicked butt!! Woooo. I would call it a good night! I am realizing that our staff is such a family, and I really love them all. I don’t know what I am going to do when I have to leave. It will be sad. But I totally miss my friends at home and can’t wait to be back with them.

Speaking of a staff family, we got a new staff member. It is nice, but really weird at the same time. Today was her first day and I will be honest I feel kind of bad. Here is a staff that has totally bonded over the last 8 weeks, and now this girl just has to jump right in. I am kind of thinking of it as a step sister. I mean she is GREAT and nice and so fun, but if I were her I would feel weird not knowing all the inside jokes that everyone is talking about. And a lot of it is hard to explain, but I am hoping that after a week of us she can start to fit right in and be just like us and have a great 5 weeks with us! Let’s see how it goes.

Well now that I have packed my weekend fun into a blog, I can now say I am prepared and excited for another week of God working through 114 campers here! Can’t wait! 

Go Go Go!!

I have been on the go with work since July 3. This is what happens when you have a work weekend. But let me tell you my work weekend was fantastic! I got to be the host for a family reunion that came up to use our camp. We got to do all of our typical camp stuff like zip line, rock wall, and tubing with this family. We also hosted their meals and that kind of stuff. Now as most family reunions go there were 3 generations of family there. One of the original generations there had members in their 70’s. These were some of the coolest old people! One woman, who was 73, climbed our 40 foot zip line and leapt off!! She also attempted to climb our rock wall. Because she did the zip line, it encouraged her siblings to do the same. So seeing people between the ages of 60 -70 flying off our zip line was pretty awesome! I was quite impressed. One of the older generations even went tubing down the river. It was pretty sweet to be involved in that. This family was just pretty legit. I really enjoyed getting to work with them last weekend. (But am ready for a Saturday off.)

This week for camp is totally different from any group this summer. This week is NICYC week which stands for Northern Idaho Catholic Youth Camp. So we have 130 Catholics running around camp. It is pretty intense. They have rosary in the morning, and mass during the day. What does this mean as a staff member? It means I get to:

-eat meals outside as a staff (something that NEVER happens)
-Sleep in an extra hour!
-Do a camp project with another staff member (AKA fill in a giant trench)
- Tube and belay all day.
-Sing ridiculous songs!!
- And enjoy random spurts of down time.

This week is just a huge and different week full of stress. I am dying for the weekend and it is only Tuesday. I feel like it must be because I did not get my normal day off this weekend so I have just been on the go. But the Catholics are so much fun and so nice and constantly say thank you which just makes everything feel so much better. Today was not stressful so I am totally hoping for this to be the trend for the rest of the week. But I am also looking forward to getting back into our normal swing of things.

Things are going pretty well up in Idaho. I have a beautiful watch tan and am starting to get a tan from my Toms.  I finally got some sun on my legs today and now have a shorts tan line! Woo Hoo! What is crazy to me is that I only have 40 days left at camp. It is actually closer to 39. Unbelievable! I am very excited to see the people I love and miss at home, but I will totally miss camp. I really can’t thank God enough for blessing me with the opportunity to work up here. It has been so amazing and I can’t believe it took me so long to do it. Until my next free moment..

The adventure of a lifetime.

Adventure. Camping. Risk.

This is my way of getting you hooked into having to read my blog. Last night I decided to go camping. Or at least what I thought was going to be camping. Turned into an adventure hike that ended in sleeping on the ground. So technically camping I guess.  Let’s just say it was an adventure of a lifetime. And it was very exciting. Started out as a simple invitation to go camping. North Idaho is new to me, but the staff members I went with have some experience camping around here so I figured I could easily trust them.  Ha! So I was informed we would just be taking a mile hike, so I had my back pack and pillow and sleeping bag already to go. I could carry that for a mile no problem. I was so confident that I even carried a bag of Cheetos with me. As we ventured on for about 15 minutes, we got to a point where I felt we were no longer on a trail. This was when I realized that things were going to get interesting. The trail sort of exsisted, but it was more so covered with trees and bushes and all sorts of stuff that you just had push through. After way longer than a mile on this trail, we decided that our originally destination was possibly not happening, we could see over the mountain that the river was down below.  How do we get to the river? Scale down the mountain of course! Well, by this point because I tripped over a branch the cheeto bag finally broke, but it lasted a good chunk.  Going down the mountain had no trail whatsoever because not even animals braved this path. I had to use tree branches to hold on to as I climbed down. We then eventually hit the river. Oh wait, I mean creek. The river was further up.

As we hit the creek, the one in front who confidently wore flip flops, let us know that the creek was surrounded by this plant that when contact was made with bare skin it burned and was very painful. Lucky for me I had long pants and tennis shoes on. But at one point I slipped and it got my hand a little. I survived though. As we crossed back and forth over this creek/stream thing I gave up on keeping my shoes dry. (I luckily packed extra socks.) At one point, the handle for my sleeping bag broke and there went my sleeping bag into the water. I scooped it up in time for only a small portion to get wet. We then finally found the river! Exciting? Until I saw that camp grounds were on the opposite side. Oh yea and it was definitely dark at this point. Good thing I remembered my head lamp! So we (when I say we, I mean them, because I was clueless) knew that the road had to be close, so it was not time to give up quite yet. At this point, we were now on the side of the mountain covered in rock. This was when I actually was a little nervous. But God was definitely here for us because all of a sudden a legit path appeared! Although rocky, it was totally legit and led us to a camper! This campground then led us to the road, which led us to the bridge across the river. Hallelujah! At this point, we figured out where we were, and headed to a flat ground area to camp for the night. What an adrenaline rush!

This was totally a huge adventure. Although totally risky, I knew that God was with us as we ventured though his creation. The fact that no one was injured, including the guy in FLIP FLOPS, proves that he was watching. I feel like a real woman surviving this. As well as using the forest as a restroom multiple times. Luckily it was not needed until we arrived at a camp because there I got to find nice foresty area to have some decent privacy. The thing that surprised me the most is that only at small points was I actually scared about what we were doing. This totally shows how much confidence I have gained in God this summer. I love it! I know this was such a dumb risk of me, but I must be honest. It was SOOO worth it. I am becoming an outdoorsy woman. =] 

Realizations of Life.

Seems awful to start my blog on a bad note, so I will give a quick update and highlight some of the good to start it off. Last week was great. I got to see my home church and let me tell you I loved seeing familiar faces and people who just make me happy. So glad to have them up here! =] Also, I have had some great time to get closer with God, and let me tell you, I LOVE seeing the great things God is doing up here at camp. So many kids have come up here and gotten so much work done. It is such a blessing that camp is so full this summer, full of youth just so excited to serve God. I can see God everywhere up here, and it is just so amazing to get that closer glimpse of him. Next, I managed to find a song that has helped me cope this week with the loss of my grandma. I believe it is an old song, but I have the remake by glee, (of course) and the lyrics just really make me smile:

“Smile though your heart is aching, Smile even though its breaking, When there are clouds in the sky you’ll get by, If you smile through your pain and sorrow, Smile it may be tomorrow you’ll see the sun come shining through for you.”

Basically, I know that my grandma is in that better place with God, and that she wants me to smile and be happy because she herself is happy. Now onto more uplifting stuff about life at camp. This last weekend I got the joy of going shopping! And not just at wal mart, but in a real mall! Fact though, the mall was a good 2 hours away. I really am my mother’s daughter if I drove 2 hours just to shop. I also went to Cabella’s for the first time ever. (They don’t have one in California) That was exciting. I plan on going back sometime to buy something so I can say I own something from there. (I’m pathetic.) Anyhow, my weekend was enjoyable thanks to that.

I have come to realize that I am thankful for the fact that I did not live the dorm life experience. Well let’s stick more so with the living with more than one person in a room experience. Don’t get me wrong, I love all the girl staff I live with. They are fun fantastic and beautiful. But, as the extreme extrovert I am, I have realized that sleep is when I get my alone time. Here is the other thing. I like to sleep at my own time, when I want and how I want. At home, I am used to getting in my nice big comfy bed, sniggling up with my covers, and watching tv until I fall asleep. I knew coming to camp I would lose the TV ability, which has been replaced by my ipod, thusly I am fine on that part. But living with 4 other girls, who all get up at different times, all have their own alarms, and all have their own bedtime schedules has been tricky. I am surviving fine and growing accustom to it. But there is one thing I am totally missing from home. I will be very excited to be back in my bed and my own room.

My bed is not the only thing I miss from home. I am at a loss for words at how much I miss my friends and family. I just feel so disconnected it is weird. My plan this week is to connect with as many as I can, even if it just means sending a letter home to them to let them know I am still alive. And then to say I miss my family is an understatement. I can’t believe it has been like 5 weeks since I have seen them last. I totally appreciate being so close to them now that I know what it is like to be so far away. My sister and I used to call when we were bored, or when we needed advice on who knows what, and not having that has been so weird. (Lindsay be prepared for a phone call a day when I am home. Haha) Hoepfully the being missed is being felt the same at home. And last but not least for the missing is of course the love of my life. I miss Marc (the boyfran) a lot. I luckily have had some opportunity to call him but a long distance phone relationship is not the same. I give people who have done it so much props and respect.

And finally, to sum up this really long blog, I just want to send the message out there that life at camp is still amazing. I miss home, and so many people, but I am growing in so many different ways at camp it is amazing. Everyday brings something new and exciting that I love and I just feel like a better person spititually, mentally, physically, and maturely. I hope to get another blog out this weekend, shorter and possibly more deep. Until then. =]

Eleanor Bensen

Sunday was a sad day. As I am sure most of you who are on my facebook know that my grandma passed away. I know I said my blog was meant for camp life, but this is part of my life that is being lived at camp for now. So tonight my blog post is about her.

My grandma was a big part of my life. She was definitely one of the hardest things to leave home this summer. Over the past years I got super close with my grandma, being the youngest granddaughter who happened to live with her. Not that she had favorites, but I like to think I was her favorite youngest one. =] My grandma was the best at everything. She made the best cookies, the coolest blankets and stuffed animals, and just the best at making desserts. She also was really good at taking care of her grandchildren being a nurse and all. She just always knew what to do. The favorite thing I would say about all my  grandma’s (who are now all with God) was that they all were good at their own things, which helped me learn so much. My other grandma, who passed way too soon, was the best at crafts, and this grandma was the best at cookies/desserts. It just made my childhood fantastic.

In the recent years, my grandma was always critiquing my style. Whether it was hair length/color/style, clothing choice (too dark, too boring, too revealing), or make up choice, she always was there to tell me how she felt. And although she may not have noticed, I took it to heart and usually would change the things she didn’t like.

Also, if I had to pick the latest bond it would be how every night possible I would read to her, just as she did for me when I was younger. It is totally something I will miss doing. But I think it has encouraged me to continue reading myself, to where I know she is somewhere listening as well.  That’s just how God likes to send the guardian angels in our lives. The night my grandma passed, I had a dream of her being healthy and happy and wonderful, and I feel that was her way of telling me she was going to be in heaven, happy and healthy, and letting me know she was okay.

I could easily go on and on about my grandma, but my blog would be too long. To sum it up, I will greatly miss my grandma, she was one of the best, and she will always be loved by all of her family, even her added to family like all my friends who knew her, because she just touched the lives of so many.

RIP Eleanor Bensen

Grandma Mo

First Week Complete!

I know it has been a while, but life at Shoshone just got a little more busy.

We had our first week of Idaho Servant Adventures! It was fantastic. It was sort of a practice week considering there were only 18 people, but it was a serious practice week. I feel so much more confident now, which is good considering 114 people roll in on Sunday. Including my favorite churches. My own of course and our Texas buddies. I am so excited I really can’t even explain it. All I know is a bit of home will be here this week. =]

Some of the best parts of my week included getting a postcard from the youth group at home, as well as a wonderful package from my aunt. The package included cookies, chocolate, pictures, a magazine and this neat little world religions book. So exciting to get mail! So please send me more. It totally brightens my day.  

This blog would be ridiculously long if I told you everything about my week, so I suppose I will just give a brief run down. The weather was depressing.  It poured rain all day every day. Well except for Tuesday. It was nice on Tuesday. This was not fun for piling brush into the back of a truck. Let’s just say I went through almost all my socks this week. Exciting thing was I got to drive a truck around camp! Wooo! I liked one of them, but camp has this old forest service truck that only has 3 gears. I was not a fan. Also, in order to get the key out of the ignition you have to push a button. So weird, and not like my car at all. I got to work with some pretty neat kids this week as well. The group I worked with a little in the beginning of the week were so hard working that on Tuesday they decided to work through lunch to get the project done. Such hard workers! I was quite impressed. That day I also got to work with the Jr ROTC group that was up here. They were a good group of kids, but could definitely use some team work. Hopefully our challenge course helped them a little bit. Anyways, I also got to hang with these fantastic girls who were just so fun and energetic. (Just like me!) They called my goulashes because of my rain boots.

I have come to the conclusion that Fridays are going to be my least favorite day. Groups head out and staff cleans for a couple hours. Not exactly the most enjoyable experience. High School kids are a bit too messy for my liking. I guess it will help me appreciating keeping my room and the house clean when I get back. (maybe) Today cleaning went fast even though we were missing half the staff, so I guess I can’t complain.

Anyways, totally loving the camp life. I got to make some nice lengthy phone calls home this week. Which was a nice little time to catch up. Especially with the love of my life. =] I am not a fan of our phone relationship but I know we will survive. I also feel so disconnected from friends. =[ I really miss friends and have no idea what is going on with them. It’s so weird, but I have so little time to call everyone I would love to talk to. So dear friends at home don’t think I have forgotten about you! I miss you all a ton! And hope to talk to you soon. But for now, it’s time to catch up on sleep and enjoy a day off. 

Anxiety

Staff Training is OFFICIALLY over. =] 

Not that I didn't love learning every possible thing I could need to know about working at camp, but I am ready for camp to start. 

Today was an overwhelming day, only because so much seemed to happen all at once.  But I survived the day, and can say I finally feel calm. Let's see how long it will last.

Truth is over the past few days my anxiety has been awful. I hate it. I miss my old laid back self that was not afraid of anything, not this weird girl who can't handle anything. So silly. For example, def freaked myself out and will not be certified to facilitate camp's zip line. Although after my reaction to it I can say I am totally okay with that. There are plenty of other things I am certified to facilitate. But that anxiety seemed to stretch on to other activities that day. We have these beautiful camp horses that I really enjoyed getting to ride on Tuesday, but on Thursday with high anxiety things weren't as exciting. You see it was raining, and I guess the horses were not a fan of that.  They kept trying to get away which caused two horses to tear their rope off the post they were attached too. One was okay, and one was so upset that it did a summer salt. Watching a horse do something like that was not fun. I really was not looking forward to that horse ride. Luckily the draft pony aka GIANT pony I was riding didn't have any freak outs. That was an exciting day. 

Camp starts Sunday and I am super excited/nervous. Luckily this first week is smaller so the experienced counselors will kinda be leading us new folk around. This way I can feel more confident in what I am doing. There is just so  much to be done in your typical week at camp. But it is a good kind of busy. So I am looking forward to it!  

I get a day off before the adventure begins and I am pretty excited to not only catch up on lost sleep, but I am hoping to go out on some sort of hike to explore the area and enjoy God's beautiful creation I am living in. Super excited for that. Plus with a whole day off I can totally get in some personal time with me and my bible. Good way to connect with God. 

Just another quick scoop on what's happening with me. 

Certification!!

Training is almost over! And I couldn’t be more excited!!

Friday is the last day of training and then the real part of summer begins.  My days won’t be getting any shorter once training is done, but it will be full of wonderful campers and exciting activities all day and night! And I can’t wait.

This last week and weekend of training has been pretty intense. I am now officially
-water front certified
-CPR certified
-First aid certified
-challenge course certified (I think)
and after tomorrow will be Wilderness first aid certified.  So much certification! It is ridiculous. I was totally nervous about all of that stuff but let me tell you, CPR is pretty simple. And as long as you are focused First Aid stuff is doable. I am pretty stoked to be a lifesaver.

The weather has been sooo wonderful since Saturday. It has just been sunshine and blue skies. I love it. But then today the storm clouds came. Which were pretty cool looking, but brought cold weather and rain. Boo. But hopefully the sun will come back soon enough and I can break out the shorts. Although part  of me doesn’t want to because my legs are blinding. It’s embarrassing.

Today I impressed myself by cutting rebar with an electric hand saw thing. I think it was called a saw zaw? Something like that. I’m not sure. All I know is that it involved a fast moving blade and safety glasses. And I managed to cut some pieces and not hurt anyone or myself. Impressive if you ask me. I also did a lot of cleaning and organizing, did some Wilderness First Aid homework, and enjoyed a staff campfire up on the mountain. It was beautiful. But ready to hear about the best part of my day? This morning I went for a horseback ride around camp. So beautiful to ride around the wonderful creation that God gave us on a magnificent creature. And I get to ride again tomorrow! Best ever! I love it.

Anyways, that is my little update of what is happening in my life up at Shoshone. Still miss everyone at home but am doing just fine for now.  Oh and because I am feeling very disconnected from the world, I would love some reminders that people at home still exist, so I know this is sooo old fashioned but I would love to receive mail! You can mail me anything at all!(as long as it is appropriate to be mailed) Just send it to me at:

Danielle Bensen

Shoshone Base Camp

29216 Coeur d'Alene River Road

Wallace Idaho 83873

I would LOOOOVE to receive some stuff from home. Really would keep me sane. :)

Staff Training Exhaustion

Is it June 12 yet? I really would like that day to come. 

In case you were wondering, that's the first official day of camp. =)

Training has been long! Literally busy from 8 am to 10:30 pm. RIDICULOUS! 

Staff training has consisted of mainly two things:

1) Lectures (singing 101, camping 101, etc.)

2) Challenge course. (For those of you who have no idea what that is it’s basically challenges on elements that are meant for building team work.)(and when I say elements I mean balancing logs, wire ropes, and things like that.)

I loved my challenge group team, even though it’s no one from my direct Shoshone staff, its some pretty amazing people. I worked with them for like 18 hours the past 4 days so we are pretty meshed.

But I will be honest. I am soooo sick of training. I sadly have like 8 or 9 more days of it. Not that I want to complain but hey it’s my blog.

I miss home. But I am coping. It has now officially been the longest I have ever been away from home, and I am doing better than I thought I would. I think it is because I am pretty busy and do not even have time to think about it.

Weather has been nice this week! (aka maybe 65 or 70?) Until the rain came today.(along with 40 degree weather!!)  Sad. But rumor has it that it will be 80 sometime this weekend! Which is apparently almost better then whats happening in California? I hear there's tornado warning. Yikes. Anyways, I am hoping for the best as I jump into CPR/First Aid/Wilderness/Water front training! Woo!!

A big thing that I am totally looking into and learning more about and will eventually have a blog post about is how many differences and rules and all this stuff are involved in the differences between Lutherans. Here I am thinking there was just the term Lutheran. And that settled it. Little did I know. 

Today’s blog is pretty simple. Just because I feel dead and sore and don’t have much to update on. Just sending it out to let home know I am surviving, I miss home, and will hopefully have some fun stories about camp to share within the next couple of weeks!! 

Court of King Coratacis

(In case any of you catch it, I am sorry if I spelled that wrong.)

BUSY! That is how I feel.
Staff-O has been intense and its only been 5 days! But I love every minute of it.

Sorry it has taken me so long to post but, like I said it’s been busy. Oh and also there’s super limited internet out here in the middle of nowhere. I don’t get to just hop on whenever I want. (Not that I really have had the time anyways.)

Lemme give a little run down on what camp life has been like thus far:

I have not slept past 7:30 all week. Story of my summer. Well except on most Saturdays.
I love the staff. Everyone is so unique and awesome. Bonding has been amazing.
We did some sweet challenge course things which were a lot of fun. We had to line up on log and line up in order based on birthdays. But there was no talking. And you couldn’t get off the log. Oh and 2 people were blindfolded. So much fun.

I am going to be certified to do so much stuff in the next 2 weeks it is insane.
                -first aid and CPR certified.
                -Wilderness first aid certified
                -tubing down the river and swimming in the creek safety certified
                -high, mid, and low ropes course certified.
and that  is all I can think of off the top of my head. It’s just amazing!

Also something I am looking forward do this summer is horseback riding! Camp has (well at least will on Wednesday) 16 horses! And in order to get them ready for campers the staff has to ride them! So exciting. I already got to hop on one for a little bit and I can’t wait for a real ride.

Next topic: Weather

It’s been ridiculously cold..well at least for this poor California girl. Hot showers have been the best.  (Something I thought wouldn’t be a possibility at camp since its kinda old)
Also, rain boots are saving my life this summer.
Typical clothes include long sleeve shirt, sweatshirt, and rain coat. Still cold. Haha. There has been a bit of sunshine. Like today was a beautiful day.

One thing I am totally digging at camp is the beautiful creation I am surrounded by thanks to God. Being in it constantly makes me feel his presence and it's great. Last night we went up this road to the mountains and sat on the mountain side watching the clouds roll through the trees. It made me think about my relationship with God and how the clouds resemble walls I sometimes feel between me and God. And as I was sitting there soaking in God, the clouds started to disappear, and it made me realize that if I just absorb God and his word, that my walls can disappear and everything will be clear. It was such an amazing thing and made me really excited for his work this summer. I can't wait. 

Although I really miss home, I am really enjoying camp and can’t wait for the real craziness to start. With the exception of a few weeks, there will be at least 120 campers here each week…which is a big deal for camp. So much will be happening! It’s going to be amazing! Blog posts will get better I promise. Give me time to work it out.

The journey begins...

I have always wanted to start a blog but felt my life was just so plain...but this summer felt like the perfect time to start considering I packed up 3 months worth of stuff and will be living in Prichard Idaho. 
That is in Northern Idaho in case you didn't know. 


There is this wonderful place there called Shoshone Base Camp, which I was introduced to in 2004. I fell in love and have been there for a week every summer since.  But this summer I will be working there for the entire summer. Something I have never done before. Actually, I have never left home for longer than a week. And here I am living 1000 miles away for the summer. This is going to be the biggest adventure I have ever been on. 


I won't be able to just pick up my cell phone and get in contact with home because this place has no cell service. This blog will be a way for me to let my family and friends get quick updates on how and what I am doing. 


I haven't even gotten to the final destination yet and here is what I have concluded:
-I am incredibly attached to home. (it's kinda pathetic)
-I can fit 3 months worth of crap into 2 suitcases and a backpack. I'm really impressed.
-My car needs another gear. It would get better gas mileage. 


Anyways, I plan on having more interesting blog posts. Tonight was just the starter. This summer I will be experiencing new things every day, meet tons of new people and will experiencing God in no way I have ever before and I can't wait. 




Until another day...