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. =]