June 19

We got woken up this morning by a huge storm. The thunder shook the cabin and knocked the power out momentarily a few times messing up our clocks. No one got up out of their bunks but everyone was awake. It continued to rain through breakfast but stopped just after. It cleared up really quickly just in time for impact groups. Our activity was to make these weird shrine things that no one really understood the point of. The kids were supposed to find objects in nature and we would collect them and make a shrine out of them that I don’t even remember the point of. Ours turned out looking pretty sweet. After that we had some time left over so we discussed our favorite websites and haunted houses.

our shrine

the view from impact groups. the lake at the bottom of the hill.

Some of the cabins wrote letters to “extreme cabin makeover” in order to get their cabin made over just like the show. My cabin wrote the winning letter and they made our cabin over with Christmas lights, lawn chairs and some sweet posters. It was all good until we realized that the chairs brought in a huge amount of bugs so they are now on the cabin porch and are not allowed inside.

We had a pretty normal day after that and finished the night off with a say-so. This is when the campers are given a chance to say what they learned about themselves or their faith this week. A few stood and everyone that did said something really great. We headed to our cabin after that so the girls could pack up their stuff a little bit and went to bed soon after.

June 18

Since we stayed up so late last night we got the opportunity to sleep in an extra hour. It was super fabulous. I was really excited because on the day that we get to sleep in we have brunch. But this was not the case. We had a normal breakfast and then they put out stuff to make sandwiches for a while so no one would get hungry. They were some delicious sandwiches.After breakfast we had vespers and impact groups and then free time until dinner, which was around 6 hours long. Everyone got dressed up for dinner because we were going to hike to bald eagle. (I don’t really understand why people get dressed up for a hike but they do it every week) dinner was a cook out at the far field which is also what we do every week.

my cabin on the far field before the hike. the first photo is the only one that is actually on bald eagle.

I brought up the back of the hike with my friend Kenz and we took at least 5 breaks on the 10 minute hike. Once up, people played various games of catch or sat on tarps and talked. Then we sang songs and heard a message from Scoty. His talk started the 20 minutes of silence that is always a part of bald eagle.
Once we got back to our cabins the L.I.F.E. Guard (people that volunteer and take care of the camp) brought us our snack of milk and cookies. They stayed and chatted for a while and told our cabin what L.I.F.E. Guarding is all about.

After snack was camper night where the campers are able to show off their talents. This week we had some girls that danced, a girl that showed off her num-chuck skills, a few people play songs on various instruments and a comedian. It was an overall good time.
We were able to hang out after that until bed time so the girls in my cabin all hung out with my co-counselor and I in out cabin until bed.

June 17

the puzzle at the begining of the day and then right after we finished it.

Full Staff at Rock Stalls

Usual breakfast and vesper routine. Then instead of going straight to impact groups we hiked to rock stalls. I got to ride most of the way there in a van because one of my campers is MRDD. It was a nice small hike for us after the ride and we met the rest of the camp down there. Everyone explored for a minute and then we gathered together by the waterfall to sing songs and then split into our impact groups.

When we got back to main camp we had the traditional after hike lunch of grilled cheese. There wasn’t as much as people would like so I left kind of disappointed that I didn’t get to eat until I felt sick. It’s what I usually do.

Next was free time in the craft cabin. I, Keegan, Addie and the nurse E.B. finished our star wars puzzle with tons of yelling and many laughs.

For dinner it was theme night so everyone wore their sweet costumes. we ate dinner in costumes and then headed to the lodge for a "wedding". the theme has to do with characters named Sun and U.V. they ended up getting married so the rest of the night was the reception.

everyone went to the near field for the soap slide and i realized that two of my campers were missing. turns out they had missed dinner and the entire wedding because one was depressed and the other was mad because the other girls in the cabin were being rude to her. myself and another counselor tried to find them food but they didnt want to eat anything we could find them.

i tried to get the two girls to go to the foam doam with us but again they refused to go for various reasons. so i sat with them on the deck with some other counselors to keep them company.

after we got cleaned up from that they showed a movie in the main room. Hook. i didnt watch it though. i sat on the deck with some CITs and got to know them a little better.

overall it was a good day. a bit tiring to take care of my campers but fun none the less.

June 16

Dining Hall

Same old morning. Breakfast was French toast which I always love. The morning show has been all about the different uses of sham wow and it is hilarious.

We did the water regatta today instead of the last day and that was a nice switch. Usually by the last day we are so tired that we don’t even want to do it. But everyone was really energetic and ready to participate.

Lunch was delicious. Tuna and chicken salad with French fries and this weird dessert thing that had mandarin oranges, marshmallows, coconut and some mystery ingredients in it.

Tommy and Jimmy came down to visit for his birthday and ended up staying for dinner. it was really nice to see both of them.

Free time is going well. I snuck off from the craft cabin to write this all down before I forgot.
The evening activity was to go out to the new stage on a hill at outpost to watch Pax Romana play. They are a band from Upper Arlington High school and all the members just so happened to be at camp the same week so they christened the stage for us.
It was a pretty cool show but not the kind of music that I or many people there would usually listen to.

June 15

We stared with the usual first day routine. Breakfast, vespers and then volleyball at the far field. Nothing too eventful really happened all day except my marathon post card writing session in the craft cabin. I wrote to everyone I had an address for and cant wait to receive replies.

Really the only big event to happen was that during amazing grace I got awkwardly homesick. I’ve never been homesick at camp before but I think it just sank in how long I actually was going to be here and how well things were going at home before I left.
I talked it out with kenz and Kelly and felt better rather quickly.

That night was skit night which is my favorite night of the week. My skit involves the YMCA and I play a police officer. We are the last skit of the night so we get to start off the dance party that followed.

June 14

these are photos of my bed and "closet" in my cabin

Today was the first day of camp. I got almost all the way down when Kenz called and told me to turn around and go to Chipotle. I had a wonderful lunch with a bunch of people I haven’t seen pretty much last year. We headed back to camp and un-packed a little bit. Kenz sat in my cabin with me and kept me company while I got my cabin all set up. We headed up to her cabin so we could clean up a bit and decided that we needed to take a trip to wal-mart. I forgot to bring a mirror and my sunglasses were broken so I got that stuff. We jammed the whole way there and back and got some dairy queen. That was a poor choice. But it was really delicious. Everyone now is waiting for our delicious dinner of pizza. After we eat the first group of children will arrive. They will be in high school and I am so excited to get this week started.

The kids arrived and we met them at outpost. We got started with a “nature hike” to check out all of the “wild” animals. (Counselors in costume). We finally ended at the far field where we had the opening game. There were 4 baby pools full of a mixture of flour, water and different colored paint. We had to throw it on each other until we ran out.
All that was fun until we tried to wash out the goop. It came off of everyone’s body fine but when we tried to get it out of our hair we ran into some problems. I got most of it out of mine with no problems but almost everyone else struggled for a while before giving up on getting it out.
We then had a normal night of prime time followed by cabin time