Don't Get Mad...Get Hi!

July 29 2008

-Tuesday-

I didn't sleep well at all during the night... Between the Shooting Stars keeping me awake, the fact that I didn't actually finally get to sleep until after midnight, and that I woke up at 3 in the morning with a sore throat, it was a rather fitful night. Amazingly though, I woke up shortly after the crack of dawn at 5:30 and was out breathing in the fresh cool morning air that I can only seem to find at Camp Hope.

Nobody was up, and I wasn't quite sure what to do with the 2 hours until wakeup call, so I walked up the little hill that's next to the volleyball court and sat on the rocks there as I had the year before. After about a half hour of nothing what so ever happening, I decided to take a walk up to Clover Field. It's hard to describe the feeling I got as I walked along that oh-so-familiar pathway...it felt like I'd lived here forever... Like I had never really left camp last summer. As I took in the scenery around me I wondered aloud, Just 3 and a half more days of camp? It seems so short, yet I'm only on day two! It's amazing how something can seem so short yet so long at the same time.

5 or 10 minutes later I headed back down the path again and bumped into Mr. Pederson and Matt who must have also decided that it was a lovely morning to take a walk. I said hi to them and then we continued on in our opposite paths. I took a little bit of a detour though the woods near the camp fire pit and noticed Bo sitting quietly by himself writing. I turned and headed back towards the path as I debated on weather or not I should interrupt. I guess I decided that I would because minutes later I slip-slided down the pine needle covered hill nearby the basket ball court. Once at the bottom I caught my balance and said hello to Bo...Him and I hung out and talked for a while. That was cool...Up until then I hadn't ever really talked to him in person, aside from asking him to sign my book last year. Then a bit later, but still before wakeup call, Zak, Dexter, Eric, Nick, and I were all hanging out around the dinning hall and went dink-happy. It's this insane game that I suspect either Zak or Dexter is to blame for, where you go nuts poking each other and with each poke you give you say "Dink!"...Needless to say once we got started we went all out and became rather loud...Which caused Pastor Harris to come over and tell us to be quiet until after wakeup call.

Before we got to eat our breakfast we had morning exercises. Those varied from day to day and were a lot of times somewhat goofy. We had finger exercise and Whinnie The Pooh rhymes one morning... which was one of the things I remembered from last year. Haha, a little weird but rather fun :-)

On other mornings we did anything from jumping jacks to running in place to even running backwards around the basket ball court! There were also push ups one morning, though thankfully they were optional...I couldn’t do a good push-up to save my life! Especially on concrete. Not surprising, I declined the offer of doing them and instead took pictures of the guys who decided they wanted to.

After that we all sat down around the edge of the basket ball court and listened to morning devotions, by Pastor Harris. Those always were good, and some mornings rather emotion stirring.

Then we were off to the dinning hall for breakfast! By 8:15 in the morning, I was good and ready for it too, since by that point I had been up for two hours and 45 minutes without anything but water.

Once we’d all finished eating we had cabin cleanup time, in which I had fun with every day by making signs or posing my stuffed dog with my Camp Hope signature cap on it’s head. I always tried to do something creative. My upper bunk was nearest to the door so I always wanted to do something new to welcome the Cabin Inspectors each day.

Following cabin cleanup, we had recreation time. Games! Yes! Those were fun...of course nothing beats free time to get to hang with your friends, but it was cool to get to do different sports and such. That morning we headed out to Clover Field for dodge ball. It's a camp hope favorite! I've never won a game of it in my life, but none the less, I enjoy playing. I have no idea why I like this game of heaving balls at my friends or having them throw 'em at me, but I do. Some things in life are unexplainable. Anyway, after a round or two of that, Ruben got us going on what he calls the "ultimate game of Camp Hope"... Super Mario Dodge Ball! I still don't quite understand the parallel between that and Super Mario, but hey, whatever. It’s a fun game! I like it better than regular dodge ball too. What is the difference between these two games that sound so similar? Well in this version when you get hit by the ball you sit down and have to try and tag other people who are running around. That being the case, if you’re still standing, you have twice as much to watch out for because not only do you have to dodge the three balls that are flying around the field but you also have to avoid those people sitting on the ground waiting to tag you. If you get hit by either the ball or people, you have to sit down too. It’s wild and crazy and mega fun! Well, more fun though if the grass wasn’t wet from the little drizzles of rain we got every now and then that morning. It’s much more enjoyable when you don’t have to sit on wet grass. Trust me.

Shortly after recreation was chapel, and Nick and I sat together again, much to the apparent dismay of Joy, Laurel, and Zak. I could tell they weren’t overly thrilled about the fact. Ergh. Some situations can be so annoying. Nick wants to sit by me and I don't mind it but my other friends can't stand it...so basically the choice is have Laurel, Zak, and Joy being annoyed or have Nick majorly bummed out because I tell him to go sit somewhere else. Of course with both choices, somebody is unhappy and it's pretty much my fault. *sigh* life and it's choices...

Anyway, the rest of the morning goes on with some free time following chapel, then lunch, personal Bible time, and then after all that a little bit of free time between Bible time and another round of recreation. At this point I found myself in the middle of one of the most fun games of Frisbee catch I think I've ever been involved in. So we've got me, Joy, Abby, Laurel, Nick, and Zak...and 4 of Nick's awesomely cool nylon collapsible Frisbees. What does that all add up to? Major fun!! Ohhh yeah! Part of what's so cool about these things is that you can fold them up and then when you throw them into the air they'll pop out...and when you throw 4 folded Frisbees into the air, you get a lot of popping sounds and round white discs floating around all over the place! Needless to say, I think we all had a great time. I even got to keep one of the Frisbees! Swaheet!

As we were tossing Frisbees all over the place, there came the call for recreation time. As we ran around collecting up the pieces of our game, I wondered aloud, "Hey, think they'll play Ultimate Frisbee? That would be cool!" ...and what do you know? They did! I've gotta say it was the largest game of Ultimate I think I've ever played. We had at least 34 people out on the playing field! It was pretty insane compared to the weekly games of Ultimate Frisbee I attend where if we have 20 people or more we divide into 3 teams. I had a blast though and actually managed to make several good catches. I'd say Lucy would get the most credit on my team though- she made nearly half my team's points with her end-zone catches! Yes, in the end my team won and I was quite happy about the fact.

After that we went back down to the basket ball court for another Ultimate sport....Ultimate Basket ball! Which is basically Ultimate Frisbee and Basketball all mashed together. It was fun! I forget if my team won or not though. Aw well, I guess it's "not weather you win or loose but how you play the game."

From our Ultimate games, we went back down to camp for a little free time and then we were all off to dinner! Ah yes, another delicious meal from our wonderful cooks. That is one of the things I really enjoy here, because the food is terrific. Not to mention a meal is always 10 times better when you're with your friends! I enjoy being a girl here at dinner...they always follow the "ladies first" rule, which is very much to my advantage there. Now if it was tallest to shortest.... let's just say I'd be waiting in line for a while! I'm glad that isn't the rule!

So shortly after all of that we were off to chapel once more! There was more chapel services this year than last, I can tell you that much. 3 Chapel times per day. Wow. They always had something worth wile to say though, of course. The sermons were really very good, although occasionally my mind kept wandering back to events of the day.

Once chapel let out, we all headed to the church's basement for a nice surprise from Pastor Harris- we all got Camp Hope t-shirts! How cool is that!? I love having souvaneers to bring home from a fun time! Last year I had my pinewood derby car that I made, but I liked this more because I can wear it. So we all headed down and they had us line up according to height. Nothing like knowing just how short I am! I mean, I knew I wasn't exactly the tallest person around, but man...3rd shortest person out of nearly 40 teenagers!? Come on! Maybe I need to sleep on the rack at night. haha. Of course, if I really wanna make myself feel like a midget, I can go on with that piece of knowledge and then stand next to Zak who's the tallest person in the entire camp at like 6 foot 3 or something. Oh well, at least I wasn't the all out absolute shortest.

Soon as we got our t-shirts, Beth and a few others were stationed to write our initials on the tags so that we don't get our shirts mixed up. Once that was done, I was sent up stairs, where I waited for Joy & Laurel and my other friends who were stuck farther back in line because they're taller than me. Hey, I guess there are some advantages to being the short one! So I sat down on a pew near the door to wait for everyone and shortly later who comes up stairs? None other than Nick DeRu. So we start talking and he mentions the fact that the whole week he hasn't seen my left eye and proceeds to push aside my hair...Which turned out to have been a mistake because Zak was right behind him and looked as though he wanted to slug the dude. Zak told him to back off and I was later informed that he had a serious little chat with Nick on the issue.

After that, we put our new t-shirts and Bibles and such back in our cabins and headed out to Fun 'n Stuff for a game of Pictionary. Yet another of the fun things I remembered from last summer... And come to think of it, this was the first time since then that I had played the game! Wow. It was a load of fun...I was the first person to draw for my team, and of course I was quite enthusiastic to jump on stage in front of every one and attempt drawing a picture while having a sweatshirt over my face. No, I'm not being sarcastic- it was fun!! I loved it, even if nobody did guess what in the world I was trying to draw (And hey, I'd like to know how many of you can draw a illustration for "elbow room" blindfolded and have anybody guess what it is). Really, just in general I loved every minute I got up on that wooden stage in front of everybody during the week. Introductions, Pictionary, Silly Songs Night, the skits...awesome. I just totally enjoy the opportunity to get on stage in front of a whole roomful of friends and just make people laugh by goofing off and being me. In fact, I had fun getting people to laugh even when I wasn't on stage! When it was Lucy's turn to be on stage and pick a card, Ruben held the cards out to her and told her "pick a card, any card!"...As soon as she grabbed a card, I couldn't resist the temptation, therefore I suddenly shouted out "NOT THAT ONE!!!" Nearly everyone in the room seemed to laugh at that :-) Man, I love doing stuff like that. Kinda reminds me of the time I was at McDonalds with some friends and I got a kick out of watching the confused expression on the worker when I ordered a "diet water"...

But that's another story...

Anyway.

Snack time that evening was great...well, as usual. I mean really, how can you go wrong with awesome friends and ice cream, cookies, grapes, and popcorn? Nothing like getting on a late night sugar high with some of your best friends!

Me, Joy, Dexter, and Bo were the very last campers in the dinning hall and probably the most insane as well. Anybody walking by I'm sure must have wondered what the heck we were laughing so hard about, and who knows what the cooks must have been thinking as they cleaned the kitchen, unnoticed by the 4 of us who were in hysterics over our newest invention.

"Hi-Ware!"

How did this come about? Well...you see, Dexter is mostly the one to blame... I had him sign my signature book and all he wrote was "Hi from me to you", then he proceeded to write "hi" on my hand, the bottom of my cup, and on the handle of my plastic fork. As I looked at the fork, a funny thought struck me... "Hmm... it's Hi-Ware! Kinda like Glad-Ware, I guess." Then one of the guys (I forget if it was Bo or Dex) suddenly piped up with "Don't get mad- get hi!" Yeah, gotta love our updated version of the Glad-Ware slogan, huh? After that was said, we couldn't stop laughing! Even after the four of us had to split up and head to our cabins for devotions, Joy and I were still totally cracking up.

"NOT THAT ONE!!!"