I decided that I should probably post my last bit of Camp Hope writings before the new year...lol. Enjoy :-)
August 1 2008
I woke up extra early that morning...Well, a half hour earlier than I did on all the other mornings, which would put me at 5:00 AM. I even surprised myself by waking up before my watch alarm went... I wanted to make sure and wake up at 5 so I had set an alarm. So I got dressed started to head out of the cabin at the break of dawn. Before I made it out the door though, my watch started beeping. Needless to say I jumped and shoved my arm under my sweat shirt to muffle the sound. There is nothing more startling than having the perfect silence of the early morning broken by an alarm that you'd forgotten that you'd set. One thing about it, I certainly got a good adrenaline rush.
After that though, I made it out of my cabin without the slightest noise, well, aside from that squeaky door that I have to go through to get out of the girl's cabin. Once out in the open of the early morning, I headed towards the pathway to the basketball court where I met up with Jacob. From there the two of us set out on the hike that we had planned the previous day. He'd tried to get more people to join us, but I was the only person who wanted to get up at 5 in the morning to go hiking. Everybody had no idea what they missed out on. The hike was awesome and the scenery was beautiful. First off we stopped by a stream with a small waterfall, where I took some photos and Jacob checked the time to see how long we had before we needed to be back for breakfast. Then we headed off on a tiny trail that he lead me on. All went pretty well, aside from the fact that I had to take frequent breaks to recharge my energy to keep from passing out. In all my hurry to get out of the cabin before waking the others, it had slipped my mind to bring any snack foods with me, which was a bad mistake. I always need to have something to get my blood sugar level up in the mornings before doing a lot of moving around because if I don't, I start to feel sick and if things go too far I can pass out. Not good. But fortunately nothing like that happened, although I felt a little wimpy at times. Bo was real nice about stopping for breaks though, and that was much appreciated.
Around 45 minutes later we arrived at a nice stopping place on the mountain side above Clover Field. The view was amazing! Oh, and seeing the rising sun shine over all the pine trees...it was just beautiful. Spectacular. One of those things that words just can't do justice to when it comes to describing. So we sat there and took in the scenery and the fresh cool morning air (and some drinks of water) and talked. Actually, thinking back on it, it kind of seems like it could have been a scene from a movie. Although if it was, Hollywood probably would have thrown in some unneeded romance. You can almost always count on the movie producers to do that. But here? Nah, just two friends enjoying God's creation together. No more, no less, and that is perfectly fine by me.
Funny, I recall last year Pastor Harris laying down a rule that a guy and a girl couldn't be off alone together without another person along. I guess it's a good thing nobody made that announcement this year or we would have been breaking the rules.
After probably half an hour Jacob checked his watch and we decided that the two of us had better head back to camp before morning exercises with Ruben started up. The two of us kinda laughed about that piece of the morning routine when we got back... Morning exercise? Ha! We had spent like the past two hours doing our morning exercise and it was far more of a workout. But you can't skip out on the morning exercise, so we joined in and stretched our tired muscles a bit more before we finally got to eat.
That day was quite a bit different than the others... instead of our usual cabin cleanup contest we were packing up our things and cleaning out the entire camp. I couldn't believe the week had come to an end so fast. I could hardly believe that this would be the last morning that I'd be tiptoeing out of a cabin of sleeping girls at 5:30 in the morning...The last day of Ruben's morning exercises... and the last time this year that I could see Anna, Bo, Zak, and the others as more than just words on my computer screen.
With all that in mind, I made sure to take advantage of the last few hours I would have with my friends there. I got the group photo with my fellow stooges that I had been dying to get ever since our first van ride together and had everyone I knew sign my hat and signature book. And I got to sing Viva La Vida with Anna & Zak while I signed Anna’s shoe... oh yeah, good times :-)
As I was talking to Zak while he emptied the trash, Dexter decided to take his last chance to be random at camp and ran up behind me and gave me a good poke in the back and ran off. A little shocked, I stood there and said "DUDE! Talk about random..." Then Nick, who was standing off to the side grinned and said "Hmm, well maybe I should do something random too." "Random such as...?" I wondered aloud...but before I finished, he answered... "NOOGIE!!!!!!!" and with that being announced, he grabbed me and did a noogie. Seconds later Zak turned around and pulled out his kendo sword and yelled at Nick telling him, "HEY! Back off of Sarah!!" So Nick quickly released me and I retreated and stood next to Zak, who at the moment reminded me somewhat of a knight, standing there with his sword out and looking like he wanted to bash Nick's head in. I think Nick got a bit lucky that time, 'cause I know Zak desperately wanted to clobber him.
An hour or two later, the saddest time came... rides started leaving and taking campers away. Jacob, Nick, and the McFauls were among the first to depart. Then a little while later the Juanita van pulled away. I nearly burst into tears at that...watching as the Boyds headed back to Seattle and Joy got closer to where she would take her plane back to Florida. It was just so sad knowing that I wouldn't get to hang with these people outside of the computer for a whole year...And that's assuming they made it back to camp. Or that I did. There's always that fear in the back of my mind that something will happen and either them or I won't make it to camp the next year.
So live like there's no tomorrow. Take some chances. Enjoy the time you have with each other while you have it because you may never have another opportunity to again. You just don’t know. So if you’ve got something to say, let it be known and don’t put it off because you might never get a chance to say it otherwise.
As far as my ride home goes, it was pretty good. Not as joyful and fun as the ride up, but hey, what do you expect? Everybody’s tired and sad to leave. One highlight of my trip back though was when we stopped at the airport in Spokane to pick up Lindy & Lucy Butler’s sister-in-law, Sara. It was the first time I’d ever been to a big airport before, so I was just happy to be along for a ride and taking in the scene. Airports are SO cool!! All the little shops and that weird looking glass room that people come out of when they get back from their trips... And my favorite thing- the spinning luggage rack dealie. That thing is awesome. The whole time I had this insane urge to hop on it and go for a ride. But I restrained myself, because I have the feeling that most people wouldn’t think it as fun as I would. I swear, if I ever get to ride an airplane, you will be able to recognize me quite well because I will be that weird girl who is going through airport security going “Wow, this is AWESOME!” I’d probably get my camera confiscated for trying to photograph the airport security dues...hehehe. Am I a small town hick or what?
Anyway, my trip ended when I got home around 10:00 that night. I was slightly surprised by the house color when we pulled up... I had completely forgotten that we were getting our house painted blue while I was gone. Haha. But that's pretty much the end there.... The end of the most amazingly awesome week of my entire life. Will next year manage to somehow top it? Guess I won't find out until it happens!
“Talking to you in real life is weird...but fun. Sincerely, Alexander”
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Monday, December 15, 2008
A New Year? AGAIN?
I love this time of year... All the joy going around, last minute shoppers, Christmas songs, lights, decorations...Knowing it's one more aniversary of the birthday of the Savior of the world!
Things had been a little hectic in November and I'd felt kind of down...but ever since December's come, I've just had this strange sense of peace & contentment. Like there's nowhere I'd rather be and nothing I'd rather be doing at the moment and I wouldn't change it all for the world. It's kind of a hard thing to capture with words and make it for people to understand. It's some thing you've just got to feel for yourself, I suppose. It's like that happy feeling you get when the movie finishes with a happy ending...Only it lasts past the ending credits and bonus features.
I can hardly believe it's almost Christmas though! It seems so insane... I mean, it feels like just a couple weeks ago that I returned home from my second visit to Camp Hope. It doesn't feel that long since last Christmast...Or that awesome New Year's party where I hung out with all my youth group friends until midnight and watched fireworks blasting over the river.
It's far but it's near
like it's gone but it's here
Flown away
But with me to stay
An explaination for time?
So very hard to say...
Haha, poet moment. What can I say? It just came to me.
But although the year's gone by so fast, I'm very happy with how it's all worked out. A lot has happened... a friendship that looked beyond gone has been once again repaired, my brother and I have grown a lot closer and I would go so far as to actually consider him a friend now, I've made some amazing new friends and gotten to know the new people of last year better. I finally broke my mental block and created a song that has both music and words together (though I have yet to perfect playing it). Even gotten to be friends with some people who I never pictured myself ever hanging out with and they turned out to be awesome. It's been an amazing year. Now this I wonder: What will my 2009 bring? ...And more than that, how long will it take me after the new year to stop writing 2008 on my journal entries? Heck, I've still written '07 on a few things by mistake...LOL!
What will our new year bring with it? I guess that's for God to know and us to find out.
Until then, in case I don't have time to make a new post before the end of next week... Merry Christmas! Love you all <3
Things had been a little hectic in November and I'd felt kind of down...but ever since December's come, I've just had this strange sense of peace & contentment. Like there's nowhere I'd rather be and nothing I'd rather be doing at the moment and I wouldn't change it all for the world. It's kind of a hard thing to capture with words and make it for people to understand. It's some thing you've just got to feel for yourself, I suppose. It's like that happy feeling you get when the movie finishes with a happy ending...Only it lasts past the ending credits and bonus features.
I can hardly believe it's almost Christmas though! It seems so insane... I mean, it feels like just a couple weeks ago that I returned home from my second visit to Camp Hope. It doesn't feel that long since last Christmast...Or that awesome New Year's party where I hung out with all my youth group friends until midnight and watched fireworks blasting over the river.
It's far but it's near
like it's gone but it's here
Flown away
But with me to stay
An explaination for time?
So very hard to say...
Haha, poet moment. What can I say? It just came to me.
But although the year's gone by so fast, I'm very happy with how it's all worked out. A lot has happened... a friendship that looked beyond gone has been once again repaired, my brother and I have grown a lot closer and I would go so far as to actually consider him a friend now, I've made some amazing new friends and gotten to know the new people of last year better. I finally broke my mental block and created a song that has both music and words together (though I have yet to perfect playing it). Even gotten to be friends with some people who I never pictured myself ever hanging out with and they turned out to be awesome. It's been an amazing year. Now this I wonder: What will my 2009 bring? ...And more than that, how long will it take me after the new year to stop writing 2008 on my journal entries? Heck, I've still written '07 on a few things by mistake...LOL!
What will our new year bring with it? I guess that's for God to know and us to find out.
Until then, in case I don't have time to make a new post before the end of next week... Merry Christmas! Love you all <3
Monday, December 1, 2008
...Yeah, I've not forgotten the rest of the camp posts!
July 31 2008
-Thursday-
Thursday was absolutely the busiest day of all the days at camp, but none the less great.
I awoke for the 4th day in a row at 5:30 and headed out...though not silently I must admit. There was a bump or two that caused a few people to stir in their sleeping bags a bit, but nobody sat up or told me to go back to bed, so I continued on.
It was getting to just be a regular habit by that point to meet Bo in the basket ball court, so once out of my cabin I headed up there again. We just sat around for a short while and then decided to give the volleyball a new sport to involve itself in and brought it up and used it to shoot hoops. After making a few baskets (and missing even more) teenage curiosity overtook and Bo decided that he would go throw the ball at the hoop that was rumored to have a hornets nest in it. Brilliant idea. But it turned out that the nest must have either died or just wasn't there because nothing happened. So we started shooting hoops over there instead.
A little bit later Dexter showed up and joined our game. It started out that we were counting up how many misses in between each basket we made and then whenever we made it we'd start over counting. Eventually though we found ourselves trying to get a lot of misses! We got our count up to about 40-something and then Pastor Harris and Peter showed up and joined in the fun. Eventually we got our score up to about 72 then after that we (well mostly Bo, Dexter, and I) decided that we should try and get our count up to 100! It took us probably 15 or 20 minutes, but we made it to 98. Then the ball was on Pastor Harris...he shoots...and NOOOOO!!!!!!!!! He makes a basket! I don't think I've ever seen anybody so dissapointed that a person got the ball into the basket. Haha! So we started over on our count, but this time we decided that so we can get our "points" up faster, we would count the amount of points a person would get from standing at each of the various lines in the court...we even added our own! If you made a miss shot from behind the hoop on the other side of the court it would gain 7 points. Soon after this new mission started up, Lucy and Suzy showed up as well. After explaining to them that it was quite the opposite of a competetive sport, they joined in our game. Before too long we made our goal- 100 points for misses! Um...yay? Yeah...YAY!!!! For the rest of the day we were laughing and telling everyone how we got 100 points in a row in basket ball. Ohhhhh yeah!
After our game ended Suzy and I headed down for a game of gutter ball before it got taken up by everyone else. Believe it or not, that was the first time this year I had gotten a chance to play! It was really fun, as always. I won against Suzy but then Dexter took me on and I lost that round.
The schedule for the rest of that day was a bit switched around again, because we had another hike in store for us... It was back to the top of Goat Peak for the Camp Hopies! It was, as like last year, a very tiring hike, but very much worth it once you got to the top of the mountain. I was in group number 2 this year, which was one of the medium groups. I was happy- I had a lot of friends on my group. Joy, Zak, Michaela, Lucy, Ellen, Elizabeth, Abby, Raeshelle, Jessica, and more! Plus our group was headed up by Ruben...what fun!
The seating arrangements for the rides to and from were the same as the day before, so that meant yet another mega fun trip in the big white van of Juanita Community Church with Laurel, Joy, and Zak in the seats beside me. I would have never imagined that I could possibly have a more fun car ride than the one of last year with Ruben, Sam, Carolyn, Mandy, Dexter, Laurel, and Jacob C., and I all singing silly songs together for an hour, but it apparently was possible! After our little car trip, I have declared the nickname of "The Four Stooges" upon Joy, Zak, Laurel, and I because I swear we must have been the most random goofy people in the whole van. I think Zak probably used up half of my camera space taking crazy photos and videos of himself on the way! It was quite amusing though...You can tell we all thought so from the steady stream of laughter that you hear in the background of every one of those videos he took :-)
I got many great photos from the hiking trip (um yeah...besides Zak's insane self-photography. Haha). The views you get on the mountain are breathtakingly incredible! I cannot even begin to describe it all... I said the same thing last year as well. I guess some things never change! For the most part the hike looked pretty much the same as before, but I swear I'll never tire of doing this every year. The one thing that was different though was the fact that there was no snow this year. There had been some large icy patches on the mountain last year, but since we were having camp later by a month, I guess it gave time enough for all the snow to melt away.
Once at the top of the mountain we had quite a fun time. Everyone got to have their pictures taken up in the fire watchtower thingy and choose out a Smokey The Bear souvenir to take back. During our brief stay at the top, we all went crazy with taking photographs... I could completely max out my camera’s memory card if I wanted to! I even have a video of Eric jumping off the top of the mountain. Well, kind of! He was messing around on this one rock, and when you stood at a certain angle it looked like the edge of the mountain. So he calls out “Hey Sarah! Video me jumping off Goat Peak!” I got myself a dramatic little movie out of that one! Eric’s yelling out “Goodbye cruel world!” and falls to his death....but no, wait! Suddenly Zak runs down and pulls him back up! Such a rescue! You can hear somebody in the background yelling “Don’t let go Eric, don’t let go!!” Oh my. And of course while on the way up to the mountain, there had to be the famous “Lewis & Clark pose” photographs. It started out as a photo of me kneeling near the edge pointing...then Ellen & Zak rushed to my side going “you can’t do the Lewis & Clark pose alone you know!” What a fun picture that was!
On the way back down the mountain, my group became “Team Flower Power”, as every single person in it had flowers in their hair. Yup, even the guys- Ruben, Zak & Mr. Bates! I even got a picture up on top of the mountain of the culprits who started it (Yeah, I was included).
It was such a very fun hike back down the mountain! Talking & tripping... singing & pop history tests... Who’d have guessed there would’ve been someone in the group who carries a miniature copy of the Constitution wherever they go? Yeah, time flies when you’re having fun- before I knew it we were back to the bottom of the mountain being cheered on and high-fived by the team ahead of us.
Once the last of the 4 teams was back down, we were all welcomed back to non-slanted ground by packages with snack foods. It’s always nice to have a little energy boost after a hike like that. After a bathroom break, we were all back to our designated motor vehicles and I was off on another mega-fun trip in the big white Juanita van! Yahoo! More hilarious videos, self photography and laughs were in store on that ride. Not to mention filming a music video of the four stooges singing “All Star”, which yet again seemed to have become the theme song of Camp Hope.
I swear, I could have gone on like that in the car with my stooge homeys forever, but I guess it's got to end some time, sadly. On the other hand, my face was totally sore from laughing so much, so maybe it was good to have a break. Ah, but how many times in your life do you get placed in the back of a van with 3 of the coolest people ever whom you only get to see like once a year? Not often enough, I'd say.
Shortly after we all got back and ditched our stuff in our cabins, Pastor Harris passed out some ice cream bars and then my team nabbed the little chapel to practice our skit some more. I still could hardly believe that we were running this through for only like the 2nd time and it was merely a few hours before we were to perform in front of the entire camp. But hey, what the heck? This method seemed to work nicely for the guys in years past.
Being the notoriously slow eater that I am, several of my lines during rehearsal were said between (er, and sometimes during...) mouthfuls of half melted ice cream. Hehe. Oh well. We had a very fun time rehearsing, as always. I really love acting! I got more variety in character this year too since I had several different rolls. That was cool. I got to be the prim & proper host of a tea party, a crazy Egyptian, and a rather distraught Jedi who later accidentally gets pulled into the mad scientist's time machine and transported to the land of the ancient Aztecs. How fun! We really had a very productive rehearsal that time around... I especially liked choreographing my light saber duel scene with Ellen :-) Though I must admit that after running through that scene and shouting my “NOOooooOOOOOoooooooo!” several times, I was pretty hoarse. Dang cold...why did it have to come the week of camp? *sigh* One good thing about it though was that when I shouted out my no line, it made my voice go all crazy which made it all the funnier. I really loved doing that!
Later that evening after dinner and the Cabin Inspectors notes, my group threw in another rehearsal before we went to Chapel. That I swear was the most fun one that we had! Definitely more laughing hystarically than rehearsing if you ask me...
“Elizabeth! What on earth did you put in this tea!?” “Oh well I only added a couple tablespoons of chili powder...” “Would you like some spinach cookies?” “You know Sarah, you really need to do something about this servant of yours!”
Hahaha, ohhhhhh yeah. Good times! The second time in one day that I hurt from laughing. But hey, if I’m gonna hurt myself, that’s the way to go! Certainly more fun than falling down a flight of stairs.
After that on the way to chapel I was still going on skit mode and decided to do my “Egyptian dance” all the way to the chapel building. Man I wish I had that on video. LOL! It was awesome. Not that I’m a good dancer...I mean more along the lines of awesomely hilarious looking. It was like ginormous bouncing steps with the goofy “Egyptian” arm movement part of the dance. Suzy found it to be quite entertaining and kept asking me to do it again... Laurel on the other hand I think was half embarrassed to claim she knew me and kept saying “Will you cut that out already?” Then I suppose anybody who didn’t happen to be a part of my skit probably was just thinking “Oh yeah, leave it to Sarah...what the heck is she doing anyway?” But hey, what can I say? It was fun! That's something I love so much at Camp Hope... I can just go crazy and have a blast and not worry about what people will think- everybody seems to just accept one another for who and what they are, and that's really cool.
When chapel let out, my fellow CIA agents and I headed back to our cabin to gather our props for the skit and had a short quickie rehearsal before we had to head off to perform it for everybody else.
Soon as we ran through a few scenes once more we went down to deposit our props...and hide a glass of water...Mwahahhaha! There were just a few more minutes until our last night of Fun ‘n Stuff would begin, and in that time I was rushing around like mad trying to find somebody who could video my group’s skit for me. I asked Pastor Harris, his wife, Mr. Busby, Pastor McFaul....all of which said they couldn’t. *Sigh*. Finally I decided to ask Libby Walker, who agreed to do it for me. Thank goodness! I was really running out of time by that point so I was very grateful to have somebody who would do it for me.
Minutes later, Pastor Harris came up and announced the beginning of Fun ‘n Stuff to the camp and introduced the first contestants in the skit competition-- The Shooting Stars! All was going well... for the first 10 seconds. Then a message popped up on my camera screen, “Low Batteries”. AHHH!!! Luckily I’d thought ahead to pack extra batteries for such a situation as this... unfortunately these batteries were in the front pocket of my backpack in the downstairs of the girl’s cabin. Uh oh. Let’s just say I’ve never ran so fast in my whole entire life. I dashed out of there in a flash, ran through the rain shower that had just started up, dug the batteries outa my backpack and was back to the skits with new batteries in my camera within 30 seconds. Whew! Amazing what a good adrenaline rush can do for a person, no?
Other than that slight problem, it all went quite well and the skits were terrific! I was SO glad that I’d brought my video camera. Of course, it is more enjoyable to watch the skits when you can laugh out loud and clap and not have to worry about not getting some one in the screen of your camera...but hey, it’s a sacrifice I was willing to make! After all, it would definitely be worth the trouble to be able to watch them again and again throughout the year.
Anyway, our lineup of the evening was The Shooting Stars who hosted the first ever Camp Hope Olympics... “I CAN’T HEAR YOU SNORING!!!”
“...And now it’s time for a new event-- WATER OLYMPICS!”
Then the CIA did a skit on time travel...
“Hey what does this button do!?” “We need a sacrifice who is old and slow, so that it will not escape like past sacrifices have.”
“ ‘Come to the Dark Side, Lily Skywalker’ // ‘NEVER!...You killed my mother’ // ‘Well...that is true, but I am your second cousin twice removed from your brother’s aunt’ // ‘NOoooOOOooooooOOO!!!!!!!!!’ ”
Then the Unknowns did the Mazama Talk Show of the Century...
“So...Bob. What’s it like being a mentally insane person?” “Ohhhh we get to shoot Dalmatians now!” “Jeff doesn’t know this, but you have won a very special contest, Jeff! We are selling Jeff, on national TV!” “ ‘So, what’s your favorite flavor of vanilla ice cream? // ‘Chocolate.’ ”
And last but not least, the Storm Troopers performed a show of movie parodies with the help of their warp machine...
“This child is very sad...he goes to public school.” “How do we stop that lunatic Darth Vader??” “You have reached the Death Star Operating System.” “Do you want fries with that?”
Oh yeah, gotta love the Camp Hope skits! We even got a bonus skit this year that nobody had counted on-- while the judges were deciding upon the winners, several of the camp staff performed their own skit with a mock presidential speech and an attack of the Dark Knight.
“This will be an era of change!” “And I promise that every camper shall have an ice cream bar in each hand.” “STAY ON YOUR BOTTOM!” “I’LL GET YOU NEXT TIME!”
That was an awesome skit, especially with Ruben as the villain and all. He does the most awesome evil voice ever.
At the end of it all, my group’s skit was voted for funniest-- I was truly amazed. I totally thought that the Mazama Talk Show would be voted funniest. Those guys were absolutely HILARIOUS! You have no idea how insanely hard it was to keep from cracking up and ruining my video recording. Their costumes were really awesome too... Actually they were the only group who had actual costumes.
It was quite funny to see Mr. Pederson dressed like a rapper...and the costume for Sushi The Samurai was great.
After the skits and all, we didn’t get to do the usual tradition of a big camp fire because of two reasons... One would be because it was raining and two would be because since it’s August, there was a burning ban ‘cause of all the dry weather. But despite the fact, we had a good time. We all went to the dinning hall and ate microwave s’mores and still carried out our tradition of playing Volleyball in the dark. I gotta say that my two favorite things that happened after the skits though were signing everybody’s books and having a duel with Zak. Don’t ask me why, but I had totally been dying to have a duel with him for some reason. It was my light-saber VS. his kendo sword...Awesomeness. I’m not completely sure who won the duel though...I thought that I did but then he thought that he did. Hmm. Oh well. Whatever the outcome was, it was totally fun!
Thursday nights at Camp Hope...they’re the best!
“You can OWN your very own Boy Scout!”
Monday, November 24, 2008
Out of the tunnel & through the fog
It's funny some times how it's like we're in a fog, but we don't know it.
For like the past couple of weeks I'd been pretty down and the whole time my mind set seemed to be mostly all "why me?" thoughts. Just sitting alone in my room at night feeling sorry for myself... but now it's like seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Or, well, actually more like the darkness of the tunnel I just came out of, really.
I finally feel like myself again...yep, same 'ol optimistic, cheery, happy-go-lucky Sarah that I nearly always am. Thinking back over the past few weeks there, it makes me wonder what the heck I was thinking and why. I mean seriously, I can just be so lame some times. When the fog lifts and I can see things clearly, I can realize just how stupid and selfish I can be sometimes. I mean seriously, it was pathetic. I was pathetic. Because really, I have nothing to complain about. If I ask the "why me?" question about anything it should be "Why me? What did I deserve to end up in such a good spot in life?", 'cause well, I am. When I get to thinking about it, I realize that I really have far more than I deserve. I certainly have done nothing to earn it all.
A totally cool family, a good house, all the little techie things that I've collected up that I enjoy so much, and I have the most amazingly awesome friends in the world <3
I guess it just takes the right comparison to make me realize some times. Especially after hearing my mom talking to the mom of this one friend of mine... They're living paycheck to paycheck pretty much and around the end of every month they can barely put food on the table some times. They've gotta go to the food bank and some times that place doesn't even have sufficient, what with all the other people who use it. They live in this appartment that only has about as much room as the upper & middle floors of my house together and they have a family of 6 (mom, dad, and 4 kids)! We're in a house that has quite a bit more room than theirs and it's just four of us. The mom and kids have to do two paper routes every week to be able to bring in enough cash to make ends meet.
After hearing stuff like that...especially about a good friend of mine... it makes me feel sort of guilty that I have so much and they have so little. It's stuff like this that tells me just how much I am blessed in life. I mean really, not every teenager has their own pocket pc.
But pray for Steph and her family. Maybe that her dad would get a pay raise or that he would find a job that would better support him and his family. That God will continiue to provide for them enough to be able to get by. That maybe...maybe they could come to my church. Or at least find a church. They are Christian, but when they first moved to the valley here a year ago and were looking for a church, then accidentally ended up getting into a wild throw-yourself-on-the-ground, jump up and down, crazy kind of church and ever since then their dad has been too stubborn and paranoid to try any more churches. So....yeah.
For like the past couple of weeks I'd been pretty down and the whole time my mind set seemed to be mostly all "why me?" thoughts. Just sitting alone in my room at night feeling sorry for myself... but now it's like seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Or, well, actually more like the darkness of the tunnel I just came out of, really.
I finally feel like myself again...yep, same 'ol optimistic, cheery, happy-go-lucky Sarah that I nearly always am. Thinking back over the past few weeks there, it makes me wonder what the heck I was thinking and why. I mean seriously, I can just be so lame some times. When the fog lifts and I can see things clearly, I can realize just how stupid and selfish I can be sometimes. I mean seriously, it was pathetic. I was pathetic. Because really, I have nothing to complain about. If I ask the "why me?" question about anything it should be "Why me? What did I deserve to end up in such a good spot in life?", 'cause well, I am. When I get to thinking about it, I realize that I really have far more than I deserve. I certainly have done nothing to earn it all.
A totally cool family, a good house, all the little techie things that I've collected up that I enjoy so much, and I have the most amazingly awesome friends in the world <3
I guess it just takes the right comparison to make me realize some times. Especially after hearing my mom talking to the mom of this one friend of mine... They're living paycheck to paycheck pretty much and around the end of every month they can barely put food on the table some times. They've gotta go to the food bank and some times that place doesn't even have sufficient, what with all the other people who use it. They live in this appartment that only has about as much room as the upper & middle floors of my house together and they have a family of 6 (mom, dad, and 4 kids)! We're in a house that has quite a bit more room than theirs and it's just four of us. The mom and kids have to do two paper routes every week to be able to bring in enough cash to make ends meet.
After hearing stuff like that...especially about a good friend of mine... it makes me feel sort of guilty that I have so much and they have so little. It's stuff like this that tells me just how much I am blessed in life. I mean really, not every teenager has their own pocket pc.
But pray for Steph and her family. Maybe that her dad would get a pay raise or that he would find a job that would better support him and his family. That God will continiue to provide for them enough to be able to get by. That maybe...maybe they could come to my church. Or at least find a church. They are Christian, but when they first moved to the valley here a year ago and were looking for a church, then accidentally ended up getting into a wild throw-yourself-on-the-ground, jump up and down, crazy kind of church and ever since then their dad has been too stubborn and paranoid to try any more churches. So....yeah.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Eruption.
Life is just so crazy. Some times I don't even understand myself...
Despite all the friends I've been able to see and the fun activities happening, I always end up feeling down. I guess some things just build up. I'm like a volcano waiting to go off... I can feel it bubbling up, waiting to be poured out, just waiting to cry out to anybody. Anybody who I feel will actually listen, that is. And there really aren't that many people who I feel I can really pour it all out to. (at any rate though, thanks Bo for being there and sitting through my rants...lol)
Between having all of my co-volunteers at the library move and be replaced by a boatload of strangers and a certain practical joke that I won't go into detail of, and the fact that there are certain friends whom I really wish I could talk to more but they've lately been rather unresponsive...eh, life.
But why am I letting things get my down so much? I don't know. It's like I can't control it any more... I've ignored my problems for so long that they've finally come back to bite me, to get that one last laugh. *sigh*
Despite all the friends I've been able to see and the fun activities happening, I always end up feeling down. I guess some things just build up. I'm like a volcano waiting to go off... I can feel it bubbling up, waiting to be poured out, just waiting to cry out to anybody. Anybody who I feel will actually listen, that is. And there really aren't that many people who I feel I can really pour it all out to. (at any rate though, thanks Bo for being there and sitting through my rants...lol)
Between having all of my co-volunteers at the library move and be replaced by a boatload of strangers and a certain practical joke that I won't go into detail of, and the fact that there are certain friends whom I really wish I could talk to more but they've lately been rather unresponsive...eh, life.
But why am I letting things get my down so much? I don't know. It's like I can't control it any more... I've ignored my problems for so long that they've finally come back to bite me, to get that one last laugh. *sigh*
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Long time, No write!
Ok, so I am straying for a moment here from my posts of camp... They seem to be coming quite few and far-between here. And yes, I do apologize for that.
Anyways............
This weekend I've been staying with the Rutlers- these people who go to my church. My parents are currently away in Cour 'D Alene this weekend, staying at the resort there and doing stuff at this marriage conference. Turns out they were the grand prize winners for a drawing and got free admission and board at this thing! Pretty cool, eh? They typically don't win anything.
So anyway, it's been pretty fun here, surprisingly. I wasn't so sure at first if I would have much fun or not, but Rob & Mimi are really nice and we've been having a good time. Yesterday they went shopping for a birthday gift for my pastor's wife and Nathaniel and I came along for the ride. That was awesome. We went to a couple antique shops and to The Diamond Shop. Sure, doesn't sound overly exciting, especially if you're a guy...but I really enjoyed it!
Let me tell you this: There is nothing like being downtown Lewiston during the holiday season. It is incredible. Especially The Diamond Shop. Yeah, yeah, it's the begining of November and I'm talking Christmas?? Yes. I am suddenly feeling very much in the Christmas spirit. But who wouldn't, after being in where I was? Downtown Lewiston is just simply...amazing. All the stores now have their Christmassy items in the shop windows and The Diamond Shop is all decked out with their 10 foot tall beautifully color-coordinated Christmas trees and all of the other trimmings. Just walking around in there makes me feel happy :-) Now I desperately have the urge to go back...with my camera.
The antique shops weren't all decked out, but those were rather fun as well. Or at least the 2nd one was. The first one was pretty boring because all they had was old furnature and it smelled weird. But the 2nd one had EVERYTHING! There was stuff all over to look at...millions of random objects from decades past. I especially love looking at all the funky antique jewlery. I just love stuff like that. The crazy long bright strands of beaded necklaces from the 60's and the shiney rhinestone necklaces. They are SO cool. In my opinion anyway. Some people are totally into the whole modern look and all of that, but I really like some of the old jewlery. I bought myself a long golden necklace with a giant heart pendant for 5 bucks. I duno why, I'm just highly attracted to necklaces that have ginormous pendants on them. I love 'em :)
Anywho, I hope I didn't loose you there in my whole reliving of antique shopping. haha. After we got back from doing that yesterday, we had dinner and then watched The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. I've been told by the Boyds time and time again that I MUST see that movie. Well, you guys can all rest hapily now because I have. And I absolutely loved it. That was a terrific movie!! Just as good as the books, I'd say. And being a girl, well, I've got to throw my opinion in here and say that I thought that Peter was so totally cute.... ;) lol
Today I awoke and got up around 8:30 and an hour later my brother and I headed off to help decorate Locomotive Park- a long time tradition of Lewiston, Idaho. Every year volunteers come and help decorate that place with lights...every tree is all covered and by the time it's all done and they light the park up on the first weekend of December...oh my gosh it is so AMAZING! There is simply no other way to describe it. It is so fun to go there every year on opening night where there are hundreds of people gathered there taking in the sights ... Especially when you know that you were oneo f the people who helped make it happen.
We stayed around up there from 9:45 until around 12:30...though we actually only helped out until noon. After that they served us all lunch and then we just hung out until my ride came. It was a load of fun though- I met up with my friend Dwight and his family. I've been enjoying every moment I've been able to spend with them and taking every opportunity to see them. They are moving this monday...it's so sad :( Dwight and I have worked side by side at the library for the past three years. I can hardly bare to see them leave to Wisconsin, knowing that I may not ever see him again. Sure, we have email, but that is nothing compared to the fun we have in person...we are constantly teasing eachother and he always loves to make crazy sarcastic remarks. Things like that just aren't as funny when they're merely words on a screen. *sigh*
Anyways, we worked for about an hour and then my friend Ian arrived! How fun! So we let him join our group and I introduced him to everyone because he'd never met Dwight and his family. After work and lunch, the Krauses (Dwight's family and him) left. So Ian and my brother and I fooled around for like a half hour or 45 minutes until Mimi showed up with the car to take us home. We had a real fun time... I brought my camera along and we took pictures of eachother on the locomotive of Locomotive Park. You will probably be seeing those on my facebook some time soon here!
Other than that, there hasn't been a lot happening the rest of today. After we got home I took a shower 'cause I realized that sitting under that pine tree apparently was a mistake because I had a large splat of sap in my hair that I couldn't get out :-P Ick. Then Nathaniel and I watched The Shaggy Dog movie. Hehe I love that one. It's funny. And well...that pretty much sums up my weekend so far! The rest of the time has been spent here with me typing away as I listen to Christmas music play in the background that Mimi has on... :) ah yes, I do love it so much. I would say that is probably half the reason why I suddenly feel so ready for Christmas. Crazy the effect music has on us, isn't it?
Well, I think that I shall end my post here and go relax and listen (mayb even sing along!) to the lovely music and leave you to go about the rest of your day and do whatever it was you should have been doing but ignored to read my blog post (why thank you! I do appreciate what readership I have, even if it isn't very big).
Anyways............
This weekend I've been staying with the Rutlers- these people who go to my church. My parents are currently away in Cour 'D Alene this weekend, staying at the resort there and doing stuff at this marriage conference. Turns out they were the grand prize winners for a drawing and got free admission and board at this thing! Pretty cool, eh? They typically don't win anything.
So anyway, it's been pretty fun here, surprisingly. I wasn't so sure at first if I would have much fun or not, but Rob & Mimi are really nice and we've been having a good time. Yesterday they went shopping for a birthday gift for my pastor's wife and Nathaniel and I came along for the ride. That was awesome. We went to a couple antique shops and to The Diamond Shop. Sure, doesn't sound overly exciting, especially if you're a guy...but I really enjoyed it!
Let me tell you this: There is nothing like being downtown Lewiston during the holiday season. It is incredible. Especially The Diamond Shop. Yeah, yeah, it's the begining of November and I'm talking Christmas?? Yes. I am suddenly feeling very much in the Christmas spirit. But who wouldn't, after being in where I was? Downtown Lewiston is just simply...amazing. All the stores now have their Christmassy items in the shop windows and The Diamond Shop is all decked out with their 10 foot tall beautifully color-coordinated Christmas trees and all of the other trimmings. Just walking around in there makes me feel happy :-) Now I desperately have the urge to go back...with my camera.
The antique shops weren't all decked out, but those were rather fun as well. Or at least the 2nd one was. The first one was pretty boring because all they had was old furnature and it smelled weird. But the 2nd one had EVERYTHING! There was stuff all over to look at...millions of random objects from decades past. I especially love looking at all the funky antique jewlery. I just love stuff like that. The crazy long bright strands of beaded necklaces from the 60's and the shiney rhinestone necklaces. They are SO cool. In my opinion anyway. Some people are totally into the whole modern look and all of that, but I really like some of the old jewlery. I bought myself a long golden necklace with a giant heart pendant for 5 bucks. I duno why, I'm just highly attracted to necklaces that have ginormous pendants on them. I love 'em :)
Anywho, I hope I didn't loose you there in my whole reliving of antique shopping. haha. After we got back from doing that yesterday, we had dinner and then watched The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. I've been told by the Boyds time and time again that I MUST see that movie. Well, you guys can all rest hapily now because I have. And I absolutely loved it. That was a terrific movie!! Just as good as the books, I'd say. And being a girl, well, I've got to throw my opinion in here and say that I thought that Peter was so totally cute.... ;) lol
Today I awoke and got up around 8:30 and an hour later my brother and I headed off to help decorate Locomotive Park- a long time tradition of Lewiston, Idaho. Every year volunteers come and help decorate that place with lights...every tree is all covered and by the time it's all done and they light the park up on the first weekend of December...oh my gosh it is so AMAZING! There is simply no other way to describe it. It is so fun to go there every year on opening night where there are hundreds of people gathered there taking in the sights ... Especially when you know that you were oneo f the people who helped make it happen.
We stayed around up there from 9:45 until around 12:30...though we actually only helped out until noon. After that they served us all lunch and then we just hung out until my ride came. It was a load of fun though- I met up with my friend Dwight and his family. I've been enjoying every moment I've been able to spend with them and taking every opportunity to see them. They are moving this monday...it's so sad :( Dwight and I have worked side by side at the library for the past three years. I can hardly bare to see them leave to Wisconsin, knowing that I may not ever see him again. Sure, we have email, but that is nothing compared to the fun we have in person...we are constantly teasing eachother and he always loves to make crazy sarcastic remarks. Things like that just aren't as funny when they're merely words on a screen. *sigh*
Anyways, we worked for about an hour and then my friend Ian arrived! How fun! So we let him join our group and I introduced him to everyone because he'd never met Dwight and his family. After work and lunch, the Krauses (Dwight's family and him) left. So Ian and my brother and I fooled around for like a half hour or 45 minutes until Mimi showed up with the car to take us home. We had a real fun time... I brought my camera along and we took pictures of eachother on the locomotive of Locomotive Park. You will probably be seeing those on my facebook some time soon here!
Other than that, there hasn't been a lot happening the rest of today. After we got home I took a shower 'cause I realized that sitting under that pine tree apparently was a mistake because I had a large splat of sap in my hair that I couldn't get out :-P Ick. Then Nathaniel and I watched The Shaggy Dog movie. Hehe I love that one. It's funny. And well...that pretty much sums up my weekend so far! The rest of the time has been spent here with me typing away as I listen to Christmas music play in the background that Mimi has on... :) ah yes, I do love it so much. I would say that is probably half the reason why I suddenly feel so ready for Christmas. Crazy the effect music has on us, isn't it?
Well, I think that I shall end my post here and go relax and listen (mayb even sing along!) to the lovely music and leave you to go about the rest of your day and do whatever it was you should have been doing but ignored to read my blog post (why thank you! I do appreciate what readership I have, even if it isn't very big).
Friday, October 3, 2008
And They Threw It Out The Window!
July 30 2008
-Wednesday-
Yet another morning beginning at 5:30 am! Just as I had hoped. I do so love the mornings there! I got dressed and went outside to another bright and sunny day! Of course being that it was shortly after sunrise, it wasn't exactly warm, but oh well. I took a walk out to Clover Field...It seemed so weird to be up at the field when it was completely empty with nobody else around...yet it was so beautiful. I looked up to the mountain that stood so high on the other side of Clover Field... It was covered in pine trees and there was a halo of light illuminating the very highest peak. This would be an incredible photograph! I thought to myself as I looked down to where my camera usually hung off a lanyard on my neck. Oh shoot, just my luck. I left my camera in the cabin. There was no point in running back to retrieve it. By the time I got there and back the lighting would have changed, not to mention I'd be running the risk of waking up my cabin mates, which I suspected that they probably wouldn't have appreciated. I stared back up at the mountain a little longer before heading back down to the basket ball court.
Once more I ran across Bo, sitting in the same place as the day before writing in his journal. We talked a little and then looked around to see if we could find a basket ball...but had no luck. Not long after, several of the other guys emerged from their cabins and came up to the basket ball court as well. Zak, Nick...and I think Eric and a couple others too. I pulled out the collapsible Frisbee that Nick had given me the day before and we all played catch for a while. That was fun, although I learned the hard way nylon Frisbees were never meant to bounce on concrete. It got rather worn out in a hurry :-( It turned out that Nick had quite a few of these though and let me have another one. Yay! But let’s just say I didn’t play Frisbee on the concrete anymore after that.
Eventually we all got tired of playing catch and headed down to start off the first gutter ball game of the day. That didn’t last too long... Eric had won again and I was just about to have my turn to play him when Pastor Harris came down and informed us of a new rule that we weren’t allowed to play that game until after the wakeup call. *sigh* Oh well. I suppose there are some people in the camp who need more sleep than the rest of us.
Once breakfast was over we all headed off for cabin cleanup... Of course I helped out on my group's creativity a bit. I drew up a sign in my notebook that said "Cleanliness is Next to Godliness" which I had my stuffed dog holding up for the judges to see.
Then we had recreation and following that was chapel. Nick and I grabbed a seat together again...It turned out that I was sitting with all guys this morning! After the two of us sat down Zak joined us along with some other dudes from the cabin of the "Undecided's".
At lunch time later that day, we were all given sandwiches and ate outside at the picnic tables. I got a good laugh...Both from Zak's jokes and from the group of teens who decided to jam themselves onto a miniature picnic table! We had Clayton, Eric, Ben, Jessica, Raeshelle, Scott, and Peter all crammed onto the tiny eating space. Oh my! What a sight that was. We had a bit of action going on at my table too, what with the conflict between Nick and Joy, Laurel, & Zak. At times Zak & Laurel sounded like they wanted to slug the dude...Although I can't remember quite why.
Sometimes my life feels like a movie, and this week was one of those times... Happiness, music, conflict, friends, action and romance....Oh yeah. Not to mention valuable life lessons! Gotta love summer camp.
Anyway, after lunch we were all rounded up and headed to the parking lot where we were all assigned vans and travel partners. We're goin' on a hike! I couldn't have been happier about where I got placed- I got the big van with Pastor Harris at the wheel and Laurel, Zak, and Joy accompanying me in the back seat. Needless to say we had an awesome time.
When we got there we all divided up into hiking groups. I was in one of the medium ones, along with Nick. Him and I talked the whole time and Mr. Bates said that we must have the largest lung capacity of our entire group to be able to go on hiking those hills and talking a mile a minute all the way up. All in all it was a terrific trip up. The scenery was beautiful, the pace wasn’t too bad, and the conversation was fun. It wasn’t long before we reached our destination, which was this incredibly pretty waterfall. I got some good pictures of it, along with the surrounding area, and other campers.
About a half hour later or so, we all were to regroup and head back down the side of the mountain. Before we left, Nick decided to get a photo of him and I beside the water fall. I’d thought about having a copy of it on my camera too, but we were being called back over to the group so I didn’t have time. Once we got back over, I made a last minute decision to switch groups and join up with Laurel, Zak, and Joy who were in the slow group.
After we had traveled down the trail a ways, there came a walkie talkie call saying that there was a camper up ahead who had a twisted ankle and was waiting up for the slow group to come down so he could join. When we got there who did we find? None other than Nick DeRu. I wasn’t really surprised, I figured that he would probably find some way to join up in the group that I was in. He had tried to switch earlier, but they wouldn’t let him for some reason. So Zak got down and took a look at Nick's ankle and wrapped it up... Yep, Mr. Prepared is on the case! I swear, if there was any disaster to happen, Zak had something on him that would help. I guess it's true about boy scouts, they really are always prepared. Or at least this one sure seems to be. Anyhow, Nick seemed to be fine, although he swore his ankle hurt, him and everyone else made it down just fine. Once we got back to the end of the trail, we had a snack break and headed back to our vans for the ride back to camp.
After we got back everyone was given ice cream bars and two options to vote on- either do a sporting activity of some kind with Ruben, or have an hour to brainstorm with your cabin group about what to do for the skit contest of the upcoming day. Most everyone was tired out from the hike though, so when they did the show of hands almost everybody voted to work on the skits.
Amazingly, up until this point there hadn't been any mentioning of what we should do for a skit from my group, which was a rather drastic change from last year when we came up with our skit on the second day of camp and practiced it every spare minute that we had throughout the day. Really though, I'm glad that it happened like it did because it gave me more time to hang out with my friends who were in other cabin groups, which was something that I really didn't do much of last year.
We were all tired from the hike and rather brain dead, so for the first half hour most of the ideas we threw out to each other for skits were really lame. Like a veggie tales skit. Who'd want to do a skit where you can't use your hands, anyway? Some of our other ideas were a Survivor spoof or a spin off of Indiana Jones...what we finally decided to settle on was a skit about time travel. I liked the idea- especially because I was able to convince the girls to have a scene where I could use my light saber! Yeah, that was basically my focus...I didn't really care what the skit was, I just wanted to have a scene in whatever we did where I could have a light saber duel with somebody.
After our brainstorming session, we had another chapel. On the way from my cabin, I ran across Nick who asked if we were going to be taking up our "usual spot" as he put it. I agreed and then headed off to find my stuff, and Laurel & Joy. Once we got down to the chapel we sat down by the end and then on the other side several girls from my cabin came and joined us. For some weird reason my row was popular! By the time Nick got there, there was only one spot left in our pew, and Laurel and Joy made sure to scoot so that there wouldn't be room for one more. So he sat a row across from us. He looked pretty disappointed, and I felt kinda bad...although the two of them told me that was dumb and he was the last person I should be saying that about. But even so, I considered him one of my friends and I don't like shoving people off like that, even if everyone else says he's annoying.
Following chapel #2 was a bit of free time and then dinner. Ohhhh yeah. After a busy afternoon of hiking and skit planning and everything else, that was something that sounded really good. Then again, meal times were always really good. But of course no time beats free time here. As we stood in the line to the dinning hall, Joy and I looked across the row at Nick who was looking rather depressed still as he waited in line, leaning on the pair of crutches he'd found. Was the sprain really that bad? He made it down the mountain just fine...But whatever. After dinner was through, Joy, Laurel, and I were heading out and passed by him. Laurel was rather disgusted at his sad attempt at faking an injury and confronted him about it, as Joy and I stood back watching with wide eyes being halfway shocked that anybody would actually be that hard and upfront about the matter. Not long after though, he ditched the crutches. Apparently his ankle wasn't that bad off.
Later that night, we had one of my favorite Fun 'n Stuff activities- Silly Songs! It's so insanely goofy, but oh so much fun. Luckily my throat had enough crud in it to blot out the soreness from my cold, so I was able to sing as loud as anyone else. I couldn't remember the words to quite all the songs, but they were all fairly easy to pick up on so it didn't take me too long to get singing with the crowd. I even hopped up on stage with a few others to lead one of the songs-something I had really wanted to do. So me, Lindy, Lucy, Zak, Anna, and some others lead the group in singing "I Met a Bear". That was so hilarious...I very much wished I had gotten somebody to take up my video camera for me on that one. The song it's self is kind of funny, but what really made it awesome was the acting job done by Lindy and Zak. That was great, with Lindy trying to reach the highest branch of the "Tree". Eh, I guess the part of the tree fits him well- after all, Zak is the "Landmass", as the guys had nicknamed him.
I may not have been able to video the song that I did, but I did get several of the others. "The Second Story Window" was a fun one, although you could never hear on my recording what the other team was singing because my team was always whispering what nursery rhyme we'd sing when it was our turn again. I so love singing the chorus on that one though- the tune is great and the words are pretty funny. "...And the threw 'em out the window! The window, the window, the second story window! With a heave and a ho and a heafty throw and they threw 'em out the window!"
Another favorite of mine was the "Little Ford" song. On that one they called all of the guys up on stage to lead the song, which of course was quite comical. I am so glad to have that one on video! Well, I got most of it on video. Since the song repeats so much, I didn't get the whole thing because it's rather long and I didn't want to use up all of the space on my camera that night. Even so though, I got a good portion of it. Even Pastor Harris was up there for that song!
Oh, and one other one I cannot forget to mention that we did was "Fried Ham". Yeah, another incredibly repetitive song, but totally funny what with all the different accents on each verse! "Second verse same as the first. What accent do ya think is worse?" Of course they did the famous cowboy accent version, as well as some others, such as under water, and the best one I think I've heard yet - helium accent, which makes everyone sing it super-high pitched. That was great- especially with the fainting job performed by our camp comedian.
Anyway, after we sang our last silly song, everyone headed out to the kitchen for snacks. As we headed in I remembered Wednesday of last year's snack time...oh the fond memories! I had had such a blast sitting around the table playing spoons with everyone! Yeah, good times...playing the game, singing "If you're happy & ya know it" and pounding the table, laughing like mad even though I hadn't the faintest idea what we were all laughing at, constantly pausing the game to take photos.... Awesomeness. We didn't end up doing that this year though. But big game of spoons or not, we had fun 'n food together, thus [nearly] ending another great day of camp (but of course, we always had cabin devotions before our day was completely finished).
"Match in the gas tank, NO FORD!!!"
-Wednesday-
Yet another morning beginning at 5:30 am! Just as I had hoped. I do so love the mornings there! I got dressed and went outside to another bright and sunny day! Of course being that it was shortly after sunrise, it wasn't exactly warm, but oh well. I took a walk out to Clover Field...It seemed so weird to be up at the field when it was completely empty with nobody else around...yet it was so beautiful. I looked up to the mountain that stood so high on the other side of Clover Field... It was covered in pine trees and there was a halo of light illuminating the very highest peak. This would be an incredible photograph! I thought to myself as I looked down to where my camera usually hung off a lanyard on my neck. Oh shoot, just my luck. I left my camera in the cabin. There was no point in running back to retrieve it. By the time I got there and back the lighting would have changed, not to mention I'd be running the risk of waking up my cabin mates, which I suspected that they probably wouldn't have appreciated. I stared back up at the mountain a little longer before heading back down to the basket ball court.
Once more I ran across Bo, sitting in the same place as the day before writing in his journal. We talked a little and then looked around to see if we could find a basket ball...but had no luck. Not long after, several of the other guys emerged from their cabins and came up to the basket ball court as well. Zak, Nick...and I think Eric and a couple others too. I pulled out the collapsible Frisbee that Nick had given me the day before and we all played catch for a while. That was fun, although I learned the hard way nylon Frisbees were never meant to bounce on concrete. It got rather worn out in a hurry :-( It turned out that Nick had quite a few of these though and let me have another one. Yay! But let’s just say I didn’t play Frisbee on the concrete anymore after that.
Eventually we all got tired of playing catch and headed down to start off the first gutter ball game of the day. That didn’t last too long... Eric had won again and I was just about to have my turn to play him when Pastor Harris came down and informed us of a new rule that we weren’t allowed to play that game until after the wakeup call. *sigh* Oh well. I suppose there are some people in the camp who need more sleep than the rest of us.
Once breakfast was over we all headed off for cabin cleanup... Of course I helped out on my group's creativity a bit. I drew up a sign in my notebook that said "Cleanliness is Next to Godliness" which I had my stuffed dog holding up for the judges to see.
Then we had recreation and following that was chapel. Nick and I grabbed a seat together again...It turned out that I was sitting with all guys this morning! After the two of us sat down Zak joined us along with some other dudes from the cabin of the "Undecided's".
At lunch time later that day, we were all given sandwiches and ate outside at the picnic tables. I got a good laugh...Both from Zak's jokes and from the group of teens who decided to jam themselves onto a miniature picnic table! We had Clayton, Eric, Ben, Jessica, Raeshelle, Scott, and Peter all crammed onto the tiny eating space. Oh my! What a sight that was. We had a bit of action going on at my table too, what with the conflict between Nick and Joy, Laurel, & Zak. At times Zak & Laurel sounded like they wanted to slug the dude...Although I can't remember quite why.
Sometimes my life feels like a movie, and this week was one of those times... Happiness, music, conflict, friends, action and romance....Oh yeah. Not to mention valuable life lessons! Gotta love summer camp.
Anyway, after lunch we were all rounded up and headed to the parking lot where we were all assigned vans and travel partners. We're goin' on a hike! I couldn't have been happier about where I got placed- I got the big van with Pastor Harris at the wheel and Laurel, Zak, and Joy accompanying me in the back seat. Needless to say we had an awesome time.
When we got there we all divided up into hiking groups. I was in one of the medium ones, along with Nick. Him and I talked the whole time and Mr. Bates said that we must have the largest lung capacity of our entire group to be able to go on hiking those hills and talking a mile a minute all the way up. All in all it was a terrific trip up. The scenery was beautiful, the pace wasn’t too bad, and the conversation was fun. It wasn’t long before we reached our destination, which was this incredibly pretty waterfall. I got some good pictures of it, along with the surrounding area, and other campers.
About a half hour later or so, we all were to regroup and head back down the side of the mountain. Before we left, Nick decided to get a photo of him and I beside the water fall. I’d thought about having a copy of it on my camera too, but we were being called back over to the group so I didn’t have time. Once we got back over, I made a last minute decision to switch groups and join up with Laurel, Zak, and Joy who were in the slow group.
After we had traveled down the trail a ways, there came a walkie talkie call saying that there was a camper up ahead who had a twisted ankle and was waiting up for the slow group to come down so he could join. When we got there who did we find? None other than Nick DeRu. I wasn’t really surprised, I figured that he would probably find some way to join up in the group that I was in. He had tried to switch earlier, but they wouldn’t let him for some reason. So Zak got down and took a look at Nick's ankle and wrapped it up... Yep, Mr. Prepared is on the case! I swear, if there was any disaster to happen, Zak had something on him that would help. I guess it's true about boy scouts, they really are always prepared. Or at least this one sure seems to be. Anyhow, Nick seemed to be fine, although he swore his ankle hurt, him and everyone else made it down just fine. Once we got back to the end of the trail, we had a snack break and headed back to our vans for the ride back to camp.
After we got back everyone was given ice cream bars and two options to vote on- either do a sporting activity of some kind with Ruben, or have an hour to brainstorm with your cabin group about what to do for the skit contest of the upcoming day. Most everyone was tired out from the hike though, so when they did the show of hands almost everybody voted to work on the skits.
Amazingly, up until this point there hadn't been any mentioning of what we should do for a skit from my group, which was a rather drastic change from last year when we came up with our skit on the second day of camp and practiced it every spare minute that we had throughout the day. Really though, I'm glad that it happened like it did because it gave me more time to hang out with my friends who were in other cabin groups, which was something that I really didn't do much of last year.
We were all tired from the hike and rather brain dead, so for the first half hour most of the ideas we threw out to each other for skits were really lame. Like a veggie tales skit. Who'd want to do a skit where you can't use your hands, anyway? Some of our other ideas were a Survivor spoof or a spin off of Indiana Jones...what we finally decided to settle on was a skit about time travel. I liked the idea- especially because I was able to convince the girls to have a scene where I could use my light saber! Yeah, that was basically my focus...I didn't really care what the skit was, I just wanted to have a scene in whatever we did where I could have a light saber duel with somebody.
After our brainstorming session, we had another chapel. On the way from my cabin, I ran across Nick who asked if we were going to be taking up our "usual spot" as he put it. I agreed and then headed off to find my stuff, and Laurel & Joy. Once we got down to the chapel we sat down by the end and then on the other side several girls from my cabin came and joined us. For some weird reason my row was popular! By the time Nick got there, there was only one spot left in our pew, and Laurel and Joy made sure to scoot so that there wouldn't be room for one more. So he sat a row across from us. He looked pretty disappointed, and I felt kinda bad...although the two of them told me that was dumb and he was the last person I should be saying that about. But even so, I considered him one of my friends and I don't like shoving people off like that, even if everyone else says he's annoying.
Following chapel #2 was a bit of free time and then dinner. Ohhhh yeah. After a busy afternoon of hiking and skit planning and everything else, that was something that sounded really good. Then again, meal times were always really good. But of course no time beats free time here. As we stood in the line to the dinning hall, Joy and I looked across the row at Nick who was looking rather depressed still as he waited in line, leaning on the pair of crutches he'd found. Was the sprain really that bad? He made it down the mountain just fine...But whatever. After dinner was through, Joy, Laurel, and I were heading out and passed by him. Laurel was rather disgusted at his sad attempt at faking an injury and confronted him about it, as Joy and I stood back watching with wide eyes being halfway shocked that anybody would actually be that hard and upfront about the matter. Not long after though, he ditched the crutches. Apparently his ankle wasn't that bad off.
Later that night, we had one of my favorite Fun 'n Stuff activities- Silly Songs! It's so insanely goofy, but oh so much fun. Luckily my throat had enough crud in it to blot out the soreness from my cold, so I was able to sing as loud as anyone else. I couldn't remember the words to quite all the songs, but they were all fairly easy to pick up on so it didn't take me too long to get singing with the crowd. I even hopped up on stage with a few others to lead one of the songs-something I had really wanted to do. So me, Lindy, Lucy, Zak, Anna, and some others lead the group in singing "I Met a Bear". That was so hilarious...I very much wished I had gotten somebody to take up my video camera for me on that one. The song it's self is kind of funny, but what really made it awesome was the acting job done by Lindy and Zak. That was great, with Lindy trying to reach the highest branch of the "Tree". Eh, I guess the part of the tree fits him well- after all, Zak is the "Landmass", as the guys had nicknamed him.
I may not have been able to video the song that I did, but I did get several of the others. "The Second Story Window" was a fun one, although you could never hear on my recording what the other team was singing because my team was always whispering what nursery rhyme we'd sing when it was our turn again. I so love singing the chorus on that one though- the tune is great and the words are pretty funny. "...And the threw 'em out the window! The window, the window, the second story window! With a heave and a ho and a heafty throw and they threw 'em out the window!"
Another favorite of mine was the "Little Ford" song. On that one they called all of the guys up on stage to lead the song, which of course was quite comical. I am so glad to have that one on video! Well, I got most of it on video. Since the song repeats so much, I didn't get the whole thing because it's rather long and I didn't want to use up all of the space on my camera that night. Even so though, I got a good portion of it. Even Pastor Harris was up there for that song!
Oh, and one other one I cannot forget to mention that we did was "Fried Ham". Yeah, another incredibly repetitive song, but totally funny what with all the different accents on each verse! "Second verse same as the first. What accent do ya think is worse?" Of course they did the famous cowboy accent version, as well as some others, such as under water, and the best one I think I've heard yet - helium accent, which makes everyone sing it super-high pitched. That was great- especially with the fainting job performed by our camp comedian.
Anyway, after we sang our last silly song, everyone headed out to the kitchen for snacks. As we headed in I remembered Wednesday of last year's snack time...oh the fond memories! I had had such a blast sitting around the table playing spoons with everyone! Yeah, good times...playing the game, singing "If you're happy & ya know it" and pounding the table, laughing like mad even though I hadn't the faintest idea what we were all laughing at, constantly pausing the game to take photos.... Awesomeness. We didn't end up doing that this year though. But big game of spoons or not, we had fun 'n food together, thus [nearly] ending another great day of camp (but of course, we always had cabin devotions before our day was completely finished).
"Match in the gas tank, NO FORD!!!"
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