I survived!

This was written last weekend, I promise. I just haven't had enough time to post it. I will try to work on my post for this week asap. Enjoy! Miss ya Minnesota!

After a crazy last minute switch I hussled to get things ready for my week in the cabins with my first set of girls. It turned out to be a great week! I worked a lot of hours and hardly spoke to the outside world but I made it through with flying colors! Everyone was still smiling and standing at the end of the week. :)

First Day

Tuesday was when our school arrived (Bouquet Canyon Elementary). They pulled and our job, as cabin instructors, was to greet the students as they got off the bus. We then broke them into there cabin groups. I had nine girls in my cabin, which was Sparrow-Hawk. My girls were so eager to get their bunk set up. First they had to lug their stuff to our cabin. This was probably the hardest take of the week. J Sadly our cabin was the farthest away so you can imagine the complaining I got to hear along the way. I told the girls they had to carry their own suitcases because they chose to pack them so heavy. :)

Once we got to the cabin and they picked there bunks we sat down and went through rules. I have made my cabin rules with the theme of cooking/baking. Each rule is written on a recipe card and then put on and apron that I made. The girls liked it. It’s a recipe for a great week! J They had lots of questions about our camp rule about “Happy Tree.” Happy Tree is what we call going to the bathroom in the field/woods. We have to instruct them on how to do this because many of them have never been camping before. The girls were really grossed out but I told them I do it all the time and it’s no big deal. When they are out with their field groups they are gone for seven hours so it’s important that they know how to go to the bathroom otherwise we might end up with a “code yellow.” The advice I gave the girls was to role up their pant legs and squat going down hill. It also helps afterwards to do the “Brittany Bounce or the Shakera Shake” :) I’m pretty sure they thought I was weird but they soon learned.

Hereare my cabin rules. Cute huh? I thought the kiddos would like it.

After the rules, it was time for lunch. I ate with the girls and then the kids went off to their first field class. Mean while we had a cabin meeting to make sure everything started alright. They plan to have these meetings everyday for the first two weeks just to make sure that everyone is doing okay. Then pretty soon it was “switch over” time, which is when the field instructors handoff the kids to the cabin instructors. It was now time for dinner.

After dinner, my girls and I went back to our cabin for our first Tribes. Tribes is where your get a chance to bond with your cabin and make connections and hopefully spark some new friendships. My girls loved it! It was really quality time and we all became quite close through this first Tribes and the ones to follow.

Then it was time so layer up for Nocturnal Nation. This is a class that I taught outside for our night hike. Thankfully my girls weren’t too scared of the dark but they did get very cold and stumble in the dark a bit. The moon was bright so that helped. They really liked the experiment with our eyes adjusting to the darkness. Or solo hike didn’t quite work because instead of going one at a time for the walk they just went a few minutes after each other. J oops oh well. I’ll have to explain it better next time.

Time for bed! I was really worried my girls were going to get home sick in the middle of the night. I read to them until they feel asleep so that they wouldn’t have to be thinking about home. (This was something they ended up really looking forward too each night.) Honestly, I think I was the only one who had a restless night because my brain kept churning. I was so worried that I wouldn’t hear my girls if the woke up in the middle of the night or I was worried I had over slept. Turns out nothing happened in the middle of the night but we did wake up a little late in the morning. It was tough too get them moving but we made up time and weren’t late for breakfast. I had survived my first night with campers! :)

The rest of the week went well. Showering took for ever and I learned that if you teach the girls a song when you are walking to the showers, they are bound to sing it in the showers. J We did rest of the night programs (which you can read more detail about in my previous blog). My first night of Snake and Line Dancing went well. I thankfully didn’t have to hold a snake. Few! Campfire was good. My girls did a skit called Candy Shop and had a blast.

Then it was already time to pack up and go home. :( My girls were really sad and didn’t want to leave. We got our bags packed and ready surprisingly quickly and so we had time for one more Tribes. They were excited. We did the Rose, Bud, and Thorn for the week. Most of them said their bud was carrying luggage and strangely a lot of them really liked the time they had in the showers? It was funny but they really bonded in there. I guess it was girl time or something?

After breakfast the whole school goes to do the last class with the cabin instructors. We have to prepare bag lunches. I actually got pulled away early to get trained in my Project Area. On Fridays we have to clean up camp and so we have Project Areas. Mine is Teacher Housing, where the teacher’s stay while the school is here. We ended up loosing track of time and totally missed when my girls left on the bus. Oops! I actually didn’t get to say goodbye! I felt really bad. :)

Once the schools left we all were busy bees working on our project areas. We actually didn’t finish with our meeting and everything until 6:15! That was a long day! Especially since I had picked up my girls at about that time the day before so it was practically a full 24 hour shift! It was cool during the meeting to hear about everyone’s week and to celebrate that we had all survived! :) We all were going to meet at a bar half way down the mountain for a beer to celebrate.

Here are a couple pictures from when I was doing my observations. This is Stephanie. It was always hard to work all night and then have to go observe people during the night.

This was just for the pretty sight and the fact that I had a camera. It's so beautiful here!

Weekend at the beach!

My friend Kelly (not Smith, sorry) lives near Huntington Beach and invited us to stay at her place for the weekend. It was SO much fun! We were all totally pumped to go to the beach! It was funny because since Kelly lives in Cali the beach doesn’t really have that much glitter anymore, but you should have seen us. We were like kids in a McDonald’s play pen! We went crazy once we say the waves! It was so much fun to play in the waves and man are they strong! Kelly was giving us pointers and keeping track of us so we didn’t drift away too far. It was so awesome! I got sand everywhere and almost lost my bottoms a few times. J We stayed at the beach for a few hours and then went back to clean up.

It was so nice to sit in the warmth and relax after a crazy week!

The waves were so much fun to play in! I loved it!

Sunset

Kelly told us the sunset was beautiful so after cleaning up we went back. It was worth it. Pictures say a thousand words so I’ll let them speak for themselves.

It was such a neat sight to see the moon and the sun in the same sky!

Now I’m back up the mountain getting ready for another batch of kiddos. I’ll be working in the field for a five day program. Wish me luck! My first class is a Discovery Hike. I hope my teaching skills come back to me!

Here’s one last picture for you to show you all how much I miss you! Thanks for all of the calls and messages! I really appreciate them!