The post camp life.

For those of you who followed me this summer, this post may come as a surprise. With summer far gone, there's not a whole lot you'd expect to hear from me, now that I'm back in the midwest (and have been for awhile).

Yes, summer is long gone (for now), in fact it snowed where I'm at last night, and pretty much everywhere else in the midwest. (Seriously, I have friends reporting snow from every state in the midwest). So while winter is clearly on it's way, the summer still remains in our hearts, a statement which holds true to many people I know.

Spending a summer at camp is a game changer, and often life-changer for most. I find very few who walk away with summer camp without a change in perspective from when they first arrived. And this has held true no matter what camp you may visit. j

When I was in second grade, our family moved from a very dense, populated Wisconsin City to a small town about an hour north. My father took a job a Christian camp in Central Wisconsin, and so began my journey into "camphood" as I'll call it. Ever since I was young I flourished at camp. I loved it and everything it stood for. Camp became my second home, and the place where my strongest relationships have bloomed. I though for years that there was no way I'd ever find a place I loved more than here.

Until last summer, that is.

If you've read at least one of my other blog posts, you'll have realized somewhere along the lines that this past summer I took a step out of Wisconsin, and lived at another campground in Northern California for about 12 weeks. Going into the journey I felt a mix of emotions. "Would I ever come to like this camp the same way I grew to love the campground I grew up at?" I had no idea what the summer would hold, but I figured since it was camp, and I would be cooking (probably the third thing in the world I love most) I knew I'd like it, at least enough to stay. But what I didn't expect, was how much I really would come to love Northern California and CRM, my summer home. The people I worked with last summer were such a different group than I had ever worked with, and they were greater than I ever imagined. For those of you who know me well, or have visited Sky Lodge, you'll know that it holds part of my heart that will never be replaced. But if you've gotten the change to sit down and talk with me about this last summer, you'll have seen the excitement in my eyes as I shared with you the stories from my adventures in California.

I know I hadn't really given a "last post" about my summer. I wrote my last post at the beginning of the last week. I had intentions of writing a summary blog post during my final hours of travel back to the midwest, but it never really did happen, did it. I guess I just couldn't come up with a way to end my journey. I can't come up with the right words to describe the end of my summer. There just aren't words.

The last night was probably my favorite (and least favorite, since I spend the last full day of camp in bed, sick). But that night we had our final staff meeting around a campfire. Our boss, Vicky, told us all about the journey we had just embarked on, and how she had seen it evolve from beginning to finish. She shared with us her favorite moments and the impact we had made that summer. The rest of us too went around the circle and told our favorite stories and how we landed in the middle of the woods of Northern Cali for a summer, stuck with 15 other we had never met before.

Most of us talked about how we had no idea what it was going to be like going into it, but how we were SO thankful we had taken a leap of faith and trusted that everything would turn out okay. And it did.

So here I am thinking about what next summer holds. I already have a few options. I can stay in Central Wisconsin and work at the summer camp where much of my history has been laid, or travel again out west and visit a new favorite place. I still haven't decided at all which I will choose, or even if there's a third option. There's so many things I want to do, but I can't be everywhere at once.

I'll leave you with this. Take heart. Where have you invested your time and heart in. If you haven't, there's no better time than now. Life is short, often too short, and we need to think of others around us more than ourselves. Find what you love, and pursue it. Take chances along the way. I know I have, and while it hasn't been the easiest thing I've done, it certainly has been the most rewarding.

Last Week of Camp

This week is a ball of emotion. This is our last week of camp, and my last week living in California [for now] and we keep having "lasts" that I'm not ready to have. Everyday is now our last "day"- our last sunday, our last monday, our last... whatever. And it's weird. Little things that we keep doing week after week is now something we'll do for just one last time. And I don't like it. I started packing yesterday. Or at least I started organizing to start packing. It's hard to pack when I use a lot of the things I need to pack, so I have a feeling I'll just be packing on Friday before I leave on Saturday. I'm just trying to take in everything for the last time this week.

Last weekend me and three of my friends went to Lake Tahoe again. We had originally decided to go floating on the river, but they were closed, so we went to Kings Beach with Ali's family who came to visit for a few days, and I'm glad we did that. Ali's family is great and her younger sister, Lanie, is hysterical!! We hung out at the beach and went out for dinner and walked around the village by their condo, even sat around an outside gas campfire for awhile.

This week has already been good. The campers are great, and there's a lot of them. It's the largest group we've had all summer, so there's always plenty of people around. One thing that's stuck out about this group to me is their names. And maybe you'll think this is weird, but their names are unique that it's interesting to me. And most of them have "normal" american names, but it's the spelling that's different:

Jaramie instead of Jeremy
Shayne instead of Shane
Leia instead of Leah

The list goes on, but those are three of the ones I can think of now.

Last night we had the special olympics. The night was full of fun games such as javelin throw, disc throw, hockey, badminton, 100 meter dash, bowling and more! I got to act as photographer for a good portion of the night and then helped set up pins for bowling. All in a day's work.

I know I've probably said it before, but I'll say it again! I have been so blessed this summer, and I am so glad this opportunity was given to me. I will treasure my experience here and the friends I have made for the rest of my life. I know this is my last week, but I'm going to make the best of it and soak it in while it lasts.

Lassen County Kids Week

Well, so far, so good. This week really has been a good week here at camp, so far (I know it's only wednesday, but the kids do leave on Friday, so we're more than half way through the week). It's a nice small week. We've got about 50 campers and counselors combined so it's a more chill week. We haven't had to rush around the kitchen as much as some weeks in the past, although next week, we'll about double the amount of campers, so we'll end with a bang! Lots to look forward to next week. First, it's my "menu week" which means we get to use the menu that I planned for next week. We'll make some of the same food we've made all week, but I've added a few things and kept a few changes the other interns have made too. I'm adding banana bread french toast, alfredo-spinach lasagna, and white chili, so I'm looking forward to it.

Also, tonight it parent's night! This is the only week we have parent's night, since the kids are from the local area. We'll have a talent show and presentation that the kids will show off to their families, just to show them what we've been up to this week.

I guess that's about it for now. Also, shout out to Anna Lovisa and my sister Rebekah who both have called me and left lovely voicemails since I can't always pick up the phone with the time difference and schedule differences.

Other than that, have a good day!!

Two More Weeks

Well, we're kind of getting down to the grind of things, we've got two weeks left and still a lot to do. This summer has sure flown by! 

This week we're hosting a camp called Lassen County Kids Camp for kids from the area. They don't have any disability, so we're ready for a week of energetic kids (ages 6-12). It's the first full day of camp for them and so far, so good. Things seem to be going fine. What's different about this week is that it's a camp that we put on entirely: our camp director is directing everything this week, and we're in charge of how everything runs.

This past weekend was good and I had a nice 24 hours off. We went to the Burney-McArthur Falls. They're beautiful waterfalls about two hours away from Camp. I'm glad we got to go, since it's been highly recommended by all the locals, and it is a very pretty area. We got to dip our feet in the falls, but we couldn't swim in them. I mean we would have, if the water wouldn't have been so cold! Year round the water averages between 42-48 degrees, so we weren't about to jump it. Other than that, it was just a relaxing time off. 

Still doing a lot of the same things I've done since the beginning. This week I'm on the morning dish shift, so I work two small shifts in the morning, and I"m done by 3pm, so it's nice to have a little bit of the afternoon off.

Here's some picture from this weekend: 

Updates

For those of you who have been checking my blog regularly this summer, I'm sorry for the lack of updates these last two weeks. So much has happened, and there's been little time to write about it all. Also, I've been ignoring the fact that I should write an update, and often push it off, thinking I'll write later and then it just never happens.

This past weekend on our 24 hours off, me and five other friends headed to Lake Tahoe. We camped at a local campsite (I couldn't tell you which one and there's like a million in Tahoe). But first, we spent the afternoon around Tahoe. After setting up camp, we headed to the Lake and visited Kings Beach. It was BEAUtiful! Lake Tahoe is such a pretty place. I thoroughly enjoyed my time there. I dipped my toes in the water for a bit and the laid out on the sand. There were lots of people enjoying themselves as well. Lost of boast parked as close to the shore as possible, and lots of happy children playing in the water. It was nice to sit back and relax a bit after a long week.

Then we headed out the the Truckee Carnival in Truckee, Ca. We were a little disappointed, though. It wasn't much of a carnival. I mean, there were plenty of booths and rides, but it was so small. We basically went, walked from one side to the other, rode the ferris wheel and then left. Not very exciting, but a cool little stop, I suppose.

By then it was getting late, and we stopped to get a late dinner at Jax, a famous restaurant in Truckee. Supposedly they've been on the Food Network and other shows because of how good they are, and I would have to agree. I got a falafel on flatbread and it was excellent. We enjoyed dinner and conversation before headed back to our campsite. By the time we got back it was 10:30 and we were ready for bed, so we didn't even have a campfire, which is rare.

Here are some photos from my recent adventures:

On the place ride back from Wisconsin, about mid-flight I noticed this outside my window. They fields were circles and stripes. Pretty neat if you ask me. 

The Truckee Carnival

Ferris Wheel

Carnival: Truckee, California 

Carnival: Truckee, California 

Carnival: Truckee, California 

Camp Lots-Of-Fun

This week we're hosting Camp Lots-Of-Fun.

How is this week different than other weeks?

-There are less older campers and more younger campers. In fact, there's a whole cabin of younger boys and a couple young girls.
-There aren't as many activity times, so we've switched to a schedule we haven't had before (although it hardly affects me, in the kitchen).
-The counselors are all in college. Past camps have been mostly counseled by high schoolers or adults.
-There are less campers with physical disabilities and more with mental disabilities. There's no one in a wheel chair, where other weeks there's been 6 or 7 campers in wheel chairs.
-Campers came in on Monday instead of Sunday, so our work day on Sunday was more relaxed and fun.


Overall, this camp has a similar feel to what we're used to, and yet they're a little bit different. I think I've finally caught up on sleep and adjusted to the time difference. Hopefully that stays true.

Family Camp

As most of you know by now, I've had the pleasure of spending the week in Wisconsin for Family Camp, 2013. We had the week off from Camp Ronald, so I flew home for my favorite week of the summer back home. And while I've been here I've done a lot of everything and a little bit of nothing. I've spent a lot of time relaxing- something well deserved after seven long weeks at camp so far. I've really enjoyed the time off and being able to not plan anything all day and just let life happen. It's nice not to have to make lots of plans for once.

While I got to surprise my friends and family, I was also surprised by a few friends of my own. On Monday, Emily Cushman showed up at Sky Lodge for the afternoon. Tuesday Shayna and Evan Karg also came for the afternoon, and I spent the night with Shayna before she left Wednesday. Emily, Shayna, and Evan are all friends I knew growing up at camp, and really got to know them at Family Camp each year. Another reason why Family Camp was the perfect week to go home- I knew a lot of people would be there just because it was Family Camp.

This week Jeremiah Bolich is our main speaker. I've been going to his morning break out session and evening service so far this week. I've always enjoyed Jeremiah, so I'm glad I get to hear him again. I heard him for the first time the summer before my seventh grade year. He was the speaker for Young Teen Camp. He's since then spoken several more time at Young Teen Camp and Family Camp now.

My free time has been spent doing many different things. Tuesday I had my first Slush Puppie of the summer. Slush puppies are a sky lodge classic and it wouldn't be a summer without one. Cherry's my personal favorite. I've also watched a few tournaments too. I got to see some of the 3-on-3 basketball tournament Tuesday. It was nice to watch because it was inside in the air conditioning and it's been so hot, I've been trying to stay inside some. We watched the team IronMan yesterday too. Four laps of swimming, four laps of biking, and four laps of running. Also, the softball game was yesterday so me and Kaila Johnson got to sit in the shade and watch the annual softball game- although it wasn't too popular this year because of the heat. They basically sat outside and baked in the sun all afternoon, trying to play the game.

Overall the week has been filled with lots of fun and surprises. I am more than thankful for my time in Wisconsin and I'm glad I decided to come home for the week. Although, at the same time, I've got to admit, I'm beginning to miss Camp Ronald and look forward to another month in California (:

One Thing I've learned

One thing I’ve learned through my travels, is that every place has it’s beauties. The landscape from town to town and state to state is so different, and so beautiful, unique to its own likeness. I think California is beautiful, but it’s a different sort of beautiful that I’ve always seen in Wisconsin.  They are both equally beautiful places.

One thing I’ve learned through my travels, is that I like traveling a lot. I just traveled from Northern California to Central Wisconsin, making a stop in Illinois all by myself, something not many people can do or have done, and I find myself not alone but surrounded by travelers like myself.

One thing I’ve learned through my travels, is that being from Wisconsin, we always joke about Illinois being so flat. And while Illinois is pretty flat, as I return to Wisconsin from California, I find myself thinking the same thing about Wisconsin; it’s pretty flat compared to the rolling hills of Cali.

One thing I’ve learned through my travels, is that I miss the bright green, lush grass I’m so used to in the Midwest. Lost of the west, at least were I’ve been, is sandy desert, and I miss being able to sit outside in the grass and lay in the sun.  We have a little bit of lawn at Camp Ronald, but it’s not the same, since most of the rest of  camp is sand, laden with small bushes and weeds poking its head out of the ground.

One thing I’ve learned through my travels, is that no matter where we go, there are people just like us. People coming to and fro from work to school; bus to train; conference to job. Everyone’s always going, and sometimes it’s nice to stop and rest for a moment to enjoy the city your in. Besides, before it you know it, you’ll be gone by the morning.

One thing I’ve learned through my travels, is that I’m not the biggest fan of flying, and yet on the other hand it’s a thrilling experience. I’ve gotten nervous at least once on each of my three flights so far this summer. If I wasn’t nervous at take off it was the turbulence. Or the landing. Or the change in pressure. But I take a moment to thing about how many planes come and go from airport to airport each day. So many people do this each day and they’ve survived. And if they can do it, so can I

One thing I’ve learned through my travels, is I’m a traveler.

How I Ended Up In Wisconsin

By the time I am able to post this without ruining this without ruining the surprise, all of what I’m about to say will have happened, and perhaps I have already had the pleasure of telling you this story in person, but in case not, here’s what just happened.

Back in the first week of June at one of our nightly staff meetings, the CRM staff were informed that one of the rental groups had canceled on us and we no longer had a group for the week of July 14^th. This was supposed to be Camp Sign Shine, a group of kids with hearing impairments, mostly deaf. Unfortunately, due to many unforeseen circumstances, they weren’t able to return this summer and we’d have a week with no one at Camp. At some summer camps this could be a good week for the staff to work on special projects and get caught up on housekeeping formalities. However, since CRM is so small there isn’t work for us to do without campers using the facility. And with that we were given a week off. We were given July 13^th -20^th  off. We were encouraged to visit California, rest and spend the time enjoying ourselves to rest up since we’ve worked hard and have hit our mid-summer mark. Upon hearing the dates of our week off, my mind immediately started to spin, and I was almost positive that this would be Family Camp at Sky Lodge and the rest was history. The timing couldn’t have been better.

I kept debating whether or not I should go home for that week. It was family camp, so it was the best week to go home. However, there would be many logistics and expenses to be figured out. I couldn’t decide what to do. For about a week I kept going back and forth, trying to decide whether or not I would  visit home for a week. “Is it really worth it,” I thought. But it was. I would have regretted not coming home for family camp on my week off, and to make things better, I’d make it a surprise. From that point onward I would do my best to keep my traveling plans a secret and try to find my way home without telling any of my friends of family. It’d make a pretty good surprise, if you ask me.

So for the past month I’ve planned and planned trying to figure out how I could pull this off. But in the end, I somehow managed to pull it off, and this is how it went (or how it’s going to go, since as I’m writing this I’m only half way through my journey):

On July 13^th we got done with work at 11:00 am and people started pulling out of camp. Me and my friend Char waited for the rest of the campers to leave camp and then our boss, Vicky, drove us to Reno on her way home. We flew out about the same time, and our week off had begun. From Reno I flew to Phoenix, where I am currently waiting for my connecting flight to Chicago, O’Hare. Once I land in Chicago at 5:30 am (July14th) I will take the blue line downtown and meet one of my roommates (Liz) for coffee. My roommates are one of the only people I told I was coming home because I wanted to meet them in Chicago if at all possible. One of my other roommates, Lauren will also meet us in Chicago later that morning, so my Sunday will be spend hanging around town with two of my lovely roommates. My third roommate, Bri, wasn’t able to join us, but is headed to Chicago next week, unfortunately.

Then at 2:15 pm I will leave by train for Portage. I’m hoping that I can sleep some since I know my sleep will be messed up since I’ve been traveling for a better part of 24 hours. I’ll arrive in Portage where two of my friends from high school, Matt and Peter, will pick me up. We’ll spend some time in Portage before they drop me off at Camp. It’ll be good to catch up, especially since I never know when I’m going to see them next. Our schedules don’t exactly mix very well, and the fact that I currently live on the west coast doesn’t help our situation.

From there, I’ll go home. I’ll probably stop at home first before heading to Sky Lodge, but wither way I cannot wait. And I cannot stress that enough. I can’t wait to see everyone I have been missing very much this summer, and I cannot wait to see their faces when they find out my surprise visit home. If there’s one thing I’ve realized this summer, it’s that my heart belongs to Sky Lodge, but sometimes you have to leave and go to other places as the Lord calls. But it’s still hard leaving familiar faces and places. These are the people I love and cherish the most and getting to spend an extra week with them will be a blessing for sure.

The Week So Far

This week has definitely been on e of my favorite weeks here, for sure. It's the last week of camp ReC and we just have a really good mix of classic campers and great counselors who love what they do with Camp ReC. Also, there's been several counselors from week one who have showed up randomly just to help with this week because they love it so much, so we have extra counselors to help with the campers which is great because sometimes the regular counselors just need a break. Working one-on-one with a special needs child or adult for any length of time can get weary.

Yesterday was BEACH DAY! And it was the first week it really felt like beach day. We actually got to eat down by the beach because it wasn't too cold, plus all the campers seemed to be in a good mood and weren't cranky before lunch! My high light was playing legos with a man named Mark for about an hour. Mark is in a wheelchair and doesn't speak and most of the time he just looks like a grumpy man, but he's joyous at heart. I got to sit with him and talk to him the first day during our game show night, and it was good to see him again at the beach. Right away when he got down to the shade deck near the waterfront he wheeled his chair right up to me, and grabbed my hand, (as I've noticed he's a big hand-holder). For a minute I didn't know what to do because there wasn't a hole lot to do there except sit and talk, and since he can't talk, I wasn't sure what we were going to do for the next hour...until we brought out the leggos. He loved legos. He would grab the pieces he wanted and showed me where to put them and I'd snap them in place. It's been nice getting to know Mark this week since it's normally hard for kitchen interns to get to know the campers as well since we're inside a good chunk of the day. It's weird to me that tomorrow is the last full day of Camp ReC for the rest of the summer, but I'm looking forward to the time we still have left. There's still lots going on in the next 60 hours that they'll be here, so I'm looking forward to all of that.

After this week comes to a close I'll be looking forward to a restful weekend. This week has been tiring to say the least and I'm looking forward to some time of rest!

Camp ReC

Today seemed like a whirlwind of everything.

I woke up extra early to go running. If I wait to go running on my morning break, I'm still full from breakfast and I can't run on a full stomach, so I've found that waking up early is the way to go. Then during my morning break I got to chat with the gorgeous Anna Lovisa and lovely Mariah Phillips. It's good to hear from good friends from time to time, especially when you aren't expecting it (:

The rest of most of the day was spend in the kitchen- from 11 to 7:30. Our supervisor was sick today, so we were short in the kitchen and we definitely felt it, but in the end we pulled through. It'll be nice to have him back tomorrow, though.

The carnival went very smooth tonight, and since I was in the kitchen late, I got to play paparazzi once I was done working. I love walking around and taking pictures of the campers, so I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Here's a few pictures from tonight:

Camp ReC Session Three!!!

Well, here we are. We've begun our last session of Camp ReC. Looking back to the beginning of the summer I remember thinking "There are three sessions of Camp ReC?" It felt like it would be forever before we saw the last session. But here we are, session three. And I can tell you right now, this week is going to fly by way too fast. This is a great group of counselors and campers mixed. They have a lot of returners and high, high energy. They're going to be a really fun group to work with this next week and I cannot wait!

Going back, I spent this past weekend in Reno. My friend Ali had her birthday on the 5th and we celebrated this weekend by taking a trip to Reno. We stayed the night at the Circus Circus hotel and got to see Reno a bit while we were there even though we weren't there but less than 24 hours. There was a festival going on this past weekend there for the fourth of July, so there was lots happening. There was a chicken wings competition, lots of vendors (mostly selling typical touristy things), and live music. We weren't able to listen to the live music very long but what we heard was great! It was great getting to see and hear some good, authentic local music from a bigger city (they were really pretty good). And we went out to an authentic sushi bar for dinner and I had myself a California roll which was more than fantastic- I was thoroughly pleased with my purchase.

Other than that, I'm just looking forward to this next week- it's looking to be a good one, for sure!

July 4th 2013

Happy Independence Day, everyone!!

Here at Camp Ronald, we like to celebrate just a little. We only dress up and parade around camp and a local campsite. We've got the statue of liberty, some cheerleaders, and I had the privilege of becoming Miss America for the day! Lots of red, white, and blue here. I don't think I've celebrated July 4th quite like this before; what an afternoon!

Laundry Day

Wednesdays are my laundry days here at Camp.

And boy, am I thankful for free laundry.

I definitely don't miss paying $3.00 for a single wash and dry at school, that's for sure.

In other news...here's a few pictures I've taken recently:

July is Here!

Another week has begun. I mean, it's Tuesday, so campers have been here going on three days already, but it seems like just the beginning of the week (and in some ways it is), but I can tell you already, the rest of the summer is starting to go a lot faster and sure enough, before I know it, I'll be headed back Wisconsin and the summer will come to a close. But that's still a long ways off,...

This week we're hosting a camp called Camp StarBound. It's a group of primarily girls (50 girls and 3 boys) who rehearse dancing (contemporary, jazz, ballet, hip hop), singing, and musical theater all day preparing for a showcase which they'll preform at the end of the week. It's one of our only weeks with a group without disabilities, so the schedule looks a little bit different than other weeks will. They are constantly going and playing games and activities since they're much more mobile than some other groups. But they don't stray away from the stereo type of 50 teenage girls at camp together. Lots of high-pitched screaming, cheering, and laughing.

Thankfully this is a smaller and easier week. There's less people, so that means less food to be prepared and less dishes to be washed. But next week it'll pick right back up.

Since I've been here, I can't help but be reminded of things going on back home. It's little things here that trigger thoughts of friends of family back home, such as:

-This weekend when we went into town and went past Highland Baptist Church on our detour. My Opa (German for grandpa) pastored a Baptist Church in Highland, Illinois for several years, so I was reminded of my time I spend there.

-When I went hiking the other weekend I was reminded of observatory hill and how that was the extend of my hiking in Wisconsin. Definitely a little bit smaller (or a lot bit smaller) than the mountain I hiked here in California. Observatory Hill reminded me of Megin and Joel Worsham and the Zone Staff, as Observatory Hill is an annual staff outing. They went on that outing just this last weekend, actually.

-The sand here makes me think of the sand at home. Sand here is very coarse and rocky, whereas the sand back home is way more fine and pure. There's also lots of places where there's red sand, which I find fascinating. It reminds me of Rachel Klein, since last I knew she collected sand from different places she's visited.

-In Susanville (the town nearest to Camp) has a sign out ever Saturday that says: Free dinner, 6pm, Crossroads Ministries." At first, I was hopeful that it would have to do with my friend Jenna M., who's traveling with Crossroads around the west this summer to spread the word on pro-life, but sadly it wasn't her team. Another branch of the same (or at least similar) ministry

-Lots of the counselors for Camp Rec look a lot like friends from back home, so it's been nice to be reminded of familiar faces.

-The scenery here isn't a whole lot like Wisconsin, but whenever we travel we see lots and lots and lots of pinetrees, which I thought we had a lot back home (which we do) but not compared to here. It also doesn't help that I'm in a national forest, so there are bound to be lots of pine trees.

-California has got pinecones the size of you head (almost literally). I'm in search for the largest pinecone I can find, but right now there's one about as big as my arm. We have one at home sitting on a bookshelf in our living room, so they remind me of home, strangely enough.

Needless to say, while California is much different than Wisconsin, there's still those little things that make me feel right at home. And living with some great new friends here helps that too (:

June Review

This week I've just been thinking to myself "June is almost over, where did it go?" With that, I mark my summer being more than half way over. But it sure doesn't feel like that. I still have a lot planned for this summer. I've still got a lot to do before I go back to school this fall. I still have a lot of people to catch up with, I still have a lot to do. Plain and simple. And then I realize June ends today and I can't believe we're here already. So much has happened in the last month or two, and it just doesn't seem like I'm ready for summer to move at such a fast pace. Tomorrow July begins, and I have very high hopes. It's looking to be the best month of my summer, and I hope that's certainly true.

Last week was a very busy week for us in the kitchen. It was our largest group yet, and we're just really get the hang of things. This week is our last week through our first set of rotations. In other words, I'm doing the last of my different shifts this week. Thankfully, it will be a more relaxing week. It's called Camp StarBound, a group of students 8-18 who are here to practice their dance and show choir skills. This week the campers will not have any sort of disabilities, on of the two weeks that will happen this summer.There's about fifty girl campers and three boy campers, or so I here, which I guess makes sense since it's more of a dancing camp than anything. This week is also more laid back because they're doing most of their own programing, so they require less of us. There's no morning unit times and program staff only has to help with programing in the afternoon for a few hours. It'll be a nice week to prepare for another crazy week following this. I'm really looking forward to it.

After this week we'll begin to cycle through our shifts again, but this time it'll be a little bit different, we'll get to do more like modify our menus and be able to take more control of how the food is prepared and made. And after we cycle though our shifts again, we'll be on the last week. It seems so far away, but I know it'll creep up on us. So right now I'm looking forward to a wonderful July and another month with the friends I've made here before we depart (possibly forever) in August.


OH! And also, one last thought: yesterday on our time off we went in to town and stopped at McDonalds for lunch since we had gift cards and it was the strangest thing. We cook here with a lot o the food they have at McDonalds, so it was just weird to see cups, containers, water jugs, and other food supplies there that we see and use on a regular basis. Needless to say, a trip to McDonalds will never be the same.

All you need to know.

Here's some random facts, things that I've learned, or things that have happened while I've been in California:

First off, you should note I work on Eagle lake, which is close to Susanville, so when we 'head to town' we really mean we drive to Susanville, which is the equivalent to driving to Portage, WI back home, except there's literally NOTHING in between Camp Ronald and Susanville.

-Susanville used to be called Roopville [weird, I know.]

-There are two prisons in Susanville. And I have already visited one of them. [We had to get fingerprinted the first week for background checks.]

-For every happy meal sold in the northern Cali/nevada area, one cent is donated towards Camp Ronald McDonald.

-We're at about 5000 feet in altitude, so we have to adjust our cooking to account for the altitude sometimes, which is good practice.

-California has pinecones the size of my arm. Literally. I'm bringing home/shipping back pinecones. We have one already on our bookshelf downstairs from California, but now I'll have my own.

-Eagle Lake is the third largest lake in California, or so I've been told. The third deepest is Lake Almanor, where I have boated, sailed and camped the last two weekends.

-Northern California has the strangest weather in June. At one point in time it had hailed three out of the ten days. Some days it's 41 degrees and others, like today, it's in the 90's. 

-The mountain net door looks kinda big, kind of small, But once we climbed it, we found out you can't even see a lot of it from the ground. It keeps going. And going. And going.

Update!

I didn't realize how long it had been since I'd last updated. I mean, three days isn't a long time, but it is when you're waiting for an update, or you're used to be posting more often.

These past few days have been so busy I don't know where to begin. It was hard at first, thinking that We weren't as connected with this group as the last, which is still kind of true, but we're definitely getting to know this group a lot better. There's a lot of great campers and some that have been going to camp for years now, so it's been nice to see them around and watch how they interact with others.

We had the carnival night on Tuesday, which was again a big success. I got to see more of the campers and hang out with them some. Yesterday was movie night. They watched Wreck-it Ralph while we had our staff meeting. After the movie night, the counselors had a mid-week motivational meeting, so our staff had to be on night watch to make sure all the campers were fine while they slept. The staff members on my cluster of cabins ended up just watching a movie, since all the campers were fine.

Other then that, I've just kept pretty busy in the kitchen making breakfast and lunch for 100 campers and staff members. I've made lots of different foods: breakfast egg bake, pancakes, Muslie French toast, pancakes, breakfast sandwiches, grilled cheese, turkey burgers, kale chips, and much, much more. Needless to say, the menu here is awesome and I'm loving every moment of it. Not only do I get to cook great food, but eat great food, all summer long!

Weekend Trips and a New Camp Session

A lot has gone on in the past 48 hours, and I am way to tired than I should be to write about it, but I must force myself to write it out before I forget.

On Saturday after lunch we left to go camping at Lassen Volcanic National Park. Unfortunately, when we got there they were all out of camp sites. But we still got to walk around a little and see the park. It's BEAUtiful, by the way!

So we headed back towards camp and found a campsite on Lake Almanor. We set up a few tents and built a fire, typical camping stuff. We roasted hotdogs with onions over the fire in foil packs and scarfed down a ton of Oreos and peanut butter. We walked around the lake some and got to see the moon, which was SUPER big that night. The rest of the night we hung out around the campfire and talked mostly.

Then, when we got back it was back to the camp scene. This week is another session of Camp ReCreation and a whole new set of campers and counselors are ready for another good week.

Today I was able to attend their Mass. It was kinda fun and interesting to get to see how they do their services here. Lots of singing and maraca shaking. Some of the campers also got to act out the bible story being told, so that was fun.

Today we ended with a Hollywood trivia game show. The campers were asked a ton of questions about Disney and for the most part, were pretty good. There was a lot of fun and cheering.

This week I have a morning kitchen shift, so I get to cook breakfast and lunch, which has been wonderful. I love cooking, and this shift has the most cooking, so I'm excited. It makes it worth getting up before 6 am.

Add up everything I've done this past 24 hours, and I'm exhausted. But it's been totally worth it.

Friday Night

Today was another "last full day of camp." This week has flown by it doesn't even seem like it's been three days. Last night we had a talent show that everyone got to participate in, so that was fun. Everyone got to be in a skit or sing a song. Everyone loved it,  so it was wort it!

Today's evening activity was a formal dinner and dance. Everyone got all dressed up, the staff served the campers, and we ate in a decorated dinning hall. Afterwards everyone headed down to the amphitheater for an outdoor dance. I was a little worried about how it would go at first, but it ended up being really great. I got to dance with a few of the campers, and they all seemed to have a really good time. A lot of them really like to dance and some of them are pretty good. And of course, we danced to some classics like the Cha-Cha slide, The Macarena, The Chicken Dance, and The YMCA.

Tomorrow we'll have our 24 hours break. This weekend most of the food service interns have decided to go camping, so we're headed to Lassen Volcano National Park for the night. It's a local national park and one of California's active volcanos, so it should be fun. They have a ton of camping sites and sites to see, so it should be really neat. It was one of the places I wanted to go when I was looking at the area before I arrived, but I wasn't sure if anyone would want to go since it's over an hour's drive, but then again, so is a lot of things. So that's our plan so far, we'll see how that goes!

Weather Update

So living in Northern California, you'd think it'd be warm, nice, and sunny all the time, right? Wrong. We've had some pretty ridiculous weather the past week. Although, I can't say I wasn't warm because my boss Vicky warned us that weather here in June is crazy. Needless to say, it's been pretty chilly. It's still pretty sunny, but we haven't had waterfront the last two days because it's been to cold for the campers to play at the beach. And to top that, it's hailed, yes hailed, three out of the last ten days. Returning staff members said they didn't see hail once last year, and we've already had it three times. When I work up this morning and went outside, I was surprised by little slush piles the hail left behind all over camp. Not exactly what I thought I'd be seeing in the middle of June, but I guess that's the weather for ya...

Happy Campers

The campers this week are all great. They may have disabilities but most of them are really smart. Here's a little bit about them:

Maria (left) is a helper, so almost always wants to help do something wether it's dishes or sweeping, but we usually can't let her help to much otherwise she won't leave to go to her activity.

Marissa (left) LOVES chocolate chip pancakes, and she can tell you anything about any disney movie. She's also got a stuffed dog named Kelly which she loves very much and likes to carry around so he can have fun too.

Jordan (in the brown hat) can't speak, but he doesn't have to. He's full of smiles and is great a giving hugs. He's a favorite this week for sure.

Douglas (middle) is the funniest in my oppinion. He lets you know if he doesn't like something and loved splashing people at the waterfront yesterday.

Darth (brighter blue jacket and hat) is really enthusiastic, anytime we sing a song or cheer for an activity, his voice can always be heard.

Nick loves to play his saxophone and tell jokes. He's always sining or chanting and loves to dance. You can count on him for a laugh.













Shamus is very hyperactive. His counselor has to be with him constantly because he runs off and would jump into the fire pit or lake without even thinking twice. He's a bundle of joy and energy and just likes to have fun!

Tommy loves fishing. He played the go fish game at the carnival seriously like twenty times. 

Patrick is very organized. He helps people put their dishes away, and makes sure they stack their trays and bowls in the right pile. He's a camper this week, but he's coming back in August to volunteer with another camp.

Stewart is really smart. He's really good at math, and if you were to tell him your full birthday, he could tell you what day of the week you were born. Pretty impressive if you ask me.