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 (: