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.
Sunday, June 30, 2013
Thursday, June 27, 2013
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.]
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!
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!
Monday, June 24, 2013
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.
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.
Saturday, June 22, 2013
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!
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!
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
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.
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.
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)