switch to the other side

craaazy day checking in all of the kids. you can plan and plan and plan, but things never turn out that way. no one had their schedule with them, so we were all kind of winging it. we had fun though. lots of games. i think i know 1/4 of the names. tomorrow is the first full day on the regular schedule, so we'll see how that goes.the weather in this summer has been crazy. so much rain and humidity. it's usually just really hot and dry. today it drizzled all morning and then water just hung in the air for the rest of the day.

put a ring on it

this was our last day without kiddos. there was dancing..

..there was bbq'd chicken. there was a round of camp themed jeopardy. it was a fun day.
apparently the latest craze in the kid world is these things called silly bands. they're rubber bands shaped like all kinds of objects, and you wear them on your wrist and then take them off to show people the cool designs. a lot of people from out of state brought them. i had never seen them before.
other than that, it's been pretty low key. a big part of my job is just keeping people up beat and doing little cutesy things. the other girl in my position, kristen, is super sweet. she's from north carolina. she has the funniest accent. she laughs at everything and her laugh makes all of us laugh. so we've been doing lots of little projects together.

tonight we had a closing ceremony and we did staff awards. we used to do them at the end of the year in high school for newspaper and it was always one of our favorite things. the staff really liked them. i designed them :P check out those photoshop skills..

time for bed.

mutant garden

when the cat's away!! look at these pictures. i have to go to dinner, but they explain themselves.

LOOK AT THAT SQUASSHHHH! we found it under a big leaf.

she was beautiful

there have been lots of moments in the last two weeks where i've found myself thinking 'i can't believe i'm getting paid to do this.' taking personality tests, making posters, decorating, learning how to be/make kids into a better leader, swimming, going on compass scavenger hunts, learning how to properly bury your poo in the woods, getting CPR certified, minor abuse of walkie talkie and golf cart privileges. everything has been fun.

that being said, howww excited am i to get to go home tomorrow evening for 24 hours! the vegetable garden is going crazy and i haven't gotten to try any of the zucchini or cucumbers yet. and i'm going to lunch with andy and will on monday. excited.

underneath the stars

yesterday we went kayaking and camping. hayley and i were in a kayak and we didn't tip! we started out 10th and finished 3rd, so we were pretty proud of ourselves. my arms are soooore today. we had to carry them down a big muddy hill, paddle 3 miles and carry them up a big, muddier hill.
there was a torrential downpour wednesday night and then yesterday kind of rained on and off, so it was a nice day for kayaking. cloudy. not too hot. i guess it was kind of nice for camping too, although the humidity was pretty gross after all of that rain. definitely a little dewy this morning.
at one point, a massage circle broke out and we were all saying how nice the day was after kayaking and now we're getting massages, later we're going to eat smores.. and we're getting paaaiiiddd to do it!
the coolest part was that i saw [my first] four shooting stars. people around me have always seen them and i miss them somehow, but last night it was really clear and we were all on our backs on the tarp chatting. fun night.
we have off on sunday night from 6 to 6 monday so hopefullyyy some of my tomatoes will be ready to go. and kids come the 9th!

twirl me all around the floor

this is what i got paid to do today..
and this little tiny girl finally warmed up to me and we ate dinner together and i carried her all around. her mom is a trainer. she is so sweet.


we have time off today! so we're going to thai and out dancing at a country place. should be interesting.

the town we're in is home to one of the biggest military bases in the US.. so the dance place we're going to is sandwiched by strip clubs. luckily, we have a pretty even guy/girl ratio, so we shouldn't have to mingle much.

you and i both know

..i keep sitting here trying to think of what i want to say and i can't think of anything. how about some details? there are giant spiders. our shower flows at a slow trickle, so we've been invading the boys bathroom every night. luckily, the girls are all night showerers. one guy always takes the one pink handled fork in the bin. the water tastes like chlorine. one guy brings me a piece of candy every day. one girl has such an infectious laugh that i was in tears laughing at her laugh because we were laughing at each other. the new guy ate 20 chicken nuggets and we all gave him hell the next day for eating all of our food. one guy, from north dakota, let all of the girls get dinner first when it was his turn to dismiss tables.

in short, everyone is awesome. we work well together. it's fun. we all pull our weight. it's magic summer. for now. no storming yet.