go the distance

ok, friends! i've decided to wear this dress to abha and pedro's wedding in august. it's half nepali and half brazilian, so i'll wear the cape to the nepali ceremony and just the dress to the second ceremony.

so now i have to decide on earrings. these are my options.. 

A) vintage crystal teardrop  $19.95 (the prices are earrings + shipping, so we can take that into account). 

B) made to look like vintage octagonal crystal  $18.75

C) vintage crystal pearl $8.85

D) these czech crystal earrings from j. crew $41.14

F) trifari gold and seafoam clip ons $18

i'd kind of like to be able to wear them again in real life.. and i'll be wearing gold shoes. thoughts? 

the rage of war

i have to watch a cabin tonight while their counselor is on their break. the 2nd years are working on a 24 hour theater challenge.. and in the past, they've stayed up all night. we decided to let them stay up until 12 and then start again after breakfast. my girls decided they want to stay up all night anyway. cross your fingers that i'll be able to talk them out of it.

not a drop to drink

well, bad news. this morning we went to flag and we heard one of the most distressing sounds you can hear on camp: the buzzer. we use well water, and the buzzer buzzes when we've fallen below 8,000 gallons of water. we usually use 3,000 or so a day for showers, toilets, drinking, the dishwasher and laundry. so now we're on water restriction. 3 minute showers. only flushing the toilet when "necessary.."

at least we only have 5 days to go! home stretch.

heart art

how sweet is this? this guy finds hearts in nature. (i found out via design mom, one of my faaavorite blogs. the photo is from her site).

while we're on hearts.. let's throw in this advice from words of wisdom living.. the best food blog in the wooorld. the man, skip, posts really relevant, interesting information about food, health and wellness. if i had to give up every other blog i read, this is the one i would keep.

(photo/advice from his site). 

hp7.2

the staff has 24 hour breaks once a week or so. mine was from 12:30 friday to 12:30 today, and it feels like i just time traveled because it went by so quickly.

i went home, ate sushi that majjy had bought me and left in the fridge, guillermo came over at like 2 and we went to blockbuster to get harry potter 6. we watched HP 6 and 7.1 for the next seven hourssss, stopping to make delicious pork tenderloin + stuffing + salad dinner at the halfway point. then we went to see the last movie at 11pm. it was really good. especially good because i just re-read 2, 3 and 4 and then watched 6 and 7 so i could actually remember what was going on. some people can tell you what happened in each book/movie, but i can't. i just know i like them.

so we got home at 1:30 or so. this morning i made a smoothie in our new blender ( ! ), showered, and then it was time to go back to camp!

when i got here, all of the program instructors (my title, there are 4 of us), were painted smurf blue. they're currently in the process of trying to wash it off.. unfortunately, they used acrylic paint, so they're all covered in a thin layer of blue residue. it looks eerily like night of the living dead.

and that was my last 24 hours. one week to go!

wade in the water

the second years are back! it was very adorable when they got off the bus and ran up to all of us. sounds like they had quite an adventure. they were at heifer learning center in arkansas for a week. apparently they form a mock global community and they get assigned to various countries. they said it was a lot of fun, but they're glad to be back. 

thailand

zambia

tibet

time for bed. the first dryer i put my clothes in was broken, so i still have to go get my clothes :(

calgary

busy week! i wasn't originally supposed to be teaching the leadership classes again this year, but i asked if i could, so i am. it's been fun. we've gone through the qualities of a leader, introducing yourself and others, and then tonight we started on goal setting and working in teams.

tonight they had to do a couple of team building tasks. in the first, 10 kids stood on a blue tarp and had to flip it completely upside down without touching the floor. lots of kids get frustrated when the team doesn't listen to their ideas so they just shut down. it's up to the group to include them and find a way to make sure everyone is heard.

my personal favorite task is having them retrieve a marker on the other side of the dining hall. they have to move as 'one body' (stay connected). their idea was to move in a big chain.. one kid would lie down on the ground and put their legs on the shoulder of the kid behind them. then they would chant '1, 2, 3, UGHH' and the whole chain would scoot forward 8 inches each time. it took 20 of them to reach the other side of the room. it just looked so awkward. their faces were less than a foot away from the next person's butt. we did have one tooting incident that left us all in tears laughing.

other than that.. they did ropes and we went to the lake. not a bad wednesday.