The Rules of Roommateship

I hope you all know that I'm not perfect. It's true, I'm not. Sometimes I get angry at other people sometimes. I got angry a week ago, but I decided to handle it in a unique and non-threatening way. Instead of a heated argument or yell-fest, I decided to poke some fun at the reason behind my anger and get everyone involved in making a list of "rules". I got input from everyone, wrote them down, and then had a discussion the next day so that everyone could ratify them. Here are the rules:

Rules of Roommateship

1. If your roommate asks you a question, you should give them an honest answer.

2. No sharing underwear or toothbrushes- everything else can be used with permission.

3. Don’t talk on the phone more than you talk with your roommate.

4. No music until ½ hour before work.

5. I won’t look in if you don’t look out.

6. Jessica can only consume Dr Pepper if it was provided by an enabler.  

7. No playing Third Day ever.

8. Kristjun must spend less than 1 hour in the bathroom.

9. Erin’s seafood can only be made outside.

10.                  Jordan will have a rule made for him in the future. Until then, he has to be a very good person.

11.                  “Jes” must be spelled correctly.

Some rules have been added since then. Rule 12 is "Adam is the official overseer of all rules", which hasn't been ratified, but I'll let it slide since the overseer doesn't actually have outlined rules. Chris tried to change some rules and add "No having noodles as friends", but since he doesn't actually live here, and the rule was not ratified, it doesn't count. He helped in making rule #2, but we had to add "Chris cannot make any more rules" as rule #13. This evening, Kristjun said he was adding the "golden rule", and I said he wasn't allowed to write it since it wasn't ratified, but he reassured me that I would ratify this rule. And, of course, it was ratified when I saw what the "golden rule" was: BABIES. (It's a joke based on something I said last week.)

The cool thing about the rules is since everyone created and ratified them, it's actually kind of fun to follow them. If someone decides not to follow a rule, we're just like, "Hey, Rule Number 3" and leave it at that.

Another thing that started this weekend is bets. I was trying to convince Kristjun that I was not addicted to Dr Pepper, so he told me to give it up for a month. I said I would if he agreed to stop playing video games for the last week of that month. Completely unrelated, just two days later, Adam agreed to give up soda for a month if Shawna would agree to not talk for an entire day. Around the same time, Christina realized she had lost a bet against Erin that they made when I arrived (regarding my dating life), and so now Erin gets to slap Christina. Today Eli said that he kind of felt left out of all these bets and decided to give something up just for the fun of it. So anyway, no Dr Pepper for me for awhile.

To Work at a Camp, You Must Be Random

First off, I don't think I could ever call myself a "creative" person. Other people may sometimes say that, but I just don't think that word fits me.

Yesterday we went to see The Three Musketeers, and on the way home Erin needed to stop at Wal-Mart, so I bought a watermelon.

Today, after our staff meeting, we played some playground-style games. LAME! Good thing we're working on a book of not-so-lame games that can be used this summer. I'm actually kind of excited to get this done because it means we can play some of the games to make sure they'll work for us. I'm already playing some of the games with the student ministry group, but I think playing against my coworkers will be even more fun.

So back to that watermelon...tonight after a long afternoon of cleaning and working on our book that we title "The Game" (BTW I lost the game), I had some dinner and a lot of oranges. I think the oranges are going to become a new joke around here. Anyway, to continue my fruity night, I pulled out that watermelon that I bought yesterday and started carving a foot in it. It wasn't nearly as easy as a pumpkin, and even with a towel on my lap, I got VERY wet, but I ended up with this:

To make this event even more memorable, I decided to break up some graham crackers,  top with chocolate chips, and roast mini marshmallows INSIDE the watermelon to make some delicious little s'mores!

Stay tuned for other acts of randomosity!

Awesome + Projects

There isn't too much to report back...the dining hall floor looks awesome, Psych season six is awesome so far, student ministry is awesome, and the work at camp is pretty much awesome.

One thing all of us interns are working on is a book that we decided to title "The Game" (which, by the way, I just lost). We're just writing up a bunch of games in a book so that the upcoming summer's camp counselors can have ideas on what to do with their campers. So today after church, I drove for the first time since I've gotten here and took Jordan to the Solmen's house so that we could plan out the organization of the book. (The ride home from church was a little scary because Jordan was driving and apparently he doesn't know how to drive an automatic....weird, right? So that's what caused me to finally drive on public roads.) The Game book is actually working well with the student ministry, because I can just take games from that for our opening activities. Plus, Rothe asked Kristjun and I to come up with two game for our Reach event this Wednesday, so we'll be playing "Barnyard" and "PB Sandwich".

Another project that I was given to do on my own is plan a mission trip. We'll be going to St. Louis, Missouri in March or April for a week to work with an inner-city ministry there.

Well, that's really all I have to say, although I'm certain I'm missing out on some details. But since the point of this blog is to update people on what I've been up to, what do YOU want to know about my experiences?

Things Running Through My Mind Lately...

1. Illness: I had a fever Saturday morning. I got someone to cover me at high ropes and then spent the morning wrapped up in blankets and napping. I felt good enough by the afternoon to actually work, so I just wore a hat, scarf, and coat to sweat the rest of the fever out, even though it was a very warm day. I had to explain my choice of outfit to several people, and they all seemed to be concerned for me, even up to the next day or so. But I tend to be really stubborn with illness and try to get over it as fast as possible (unless, of course, I need to avoid something, like an exam, but there's nothing that I want to avoid here). Like my last mission trip to Peru, I got the flu or something, and I spent an entire night throwing up, and the next day I just didn't eat anything besides Gatorade, rice, and crackers, but I was fine. The guys who got sick on the trip stayed sick for days, and we had the same exact bug. However, the weather has since went south for the winter, and I think I'm catching a cold.

2. New Guy: We're getting a new guy tomorrow. He's Lance Ford's (the author) son. His name is Jordan.

3. My Stregnths: Last Thursday I went to the monthly youth pastor gathering. I was really disappointed that it wasn't in the underground Chick-Fil-A like it was last month. There's only one Chick-Fil-A in Nebraska, and it's inside the Mutual of Omaha bank, so you actually can only go there if you work there or you're invited. I've never had Chick-Fil-A, but I've really wanted to try it. But anyway, the meeting was at Gallup instead. Gallup created the Stregnthsfinder test, which I had taken previously for the church staff training meeting that happened on Sunday. My top 5 talents are Strategic, Input, Belief, Competition, and Individualization. Because "strategic" is my #1, Adam asked me to go to computer program meetings with him from now on because I might be able to understand the concepts better than he can. The guy that spoke at the youth pastor gathering on Thursday was the same guy that spoke at Relevant's staff training meeting on Sunday. I really got a lot of useful information out of his presentations that I can use both now and well into the future.

4. Pizza: Ate way too much the past couple of days. What can I say, if it's free, I'll eat it!

5. Babies: This morning at the staff meeting I confessed that I couldn't really read the assigned reading for 2 reasons: One, I think LOTR is boring and the book refers to it a lot, and two, I kept on getting distracted by thinking about babies. I was texting BFFL Jessica Patterson yesterday and we both admitted that we missed small children, even though we got strange looks when the two of us were taking care of foster kids in public places.

6. The Floor: Yesterday was supposed to be a day off, but I ended up volunteering to help with the dining hall floor. I got to wash it with acid, which was kinda weird to watch. Then we scrubbed it with shop brooms, then we rinsed and squeegeed it.

How Movie Night Taught Me That I Am Second

Today was my movie night. Today I got THREE packages shipped to me (strange enough to convince Kristjun that I was a drug dealer, especially when I pulled out a pocket knife to open one of the boxes), plus just a letter from my mom wishing me well with my movie night. (My mom also sent me a HUGE box of homemade cookies because she is the best mom ever!) God must have known that I needed encouragement via package, because I experienced one disappointment after another throughout the day. Two screens were ripped, location changed, WalMart didn't have the movie, too much popcorn was bought, downloading the movie took three hours, the power cords weren't long enough, I could find hardly anyone to help with the event, only two families showed up, one family left, the cord that goes from the laptop to the projector was missing, the popcorn machine didn't work, and we ended up having to play a completely different movie.

I think the five people that stayed did have a good time, especially since I kept on giving them free refills of hot chocolate and popcorn. We watched Hoodwinked instead of The Ultimate Gift, which at least was worth a few laughs (which I really needed). And afterwards, since there were more raffle prizes than people, I let them take whatever they wanted. They took a book, a shirt, some bracelets, and a magazine subscription.

I'm trying to look on the positive side. For one, I got to keep a lot of cool stuff that the family didn't want (AND some Dr Pepper, even though one exploded in my coat pocket!). Some of the things I kept include a shirt and bracelets from an organization called I Am Second, which I'm sure I'll wear a lot as a reminder. The idea behind I Am Second is that Jesus is first. He had some reason that my movie night turned out in a manner that I couldn't even expect, but I've just gotta respect him for that. I'm not really sure why it had to happen this way, but I know that it will work for His glory. Maybe it blessed the family that DID attend even more. Maybe it's simply to set the bar low for future busts of mine or even my coworkers. Maybe it's a humbling thing. Maybe He worked in mysterious ways with the other people that worked/attended. I don't really know. But I don't need to, because I am second.

How to Describe a Fun Day

Monday is Funday here at the Camp Rivercrest internship program. We usually get the morning off since we usually work at some point in time during the weekend, and then we do something "fun" in the afternoon. We were going to play lasertag this past Monday, but we decided to wait until more of the staff could join us so there wouldn't be just three of us. So instead we went to the movies. There wasn't anything in particular that I wanted to see in theaters, so I let Adam and Kristjun decide. They chose "Killer Elite". They were more excited to take me to my first action movie more than I was excited to go. It was an interesting concept and really in-depth, but I don't think I'll be going to any more action movies.

Yesterday was actually a work day. We started out with our regular Tuesday morning meeting. Then we all went on a search to find some teepees that were hidden somewhere unknown. We did find the teepees, but first we found a bunch of tents and camping gear we didn't know we had. We set up everything we could. We spread out the teepees, but they didn't have any poles, so we ordered some. Then we set up the "1-2 person" tents. We think it mean 1-2 CHILDREN, because they were only 3 by 4 ft. There were three of those tents, but we could only set one of them up because the others didn't have poles. Then we set up the 8 person tent. THEN we managed to cram six people into the 1-child tent while Adam was  ordering teepee poles so that we could surprise him when he got off the phone. That was a lot of fun.

Three of us finished the day cleaning up, while planning for something fun to do that night since Eli was going to spend the night. After work Shawna had made chicken and dumpling soup so we all ate that while hanging out on the golf cart. Later Eli and I went to WalMart so that he could get marshmallows and Coke (and I convinced him to get a 12-pack of Dr Pepper) for a campfire. The campfire was lots of fun, especially with me drinking 3 Dr Peppers and so many marshmallows that I forgot to count them. (Did I ever mention that Kristjun gave me a name for me on Dr Pepper? He calls me "Dr Pepper and Mrs Hyde".) After the Dr Peppiness took off, I started talking a lot and ended up mentioning something about Killer Bunnies, which piqued the interest of Kristjun and Eli. So after the campfire (and after Kristjun wrestled the box of Dr Pepper away from me), I got out Killer Bunnies and taught Eli, Kristjun, Chris, Mike, and Owen how to play. The game ended around 12:30 this morning.

This morning I got Mike and Eli to help me with organizing and setting up for the family movie night that will happen on Friday. First we took inventory of leftover snack shack food so I would know what we needed to buy (guess what kind of soda I had to put on the list?). We found the generator, found some canvas to use as the screen, stole the sound equipment from the dining hall, set up a screen on the baseball diamond and stored the av equipment in the bike shed. Then we had lunch, followed by moving stuff around for the groups this weekend (a college group, a junior high group, plus a bunch of youth groups on Paintball Sunday). Since then I've been putting final touches on the movie night and planning for student ministry tonight, where I'll get to lead the opening activity from now on. I also got my cell phone delivered and activated today; it's a really cool touch screen and by far the nicest phone I've ever had.

So, how to describe a fun day? It definitely wasn't this past Monday, at least not for me. Next Monday looks WAY more promising; I loved going to Idaho with Xtreme Praise because we always got to play laser tag at that-one-fun-center-that-always-changed-its-name, and I often dominated! Tonight should end the day on a "fun" note, and while I don't promise myself that I'll personally have fun on Friday because I'll have so much work to do, my goal is to make that as much fun as possible for the people attending! But I really have to say that yesterday was a wonderful description of a fun day. It was purposeful, and yet exciting. Even the part where we were just cleaning cabins was fun because we got to hang out with each other (and they discovered that I am actually allergic to the pink-colored bathroom cleaner, which is now referred to as "Pink Death"). In fact, I think the reason the day was so fun was because it was all about the community and just hanging out with each other, whether that meant talking at the meeting, cramming into a tent, riding the golf cart, trying to buy the cheapest marshmallows, sitting around the campfire, or murdering each other's bunnies. That's how I describe a fun day.

I Now Know Why No One Went BACKWARDS On the Oregon Trail...

A few things about Wednesday night before going on to Thursday:
-When Adam stopped for gas, I ran over to his car and told him this would be my second time pumping gas and I needed the experience. He thought it was weird that it's illegal to pump gas in Oregon.
-After the evening session, Kirk, Kristjun and I went outside to see if we could hear the elk bugling. Adam and his friend Jeff and tried calling them at the national park, and the elk bugled back, so we tried doing that. After I made a (rather pathetic) noise, we heard an elk bugle back! We kept on trying, and then we heard a bugle that sounded rather fake. I shouted out "Are you an elk or a person?" The "elk" shouted back "Yeah, I'm a person." So it wasn't as successful as we hoped it would be.
-I had Dr Pepper at lunch. It really kicked it right before the evening session, and after the session I got really antsy to do stuff. I bugged Kirk to hang out with me. We played ding dong ditch on Kristjun, and then Kirk told me I should knock at Kristjun's door again and throw ice at him. I turned it around because when Kristjun answered the door, I explained to him what Kirk thought I was doing, but what we REALLY were going to do was run over to Kirk and dump all the ice on him. After that, Kirk and I went on a "scavenger hunt".


Yesterday morning we had our last session, and then had to pack up and go. The Solmens took the van, and Kristjun drove me in the Cherokee (I had to explain to him that no, I didn't want to drive and yes, I really don't like driving very much). I didn't take any pictures for multiple reasons (1. It was really windy and dusty as soon as we got out of the mountains, and 2. It was dark part of the way), so you can pretty much just read my first post about Colorado backwards. :)

It was super-duper windy. And dusty. And tumbleweedy. The only points of interest were the Nebraska border and the Central Time Zone border. Well, there were OTHER "points of interest" as labeled by signs along the road. We passed one of those signs in the middle of the desert and were wondering what on earth could be a "point of interest" around there. I'm pretty sure that the telephone pole was the "point of interest". We stopped at Taco Bell for lunch, and Arby's for dinner (my choice, glad everyone else agreed with it!). Kristjun encouraged me to get a Dr Pepper at Arby's and he would get a Mtn Dew to make the trip more "interesting". I guess I got a little more social, but it didn't kick in as much until we got home and I was nowhere near ready to sleep. We decided to go to WalMart because he needed a bunch of things, and I needed to look at phones because mine had spontaneously died while in Colorado (so no one try calling me!). I didn't find a phone, but we ended up shopping at WalMart until after midnight. I didn't fall asleep until about 2 this morning.

Colorado Day 3- Rocky Mountain National Park and More

I woke up this morning and decided to eat my breakfast (Pop Tarts and juice, a breakfast strictly for "vacations"), while going for a walk.

I passed a couple on the pathway that told me that there were elk on the other side of the road. That sounded cool, but I couldn't figure how to get to the other side of the road from there... until I saw this:

And here are the elk!

They were by the restaurant we ate at the first night.

After our morning session, we had time to go to lunch and then hang out. We ate at a Mexican food restaurant, and then went to Rocky Mountain National Park!

Kristjun had just given me his jacket since I didn't bring one, so Adam was hugging him to keep him warm. We just missed that picture. (But Kristjun did find another jacket.)

We then had a pizza dinner with everyone at the retreat and then had our evening session.

This is what we learned:

Colorado Day 2

Let me tell you, it's wonderful to wake up after a good night's sleep to this:

This morning I pretty much just relaxed, and then we helped out setting up the AV stuff for the conference. The conference room was pretty neat:

Then we went to town for lunch and a little shopping. I really liked this sign in a knife shop:

We went back to the hotel to get ready for an afternoon expedition. While I was waiting for the guys (how did that work?), I walked around and shot some pics:

We went to the entrance of Rocky Mountain National Park, but we didn't go in because we couldn't afford the entrance fee. We did get some pictures outside the entrance that are probably almost as good as inside:

We went driving to another part of town. We were looking for a certain hotel (more on that later), but we ended up finding a bunch of elk:

After seeing the elk, we found what we were looking for: The Stanley Hotel. Not only is it on the national register of historic places, but it was also the inspirational (and some of the scenes) for The Shining.

Estes Park has this scarecrow display for all of October, so I took a lot of pictures of the ones I found scattered all over the city.

Kristjun going upstairs, where we weren't allowed to go.

We headed back to our hotel, but first we needed gas. Guess who got to pump it? (Yeah, I needed a little help!)

We dropped the van off at the hotel and then walked to this lake:

Then I went off on my own to see the town.

My hair's not frizzy (well, not THAT frizzy); it's a funny hat!

I know we're in Colorado, but there was still a store totally devoted to Huskers. They even had handprints of some of the players.

This evening we had our first session. Here's the table where we got our goody bags:

After the conference I went out to take a picture of the night lights. The biggest building in this picture is the Stanley. On the way back to the hotel, I heard the elk screaming. That was kind of cool.