Updates

-I took my EMT National Registry back on the 11th. The day before, Jon had asked me to check out the requirements for camp nurses because he was having a hard time finding people willing to put so much energy into a week of camp. The next day, I was working in Adam's old office, while Jeff was working in Erin's old office (the are both in the chapel, on opposite sides of the stage). Every five minutes or so, I refreshed the EMT National Registry page to see if there were any results on my or Eli's registry. After refreshing for the zillionth time, I was surprised to find that my name was there! I ran across the stage over to the other office, started dancing around and announced to Jeff that my name was on the registry. (I was a little excited, and he was glad that one more of his students passed the test.) Later, he called me back to the office while he was talking to Jon so that I could tell Jon that I passed. Jon jokingly said that I could be the camp nurse and I jokingly agreed. Then, after a good laugh, his face brightened up and he asked if I would even be interested in being the healthcare professional. I thought about it for a second, and said sure. So now I'm going to put my EMT training to use and be the camp nurse for the whole summer!

-We've got a sort of summer leadership team started. This makes Tuesdays a whole lot of fun, because we have our intern meeting taking up most of the morning, summer leadership meeting after lunch, and staff meeting later in the afternoon. Our summer theme is "The REAL Adventure", and the camp usually has a different sub-theme every day that they use to base a game off of. I came up with the sub-themes and relevant activities. My thought behind it was new day, new continent, new kind of adventure. (It gave me a false sense of fulfillment to my wanderlust!) I came up with seven themes so that we can change up the themes a little from week to week. Here they are: Australian Outback Adventure will involve a relay full of traditional aborigine games, including some that involve playing basketball with a ball made of kangaroo. African Safari will have a bunch of jungle and animal themed games. Tour de Europe will have events such as Running with the Bulls, Castle Construction, and a French Cafe. Sledding Through Antarctica will utilize our sledding hill even in the heat of summer... by sledding on ice blocks! The North American Road Trip will have campers visiting all the destinations of Route 66 with a treasure hunt. Latin American Missions will give a taste of international mission work along with a few fun twists on traditional games. There will also be an Asian day (I haven't come up with a good adventure title for it yet, and I'm open to suggestions!), and I'm trying to figure out logistics to see if we can teach campers how to make paper lanterns and then floating them in the field at night.

-Our largest non-summer group was this weekend, with 180 3rd-5th graders. It was insane. But even better was a day group that came Saturday morning. We were told we were running the zip line for a birthday party, so we expected a group of kids. Instead, it was a group of all adults, and it was a birthday party for a 65-year-old man! It was crazy how he had so much fun on the zip line! Towards the end of their hour, Mike jokingly told the birthday boy that if he ran back, he could go on the zip line two more times. Not only did he actually run back to go two times, but after that he raced one of his younger friends up the steepest hill at camp, and won! A lot of those participants want to come back and try our other activities; they took a look at the climbing wall and big swing before they left! I hope my friends surprise me with a zip line birthday party in 44 years!