Happy Birthday...

I'm not sure if this will work, but I'll give it a try...

Cockroaches, Mailmen, & Dilly Bars - Oh My!

(I actually wrote this last Monday, I just didn't post it on here.)

...

While I have the basement to myself, it's time for:

Sherrie's Short Stories

Story #1: "When I Grow Up"
Perhaps just to prove correct the theory that little girls think about marriage from pretty much the day there are born, Shelby (a Monday camper) informs everyone at Check-Out that she knows who she's going to marry. After many giggles, the girls around her decipher that the future (and much unsuspecting) groom's name is Nick. Upon disclosing this piece of news, said camper (Shelby) proceeds to ask if anyone else knows who they are going to marry. Around this point, I lost interest and began talking to some other campers at the adjoining table. However, soon after, India (the camper across from me) informs me that she's knows who she's going to marry when she grows up.

"Oh really."

"Yep, want to guess?"

"Um, is he a camper here?"

"Nope."

"I give up."

"The mailman!"

"... Oh, so you think he's cute?"

To which she enthusiastically, yet shyly at the same time, nodded her head yes. Upon further conversation Melissa (another counselor) and I discovered that it was not indeed her mailman, but a different one. Don't be decieved though, he exists in the present. It's not just an occupation she wishes her future spouse to have. Perhaps mailmen should add that to the list of things they will deliver the mail inspite of: rain, snow, sleet, hail, and six-year-old admirers.

Story #2: "Cockroach Hide 'n Seek"
So last Wednesday, this camper randomly pulls off his shoe by the coloring tables and shakes it until this two inch long, half inch wide, cockroach falls out onto the ground and scurries around a bit. Almost as quickly as we shrieked in shock, one of his three sidekicks (Roof's Husband) stomped on it. Per our request, said sidekick then kicked it out into the grass, foot by foot. The four person eight-year-old gang then proceeded to tour the shelter informing every counselor of their cool find. I'm pretty sure the owner of the cockroach's ex-home was the hero of the day for any boy there. The girls, on the other hand, found much joy in going to look at the squashed bug and then shrieking with claims of "Ewwwww!" and "That's disgusting!" I just hope he doesn't keep his shoes in his house, *shudders*.

...

Yeah, that's it for now. I will say though, that watching six-year-olds eat Dilly Bars in the middle of July at one of the hottest points of the day is pretty amusing. Matthew, one of my campers, had ice cream pouring down one hand and chocolate down the other. All of their faces, and in some cases hair, had at least some significant amount of ice cream and/or chocolate on them. Way too cute ... and messy.

I'll leave you with a few photos from today:

PowWow Definitions

So Ryne overheard one of our campers explaining to a new camper that PowWow was "when we eat a snack and sit around doing nothing for awhile." He said Zack overheard another camper explaining that "It's like crafts, only we eat a snack first." A few weeks ago Russell (one of our campers) informed me that he hates PowWow; I felt highly ... complimented?

Mmmm ... Dilly Bars!! :)

And camp just seems a little off all of the sudden ... can't quite put my finger on it ... wait, hm ... OH YEAH! Miss Melissa Ritchie left yesterday for Ecuador!! HOW SAD IS THAT?!? WTF! Seriously, camp today was fun, but something just seemed off today ... like camp was just missing something ... sad.

In other news, Katie Olson celebrated a birthday today!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

Today was generally a good day. If not a sad one. I did get to wear a clean shirt as Melissa hooked me up with two of her camp t-shirts and my immediate response at the time was, "SWEET! Now I dont have to do laundry the rest of the week!" Ah its the little things in life.

Anyway, Godspeed ... and now onto Friday morning's compass treasure hunt ... ARRRGGH MATEY!

-Jim-

Camp Wa-Nik'-Ska-Ka

Camp Wa-Nik'-Ska-Ka

Best quote of the summer by a Monday camper nominees:

1) "I thought I knew where I was going [checkout shelter], but then I took a wrong turn, and then I saw some ducks, and it got scary. I decided to find you instead."

2) "I was born to be a kisser." -Frank Sellmyer

3) "My tummy hurts, but I think its actually my head. I'm not sure anymore, can I go play now?"

Yesterday's Fowl Three-some

The first Friday of the second session, also known as yesterday, was one interesting day all the way around.

First, the weather couldn't make up it's danged mind all day. It started off looking rainy-ish, and their was this huge green blob of rain covering most of Iowa coming towards camp ... however, it did get a little sunny around lunch time and then nose dived back to iffyness, sprinkled some in the afternoon, got really hot then really not and then back to general iffyness. Damndest weather we have here ...

Before camp was kick ball! WOOOO! And even better, its Friday kickball, which means the kids are pretty good and their are way less counselors ... oh how I love Friday Kickball! It's kickball, how it oughtta be! (POP QUIZ: Which baseball team's slogan did I modify there?)

For the morning had outdoor study with Ashton ... and we had the campers build a tent! WOOOO! The first hour was amazing. Mostly females. They whipped through one practice construction a timed deconstruction/construction and finished with 15 minutes to spare. Soooo we had Outdoor Study story time. HILARIOUS! Amazingly this group also took down the tent, put it away, took it back out, put it up, got inside it in a circle and zipped it all up in 12:22. The second hour was all male (save one lone female) and this was awful. They were bickering, had too many boy scouts, kept out thinking themselves, etc. It was a social experiment ... but they finished the first practice construction in 28 minutes and took so long that we didnt have enough time to give them a final time trial so we finished with a rock, paper, scissors and thumb war championships. The final group of the day wasnt as harmonious as the first, althought did end with a record breaking time trial of like 10:30, including me telling them their inside circle wasnt circley (yes that's a new word I crated) enough and that they needed to reform it.

At the end of the hour came the moment of the summer. A duck three-some, ON LAND! Never seen a duck threesom, nor ducks doing it on land so this was a huge event. And it happened right in front of Creative Arts and Outdoor Study so like 8 counselors and 40 campers all gawked together. Actually Roof and Ryne came running out of the shelter yelling at me to look quick cause I had my back to it. And it was actually less of a three-some and more of one duck on the other duck while a third duck seemed to fight the on-top duck for that position. So I suppose it was more like king of the hill or a fight over a girl while int he middle of doing it. And all the campers were squealing and screeching about "WHY IS THAT DUCK ATTACKING THE OTHER ONE?!" "IT'S TRYING TO EAT IT!!!" "EEEWWW CANNIBAL DUCKS! THEY'RE CANNIBAL DUCKS, SOMEBODY STOP IT!" .... haha, and while admittedly had I not known any better it certainly did appear more like one duck was attacking or eating the other, the information stored in my brain from the Animal Planet tells me different ... haha ... that was the news of the day that just spread like wild fire. Every counselor was talking about. I wouldn't have been shocked to see Anderson Cooper of CNN or Jeff Corwin of APL on loaction at any moment!

Not suprisingly in comparison, the rest of the day was shockingly bland. Backyard games was good times and then we went home. The end!

Haha, I'm sad because I remember some serious quote-age went down like twice that I really wanted to blog but for the life of me I can't remember it now ... sad ... anyway, yeah for the duck three-some ... on land!

100% Humidity, 500 million % Fun

Ladies and Gentleman I do believe that today may qualify, once the dust has settled, as the hottest day of the year ... the heat index was predicted to peak at 109 (I dont know if it actually did, but it was close) and when I left my house this morning accuweather.com said the humidity was 100%! 100%!! Is that even possible? Shouldn't that mean the air was so saturated it was like raining or constantly misting or something?

Anyway, did get some good kick-ball-age in this morning. And I've decided taht one of my biggest irks at camp is how every single pitcher lines up with shortstop or thirdbase to pitch ... haha, its not bad with certain pitches, but almost everyone does it to some extent and its like either pitch from the dirt or move the bases a different angle but dont pitch from the shortstop position! Haha ... its sort of a laughing irk I suppose ...

Anyway because of the heat it was all camp everything today! All camp pow-wow wasn't bad, minus the camper needless booting the gator ball as far as he could over my head and thus into the Lake (what do you think is gonna happen when we're maybe 50 feet away and the last 15 of that is a sharp decline) ... followed by me watching the ball drift in the center of the lake until it became close enough to jab at with my 9 foot PVC pipe supplied by counselor Brandon! Woooo...

All camp swim was amazing. I had such a good time. It was great having fun with counselors I never ever see throughout the day. *sigh*.

Thanks to Zach again for readying our lunch table! Um, and thanks to everyone I ate lunch with for making sure I got pizza to go with the salad ...

The break conversation was hilarious. From debating whether mind control would establish my divinity (not spear headed by me), to slot c, to an intricate  information Q and A session of how the male reproductive organ chills/hangs and finally an indepth lecture on the jock strap and jsut what exactly it's used for and why that explains baseball players readjust themselves every 10 seconds on national television .. it was a rousing break ....

Followed by the Incredibles, where the option was either turn the huge fan on and u cant hear th emovie oooor no fan but u can hear the movie. Eventually the campers voted ont he latter and it was about 125 degrees int aht basement. They'd probably have been better off in the sun ... I would have! But in better news, Kelly, being the excellent teacher she is, taught me how to make a friendship bracelet and an uber sweet design at that. SO THANKS KELLY!

Um, many many quotes occurred throughout the day...most of which being at the pool.

The first occurred after Tristin, Kelly and I had a conversation about a scary movie called "The Hills have eyes" which Tristin watched the previous night. A camper came over and butted in something like, Nothign scares me! Something inaudible to me was said by Tristin which ended with "no we're talking about scary movies" or something. To which the camper replied, Oooh, you mean like Harry Potter?. Between Tristin, Kelly and myself I dont think any of us expected any response remotely like that and we jsut sort of laughed our way through "Yeah just like that" ...

And then later one of the cutest and best campers Ive ever had (Ginny!) in the pool today, while in the midst of a discussion about Spongebob Square Pants (started because a camper called me Barnacle Boy) said ... "I think it's silly and has no redeeming qualities." Turns out its an opinion she picked up from her parents word for word and at the time it was hilarious to Tristin and myself ...

and that was possibly the hottest day of the summer at Camp Wa-Nik-Ska-Ka for Super Jim...! (or so the Wednesday campers have begun calling me ...)

The second first Monday

    As stated in a previous post we did in fact return to the beautiful (and hot!) Camp Wa-Nik-Ska-Ka for the second first Monday of the summer! Here's a rundown of my day ...

    Woke up to my last alarm at 6:47am, the first being set to like 6:05 with like five in between. This was my last last last last ditch alarm. Thank God I set it, but not a great start to the day, arriving at 7:38am ... not the first time I've been a few minutes late either. *sigh*
    Nothing spectacular happened this morning except I forgot to bring the blanket for our campers ... and thank God my co-co Ashley was on top of the medical conditions. We have a camper with a "severe allergy to nuts. If comes in contact with any give epinephrin and call 911 immediately". This of course left both Ashley and I paranoid all day.

    Wait, wait, I remember the funniest story of the day did happen about five minutes before morning pick-up time was called. So I walk to the bathroom and as I near the water fountains I notice three kids standing by the silver tub/sink thing on wheels staring into it. I sort of keep an eye on them as I walk past, noticing their are totally mystified and excited. They all three are jumping around, giddy and looking quite adrenaline rushed.  They notice me and take their eyes off the tub to exclaim in my direction, as if I should be totally in awe and excited too)! "SPIDER! LOOK A BIG SPIDER!"  Mind you I am really arachnophobic, although I am getting better (slightly) at least at camp.  And spiders are known to visit the tub, so I put my sarcastic "Yeah Woooo" face on and walked back a few steps. As I did, before I could look in the tub two of the campers, with the third squealing their guts off, peered deep into the sink's basin, went to poke the spider and then jumped up and back at least 10 feet squealing with disgust and delight simultaneously.  They then yelled, "SPIDER!" "TOUCH THE SPIDER!" "WERE PLAYING TOUCH THE SPIDER" "YOU TOUCH THE SPIDER!!!" .... I could see where this game had been and where it was going and it was all bad news ... touch the spider is never a good game to play, for any age group ... especially six year olds. 
    So before I even saw the spider I shooed them back to the shelter and some better game ... as I passed I naturally looked int he sink to see the spider they had been enthralled with ... and OMG, it was an inch long (which if u think about it a big spider), thick ugly wolf-spider, that was bristly, a nasty brown color with some black thrown in and just as mean looking as can get. And of course, being a wold spider it was nimble, ultra quick and a real athletic spider. Not gonna lie, I was way grossed out ... and had it been any bigger I might have reacted much more strongly. Anyway, I was like, you have got to be kidding me. They played touch the spider with that nasty thing. This was no daddy long legs ... oh man, these kids have more issues than I thought ...

1st period: In the early stages of our Pow-Wow time Ashley made sure that all the kids washed their hands after eating granola bars just in case they managed to contact the nut allergy and send him into epiphilactic shock. Good thinking. And I went to the front office to double check that we did in fact have the nut allergy's epi-pin and that someone in the front office knew how to use it ahead of time. Turns out we did and they do. So Mission Control, all systems were go for launch. And note to self: Pow-Wow today was very successful.

2nd Period: In leagues we played BLOB. Not gonna lie, I LOVE THAT GAME! Although after the first game, in which I managed to barely stay blob free (saved by the ending whistle) I decided to retire from the game of Blob officially. I know it's tough to leave at the peak of my game, but I felt that I wanted to go out a champion. I also announced my decision to join a minor league 007 team since I've always wanted to go pro as it was my Father's ... (quick, quick, which sports star am I?!?). With all seriousness, I do love Blob.

3rd Period: One of my most interesting periods at the day ... we were at swim which meant it was attack of the Japanese Beetles. Dave, Jordan and I began slapping at a few to try and rid the world of a beetle or two ... then one got in my hair, terrible feeling ... and by the end of swim time most of the counselors and a good majority of the campers were one crazed mob hell-bent on extermination. Although the beetles outnumbered us about 100-1, and we could have spent all day in the pool and not rid the pool or pool area of the problem we did make our presence known ... so just give a few kick boards and who ya gonna call?!? BEETLE BUSTERS! ...
     Oh and learned that smallest Monday camper at camp (by a lot), who is also the one of the cutest littlemunchkins has a Dad that is like 6'7", according to counselor Jordan ... that was shocking to say the least. Also of note, I forgot deodorant today (Thank you Jordan Van Loon!) and Gold-bonding was amazing ... wooo...

Lunch: Sat with the nut allergy in our little quarantined table. Whenever anyone asked I either told them I was in detention the camper was being a good friend and keeping me company, ooor I had been voted off the island and the camper was being a good friend and eating one final meal with me on the island. It was a good lunch, although I did have a total awe moment. The nut allergy and I talked most of lunch, but near the end we had like 5 min of silence. Then randomly and without warning, he spoke up and said "You're a pretty good teacher. That's what I think." It was sooo random and so like awwwww shucks kid, how do u respond to that.
    ...And it turns out this counselor named Zach Oyer ... yeah real good guy. Was scurrying to set up our lunch table as we arrived late from swim ... one armed and all. Really appreciated that.

Quiet Time: Apparently a camper of mine from last session, still has my nose that she stole ... I miss that nose ... it's hard going through life with no sense of smell ...

5th Period: Was fairly confident I was gonna kick in the head or crotch by a camper learning the self-defense kicks. Thank goodness that ended when it did. By the time this period ended our small tribe of 8 had been whittled to five by early pick-ups due to heat. Sad.

6th Period: Watched Cinderella. Never been my favorite Disney movie, but better than Sleeping Beauty.

7th Period: Took one of the most amazing naps I've ever had at camp in the old shelter with two fans on us. Of course Ed on the loudspeaker to end the period was a rude awakening ... although he was pretty funny as he concluded the day's activities by saying "Thank you for sweating here at Camp Wa-Nik-Ska-Ka". Okay its not that funny, but considering no one ever puts a little flair into the loudspeaker I was enthused.

And that was our first Monday back! WOOO!

Design Update

The week-long sabatical has ended and once again we returned to begin session II of this summer. Unfortunately I did not get a new blog design created for this blog, although I did come up with an angle I want to take and hopefully I'll at least get some version of it out this summer. Unfortunately blog layout template creation takes a load of time (at least to do it up properly) and many versions.  Anyway, thats my blog design update...

Midsummer Extravaganza!!!

Okay everyone... party at the lake on Tuesday. Here is a link to a map with directions:

http://local.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&cp=40.60325~-89.015479&style=r&lvl=12&scene=1809377&rtp=pos.qrns9b7kh9n3_Origin~pos.qs6ngy7knjhf_Destination

1) Start off going north on I-39 out of Normal.
2) Take Exit 8 (Lake Bloomington Road) and turn right.
3) Go straight until you reach a 4-way stop with the Green Gables on the corner. Turn right.
4) Follow the road around the sharp right curve and it is the last driveway on your left before the left curve. The house is the yellow one on the end.

I know some of you said you were going to carpool. I was thinking we would get out there around noon. If y'all want to make it a different time, just say something. Bring food to share. The party is BYOKA, and we should probably wait until after day before we break that out too much. I know there is a soccer game that night, but if we want to have a bonfire afterwards, that would be fine.

Questions? Comments? Concerns? Please call me at (309) 310-4710. See you all there!

Feeling sooo 'refreshed'

Staff refresher day was tonight and let me tell you I feel soooooooo refreshed! Haha, anyway, it was good times ... tomorrow is the last day of the week and then we have our mid-summer week off! Hopefully Ill grab the time to update about camp like mad and completely revamp the blog look! Haha, I stress that word hopefully!

Godspeed.

-Jim-