Bethie has been at camp all week for Quilt Camp and she was at chapel this morning to say good-bye. I loved getting to stand with her as we sang all of the songs. She made sure to get a picture of Smooney, Arielle and I before heading out.
This morning the CILTs shadowed clinics so I was all over River Village checking things out.
Molly and I got these matching crazy cat shirts together at Wal-Mart last night. They're super weird but I think I'm a really big fan of them.
Speaking of shirts, I really love Gaby's rugby shirt. And I just really love Gaby and think she's awesome and so sweet. I ran into Jillian at Farm Discovery and got to hear about her first clinic.
Breen was there shadowing the clinic and just being fun and positive as always.
We spotted Maggie playing soccer in Main Field.
Beth and Alana were helping with swim lessons by playing sharks and minnows with kids.
Lauren was doing an awesome job encouraging Kate as she worked on her strokes.
I think that every single day should be as happy as today. Life is good when we're surrounded by friends that make the world better and make us better people.
Life is good when we laugh often and dance regularly. I think that we're made to live in a community where we ask one another questions and we really listen to the questions.
Being here reminds me that friendship, maturity, wisdom and awesomeness is not defined by age or status in life. Everyone is valuable and capable.
Life should be this fun every single day.
This morning I snagged some beads from the CAC to make best friend necklaces for Arielle, Smooney, Ellyn and I. Good news--they turned out GREAT! And we're mildly obsessed. I don't ever want to take it off.
Classic Sarielle. Ellyn and Erin are basically Tanner and Jillian is grown up form.
Ellyn and Sarah daily pic. This is my new friend Riley that I met this week. I used to go to camp with her mom when I was a little girl. Riley is a rock star and she's having a blast.
Today I got to remeet Kennedy, the younger sister of Chachi who was a CILT last summer. I spied JBird being awesome with her camper and talked to Josie and one of her girls.
Smoon and I are trucking right along on the lake house. The beams are up on the whole roof and we'll start putting the metal sheeting on soon. We take the morning shift and let the men work on it in the afternoon.
We got to the lake and found CILTs with their buddies, ready to hit the blob and the rope swing.
Smoon and I went on the wet willy slides, jumped off the rope swing and then helped collect rocks in the shallow end. We caught back up with Arie and headed back to the Riv while kicking a rock and making memories along the way.
We saw friends at pop stop and then joined the Warriors at the pool for their unit swim. I played with Scarlet the whole time and she filled me in on Lake Village news.
I found some Blazers and Braves drawing with chalk and playing around flagpole right before dinner.
Kelly and Maggie are awesome.
I'm so glad that Sarah is still here. Tonight I was asking her about if she remembered her first couple summers when she was so homesick. She laughed and told me she didn't remember that at all. Now she happily stays for three weeks and wishes she could be here the whole summer.
Tonight was the all village cook out-- my favorite dinner of the whole week. Tonight I ate my cheeseburger and chips on the steps of the trading post with the 8 year old girls of Catawba cabin. They're hilarious and feisty and a couple of them bullied me tonight. Apparently their games have changed from simple hand clap games to ones where you give each other a bruise or blow each other up. I think that's not a great change.
I found two girls writing in journals near the carpet ball tables and had to ask them what they were up to. They were both writing lists of things they love because they had seen their CILT Tara writing her list. She told them all about our devotion of thankfulness last night and now they wanted to copy her. Tara's little girls look up to her so much.
Right after trading post the CILT Pack planned songs for our field trip to the nursing home tomorrow morning. We'll share chapel and flagpole songs with them to give them a little bit of camp. I can't wait to see my girl Ruth and hear about her fourth of July and how her garden is doing.
I've been hanging out with Oneida a lot this week because they've got Erin O'Awesome, Cara and so many fun kids. Tanner took some selfies of the whole cabin and really captured the craziness of the group.
The CILT boys crowd surfed Andy before heading off on their manly sleep out.
Then I was in charge of all three CILT girl cabins by myself. No problem, no problem, no problem. First we played Dominican Chaos in Main Field.
Then I taught the girls to play Ultimate Challenge.
I had them crawling under benches and buses, picking flowers, collecting rocks, screaming the alphabet, counting to 50, hugging Brave boys, high fiving KMart, log rolling, somersaulting and singing. It was amazing.
I brought all the girls back to the Longhouse porch to write love tank notes together. We have a whole wall of bags that get filled up during these two weeks and these notes are ones that they'll hang on to forever. It was fun to just listen to music and sit on the porch as we wrote-- random bits of conversation popping up and then going back to writing again.
We had our girl devotion in the Green Cathedral tonight. I shared Jack's letter about sea glass with the girls and then told them about a story in my life that really shaped me. Then it was my favorite part-- we all split up into groups of two or three and sat all over chapel. The girls got their opportunity to share part of their story with someone and be real and vulnerable. I got to talk with Erin and Brenna and I'm so thankful that I got a glimpse into important parts of their life and heart. It's such a privilege to be a counselor and to get build friendships and relationships with these girls.
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