07.28.07
jr high camp…
So how amazing are Jr high kids? Truly amazing. They can also be utterly exhausting with their high amounts of energy though too. Karl and I finished up a week of camp up near Scranton, PA yesterday and it was a great week. We took 2 jr high boys of our own as well as 1 sr high girl leader and 3 sr high worship teamers. We were all looking forward to this week for quite awhile because it’s so much fun. This year we had this amazing balance between “team time” where we spent most of the time between breakfast and lunch in our teams learning about the Bible together as well as working on projects like a team logo, a commercial and an infomercial. (At this point I should point out our theme was JHC-TV (jr high camp-tv) and we based it around a lot of the fun tv shows out there. The teams were split up into NBC, ABC and CBS so thats where the logo, commercial and infomercial come into play.) So anyway yeah tons of team time which was great and then every evening we’d have 1 or 2 games to play for points. Games such as Dodgeball, Ultimate Basketball (a bit of a twist on basketball), Floor Hockey, Find the Leaders, Scavenger Hunts, MESSY GAMES and all sorts of other small things throughout the week. My team (ABC) kept them selves at a steady pace and we came in 2nd place for most of the events and ended the whole week in 2nd place. They were great kids, awkward at times of course, but they were great and worked well as a team.
Messy Games tends to be the highlight of the kids week, and this year I think it was the highlight of my week as well. I went into messy games thinking “last year I really didn’t get very messy, lets try that again this year…” but I was wrong… Now you may be asking what do you mean by “Messy Games” well… a camp staffer asked me the same thing this week and here’s the run down.
We started with a balloon toss, pretty simple huh?… thing is the balloons were filled with ketchup, mustard, relish and horseradish. Kids were definately splatterred by the time that game was over. But that was only the beginning. Now this is how the next part panned out… see we could only have 5 teams for the balloon toss so we had one kid sit out as well as Matt, my other leader and I. Now for the next game you needed 2 people that weren’t a part of the first event to have their hair sculpted with shaving cream. So our one girl that sat out the first game was ready, but then it was between Matt and I who had to have their hair sculpted and the kids decided on me since matt’s hair is pretty short. So at this point I knew I was going to get messy… I had a full can of shaving cream emptied onto my head and sculpted into what they called the “Beth Sundae” they then proceeded to throw cheeseballs at my head to see how many they could stick to it. Now I’ll brag a little because my team came in first place for their hair designs… not so much for the amount of cheese balls, but that’s ok… they were great artistically.
After this wonderful game we lined up as teams and had to pass balloons from person to person down the field without popping them. This is the game where the last person has to run to the front and you just keep moving down the field… and when you get to the end we had to pop the balloons we had left on top of our heads. Well I shouldn’t say ours, because thankfully I didn’t have a balloon in my hand! So I got out of that mess because again there was ketchup, mustard, relish and horseradish inside the balloons. I did get a nice spray of relish though from the boy beside me.
Next the kids split up into girls and boys and they had to try and catch flying diapers filled with chocolate pudding or the specialty: mayonaise, horseradish and pudding. These were sent flying with water balloon launchers. Theres nothing better then seeing a kid catch a diaper that just errupts with chocolate pudding in their face! They got pretty gross during this game, though the girls had a tough time catching the diapers. We followed this game up with a race to pop balloons. The kids sat around a tarp and were given numbers, so that when their number was called they had to run out into the field and pick up a balloon filled with shaving cream bring it back to the tarp and pop it with their butt. This got to be quite funny as the tarps got more and more slippery with shaving cream, added mayonaise and added chocolate pudding. We then ended the games with another balloon race up the field with again those 4 types of balloons except at the end of this one we had to smash the balloon on our teams tarp and then EVERYONE had to roll through the tarp with all its nastiness on it and added reslish, mayo and whatever else was left over. It was pretty messy. As I hosed down after the games I kept finding relish on me… weird. So THAT is what messy games were and the kids had a blast. Its amazing to watch them not worrying about how they looks and trying their best to win these games. I hope to find some pictures from this day because wow we looked AMAZING… Camp was great! Sorry I couldn’t post through out the week, but internet wasn’t very readily available which is fine… it’s camp!
06.13.07
a fun day…
So I won’t say much but I will let this picture show you how we spent a couple of hours Monday afternoon. A huge thanks to Ryan and JJ for helping us out and not leaving us stranded.
05.20.07
growing old with chocolate…
With my birthday coming up at the end of the month I’m reflecting on how things have changed since I was younger. Yesterday was a prime example. Karl and I, along with two other leaders, took 17 Jr and Sr Highers to Hershey Park for the day. This was the first day trip to an amusement park that Karl and I have planned for the kids so we definitely learned a lot yesterday… but the thing I learned most is… I’m getting old. You may laugh and say, oh you’re only 22 (23 on the 28th)… but honestly I rode maybe 5 rides and I was exhausted about half way through the day. I’m sure thinking about the kids and organizing meeting times and everything added to my exhaustion as well as the early morning and ride down… but wow, by dinner I was pooped. Last summer I kept up with 3 high school aged girls at the park pretty well, but I definitely crashed when I got home. Yesterday though, I was ready crash half way through the day. Its ok though and I still enjoyed myself immensely.
Favorite part of the day: The Comet… you may say what?! but really it was, I could have ended my day after the ride which says a lot because it was the first ride we rode! Jill and I were paired up and waited for the back car to make the ride extra fun! As we headed up the first hill a girl 2 seats ahead of us was pretty pumped yelling “rock on!!!”. That excitement didn’t last long as we went down the hill and she began screaming her head off and frantically putting her arms out to catch herself as we went through the ride. I can’t put the actions into words but believe me there was flailing and screaming and utter terror. At first Jill and I thought this girl was faking it… but oh no, she was truly terrified. But her reactions were just so hilarious that it made all of her friends and Jill and I laugh through the ENTIRE ride. The poor girl… she ran off the ride once it ended and I’m not sure she’ll ever get on a roller coaster again, but I’m truly glad that I was there to see her experience on the comet!
Fun events throughout the day included little plastic Cowboys and Indians being placed all around the park and the kids had to try and take the funniest picture. I heard of some that sound pretty good so I can’t wait to see the pictures. Early in the day one of the guys put a red Indian on a Hershey Park sign on a building by our meeting spot. We were pleased to see that it was still there at the end of the night and many people took their pictures with the sign (not knowing the little plastic Indian was in the picture as well!)
Laughter filled the night air as one of our students tried to annoy some other park goers with the clicking of her used up disposable camera… it didn’t seem to annoy them so she resorted to “the claw”… again I don’t really know how to explain but the fact that she did this to strangers (2 high school age boys) just cracked us up… it truly made for a great end to the night.
Anyway, I ramble. It was a great trip to Hershey. I got my free chocolate from Chocolate World. We came home with as many kids as we left with in the morning. And the kids had fun! Sweet!
Hershey’s Chocolate, Hershey’s Chocolate, Hershey’s Chocolate World…
04.21.07
the great outdoors, surrounded by teenagers…
I love the outdoors, especially when it’s sunny and beautiful like it has been up here at Lake Champion in New York. Karl’s band is playing worship for a retreat here this weekend and they asked if they could bring their ladies along. They said yes, so here I am enjoying nature in the midst of a jr and sr high retreat weekend. I love it!
This morning I woke up around 8am, Karl had already headed down to do a morning acoustic set, so I took my time and got ready. Around 8:30am I headed down to the club house so that I could meet up with Karl for breakfast, but they weren’t finished so I just sat outside in the beautiful morning sun. It felt sooo good. While I sat there I experienced one of the greatest mornings ever in just about 20 minutes. First I watched as a bunch of guys and their leader played frisbee on the lawn in front of the dining hall. As I relaxed and soaked in the sun I heard this loud shatter of glass… they broke a window in the dining hall… and to see those guys reactions was hilarious. They all began to run away! They seemed so scared… but within a few minutes they grouped together and went inside to see what needed to happen. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Then, I was listening to some younger boys play by the edge of the lake. They were trying to “skip stones” with huge rocks. And then somehow they managed to catch a fish, or stun it or do something… They grabbed a stick and speared the poor fish, waving it around in the air… the quickly became bored though so they did what any jr high boy would do. They took the fish off the stick and left it in the middle of the path that EVERY student has to walk on to get pretty much anywhere. So I think to myself… should I go try and save the fish… well saving the fish was out of the question because it had a nice hole through the center of its body, so the only option was to get it back in the water and off the path. But then I looked around and noticed a group of girls walking down the path. Now had this group of girls looked sweet and innocent and like they would throw up at the sight of a dead fish in the middle of the path I would have gone into action trying to get it out of the way. But this was a tough group of girls I saw heading the fish’s way so I though to myself… “this could be fun…”. So I left the fish where it was and watched. The girls didn’t notice until they were less then a foot away that this poor fish was in the middle of the path. I heard a couple of screams, 1 profanity and then the leader (who has died green and yellow hair… sort of), decides to take charge. She kicks the fish back into the water, all the while yelling about the fish guts getting on her shoes. But you know what. I was proud of her. It took courage to get the fish out of the way. And it meant I didn’t have to deal with it.
So this all happened before 9am this morning and showed me the reason why boys should always sleep in. Broken windows and a dead fish.
It’s been a fun day, nice to get away and relax!
