UPDATES GALORE! 'cause I've been slacking!

   I have not written in what seems like forever! Sorry about that. Life has been crazy! In a good way :-)

   First of all, I've been a married woman for 2 weeks now. Our wedding was amazing! I'll post about it in more detail when we have more pictures.  :-)  Married life is great! 

First Dance    <3  9-20-14  <3

   Grad school is hectic, but going great so far. It's great going to class and actually caring about everything we're learning about! I'm working towards a Master of Science in Recreation Studies (Outdoor Recreation & Education) and an Environmental Sustainability Certificate. For my first major project, I've chosen to investigate how to make endurance races more environmentally sustainable.

First day of grad school pic

   I'm currently training for a marathon and ultra. The marathon is an awesome trail marathon that I have also done in 2010 (called the Bobcat Trail Marathon). All of the proceeds for the ultra will be going towards funding for a camp in the Mohican State Park area. I have a friend who works there and told me about the race (called The Fuzzy Fandango).

   I finally bought a kayak! Actually bought it off of one of my professors. Isn't it beautiful?  :-)  I'm open to suggestions on what to name it. Yes, I'm one of those people who has to name my possessions.  :-p Gives them more personality.  :-)

My awesome new kayak! :-D

   I finally upgraded to a smartphone in August and am still very much enthralled by it. I named it Bubbles because of the sound it makes when I click on things. Hehe!  :-)

   That's all for now. I'll write more detailed posts over the next couple of days about fun things I need to catch up on.

The Last Days of Summer 2014 at Camp Otterbein

It's hard to believe that my fifth summer at Camp Otterbein has come to an end!

Last week was our final week with campers. In Wilderness Adventures, we had 5 guys. I called the group "Burgers and Fries". We had a great time! What an awesome way to end the summer!
We went on awesome adventures and had some great discussions throughout the week. I haven't seen a group of campers open up this year as much as these guys did.

The first day, we did our river kayaking trip. We changed up the route a bit, starting instead of ending at the whitewater kayaking site. As usual, we had a wonderful time paddling down the river. I led and Andrew, the counselor, stayed in the back lifeguarding. I know too many Andrews by the way, in case you didn't notice. Haha!

That night, we hiked into an area called The North Woods. Andrew made up a story about how we got lost in the woods and set up a great survival scenario. We then set up camp and slept out in the middle of the woods. It was a chilly night, but we had a fabulous fire going and plenty of layers. And the serenity of the forest at night is a wonderful way to fall asleep.

The next morning, we found our way back (very quickly thanks to the amazing navigational skills of the oldest camper) and had some delicious s'mores pancakes. A little later that day, we did the high course. I saw some amazing things happen up there: the boys worked together so well!

On Wednesday, we went on our rock climbing, rappelling trip. Unfortunately, a huge storm hit right when we were about to set up for the repel so we had to hike down and leave. Scott (our camp director) took us to a local place called Grandma Fay's for some delicious ice cream. That night was the last worship service and the camp tradition of Capture the Flag with all of camp. As usual, we had a blast chasing eachother around beneath the stars.

The last day came way too soon. We had a delicious double Dutch oven breakfast: Mountain Man breakfast (a casserole with eggs, meat, hashbrowns, and cheese) in one oven and fruit pizza in the other. Yum! The rest of the day we packed up, had some final discussions, and even got to swim. In what seemed like the blink of an eye, we sent the campers home.

 

Monday and Tuesday of this week was staff closing, in which we worked and cleaned up by day and did fun surprise activities by night. The first night, we did a fun scavenger hunt set up by Scott's parents and ended up at a local movie theater to see Guardians of the Galaxy in 3D: great movie!  The second night we had our last dinner together, went down the zipline, and then had our closing ceremony and final communion and worship for the summer. It was so hard to say goodbye to everyone: some that night and some the next morning before I left.

Readjusting to life after camp, as usual, is pretty difficult at times. I already miss my friends, the ability to change so many lives in such an amazing way, the beautiful places and adventures. Fortunately, there are plenty of amazing things coming up to look forward to: pre-wedding festivities, the wedding, and starting graduate school. My amazing summer job may be over, but big things are happening and I have so much to be grateful for!

2 Weeks of Insanity

A LOT happened during weeks 6-7 of camp! I've really slacked on posting updates. Oops!

In non-camp news, my mom came to visit a couple of weekends ago and we got a bunch of wedding stuff done! Yay! Less than 2 months!!  :-D

As far as camp goes, week 6 of camp I had a program called Wilderness Night Owls. It was a combination of the usual high adventure activities done in Wilderness Adventures and a camp that was offered years ago and has been brought back, in which you stay up progressively later throughout the week and don't have to wake up each day until noon. I found that I LOVED this sleep schedule! I've found that the 11pm bed time and 7am wakeup call has been hard to re-adapt to!

One of the days, a guest speaker came and brought snakes that we got to hold. So cool! We had great food, fun cookouts, and an exciting night time scavenger hunt.

My favorite part of that week was our night kayaking trip. The view of the river with stars, the moon, and some light fog on the hills was just breathtaking! We also heard an owl right by the river. It was pretty cold, but we stopped and made a fire during our dinner break and still had a great time!

I can't go into details, but the downside to the week was an emergency situation at the rock climbing and rappelling area we go to. It all still seems surreal. We had a very unique situation and (just like we've always planned), I was the one that ran to get help. The area is pretty remote and we had no cell phone service. I don't think I've ever run so fast in my life. Especially on hilly trails. The person involved ended up being ok, but we didn't get back to camp until about 4am and it was pretty traumatizing for everyone. On the bright side, we had a buffet of delicious leftovers and an amazing communion at 4:30 am.

Other than our emergency situation, it was a pretty good week with an amazing group of people!

Week 7, I had high expectations. It was a camp called "Explore God's World": we had trips and high adventure stuff every day. A couple of the campers were very adventurous, as expected. A group of them, though, came from inner city Columbus and didn't want to do all the activities or were really hesitant (except for a couple of them). One camper caused a lot of trouble through the week: being downright disrespectful, refusing to listen, lying to get her way, making a couple of the campers she came with very angry to the point of being switched to a different group. This situation made for a difficult week. However, we still had some amazing moments. 

The first full day, we did high ropes. Only a couple of campers sat out and the ones that did do the challenge course had a blast!

On Tuesday, we went to Sell's Park in Athens (the one park I hadn't explored much-go figure) to do some mountain biking. We were told it was a beginner trail: it was more like an intermediate trail. Though the ride was difficult, we had a great time!

On Wednesday, we did an 'extreme creek stomp' at a nearby 'metropark'. I put metropark in quotations because there is no big city near the Hocking Hills area, so I find it funny to refer to something as a metropark. We found some cool critters, mainly crawdads, and got to swim through a deeper part of the creek.

On Thursday, we went rock climbing and rappelling. Everyone had a great time!

On the last day, we went kayaking on the Hocking River. The campers did a lot better than I thought they would! They kept up quite well and we all had a blast! The downside was that since it was a Friday, the river was really busy.

Week 7 was definitely one of the more difficult weeks I've had this summer. But if I helped make a difference in the lives of any of those campers, it was all worth it.

More Amazing Adventures

The first part of last Week was kind of a blur because the medicine I was on for the severe poison ivy/oak left me with some really nasty side effects. Luckily, camp was only a half week.

For 4th of July, I went home to Cincinnati. The view of fireworks from my mom's condo was amazing! We could literally see fireworks from 3 states: Kentucky (these were the best), Ohio, and Indiana. The day after the holiday, I finally got to see my best friend Caiti! Ray and I went to her house on our way back to Athens for a cookout/pool party. We had a great time! 

This past week at camp was so amazing! On Sunday night and Monday we did some standard camp activities: initiative games, swimming, playing in the mud pit (they played, I hosed them off: not a fan of getting mud in every crevice of my body and eyes), and making fires. Our group clicked really well right from the start! 

On Tuesday, we had our kayaking trip down the Hocking River. We saw some really cool wildlife, including several softshell turtles, a huge flock of geese, and a kingfisher! A storm started to roll in, so we didn't get to the whitewater portion of the trip. That night, we hiked (led by our awesome camp director, Scott) to a part of camp called the North Woods. We were going to build shelters to sleep in, but ran out of time, daylight, and patience. It ended up being a gorgeous night, so we just slept out on garbage bags and emergency blankets. The serenity and stillness of the forest as I drifted to sleep (once I finally found an almost comfortable position) was wonderful!

On Wednesday, we returned to the Hocking River to do our whitewater kayaking. Everyone went down the falls and no one even tipped over! We had a blast! That night was the communion service at camp. There was some self reflection time and my thoughts drifted to gratitude. After many years of searching, I finally found the right path. Recreation is truly my calling and I'm so happy that I finally figured it out! During the small group reflection/discussion the campers said some really outstanding things. I love it when campers have such amazing breakthrough moments and are willing to share!

On Thursday, we did a rock climbing/ rappelling trip in Hocking Hills. We started with some climbing on a very large rock called Gear Shift. It got its name because it is actually shaped like a gear shift.

Then we moved on to an awesome small cave that us Camp Otterbein people call the Otterbox.  We were lowered by the primary trip leader, Kevin, (I was the secondary), into a narrow crevice in the ground. At the bottom, it opens up a bit into a chamber. Beyond that chamber is an even bigger one. I was lowered first, so I could talk people through it at the bottom and assist them if necessary. It was pretty scary at first: it got extremely narrow and there was no one below to help guide me.  I found the way I was supposed to go though and made it to the bottom. The cave was awesome as usual! As people came down one at a time I talked them through it.

We ended the trip with a breathtaking 130 foot rappelling site called Big Springs. The waterfall wasn't as big as last year, but there was a little bit of a trickle and it was still gorgeous! For my first time on a rappelling trip, I was the first one down. Another trip leader has always gone down before me and done the backup belaying or a counselor has just been at the bottom to do it for me. I was on my own. There was a backup knot, a prussic, so it was just as safe. However, not having someone below on backup belay made it a whole new terrifying and awesome experience altogether. The view from about halfway down (where the rock face goes away and it just opens up) was such a beautiful sight! At the bottom, I backup belayed for everyone else as they rappelled down.

 

That night we had the Thursday night fun Camp Otterbein tradition of Capture the Flag! Afterwards, my group went up to Vesper Hill (a particularly special part of camp where we do the Wednesday night communion) and slept out under the stars.

Friday seemed to come so fast! It was sad saying goodbye to the campers (except one is coming back next week-yay!). My very sore body was ready for some time to relax though. Today, I've been enjoying the time off relaxing with my wonderful fiancé. 

Summer 2014 Week 3! Fun at Camp Wesley

  This past week was the third week of camp. Since there was no Wilderness Adventures, or variation on it at Camp Otterbein, I was sent to be a counselor for the week at another camp in our conference, Camp Wesley. It started off pretty rough. In spite of getting a couple of volunteers and me, the camp was severely understaffed. Their program leader was even my co-counselor. I felt so bad for her having to do 2 jobs at once all week. On the bright side, she is a great friend of mine so we appreciated the chance to spend some time together! We had a group of 11 girls ranging in age from 9-16. I was overwhelmed to say the least and clueless. The schedule was different from what I'm used to and dealing with 11 campers was terribly overwhelming after having 3 and 4 campers the previous weeks! I also suffered through a terrible case of poison ivy that was continually spreading all week. Based on the timing, I'm pretty sure the exposure happened during the previous week's game of CTF at Camp Otterbein. Apparently I have developed a new allergy. Lovely.  :-p  In spite of these things, it ended up being an absolutely wonderful week!

 

  After a couple of days of everyone struggling, we all figured out how to run more efficiently and connect with the campers more effectively on Wednesday. The camp that I was counseling for, called Extreme Outdoor Adventures, went ziplining that afternoon too. It was such a great time soaring through the trees. Two of the more difficult campers were in my group (I decided to take on the challenge of the rebellious teens) and even they were grinning and cooperating more than I'd seen them all week long. On the bus ride back to Camp Wesley, one camper opened her Bible and started reading passages. She was sitting next to me, so she asked me questions as she had them: we had a great discussion and one of the other campers nearby chimed in too. Though the bus ride was far from calm (there were several rambunctious, rebellious campers and I was the only adult riding), this conversation made it worth it.

  Thursday night was the final worship and a foot washing at the lake. At first, I was a bit freaked out about the idea. Feet are gross. And I had to touch 11 campers' feet. It ended up actually being an amazing spiritual experience for the campers and for me. Katie and I each washed a foot of each camper and then prayed together over them one at a time. There were lots of hugs and tears. After the foot washing, there were a couple last songs. Of all the elements, water is the most soothing and the one I connect with spiritually the most. I was starting to feel incredibly sad and moved closer to the lake, standing right in front of the water. I didn't want to say goodbye to our campers, or my friends at Camp Wesley, who there's a good chance I won't see for the rest of the summer. Some of them I might not see for even longer. As the tears threatened to leak from my eyes, one of my campers stood beside me and put her arm around my shoulders. On the other side, another staff member, my good friend Andrew put an arm around my other shoulder. The 3 of us swayed, looking at the water. A wave of contentedness and calmness came over me. Those tears turned into a smile. And the camper, who had also accepted Christ for the first time the previous night, was beaming. It was a truly wonderful moment.

  Friday morning began with my waking up my cabin group with the chicken dance. Big fun! Haha! Later that morning, all of camp played Gold Rush. This game is an exciting tradition to Camp Wesley like Capture the Flag is to Camp Otterbein. It's similar to CTF too, except it's played in the daylight and instead of finding and getting a flag, you have to run and get as many of the other team's pieces of "gold" as possible. The sweat was pouring and my hypoglycemia went crazy, but it was so much fun! Fortunately we went for a final swim not long after that. Before long at all, it was time to send the campers home. The week that at first seemed impossible came to an end. Through excellent teamwork, lots of prayer, and a ton of dedication, we all made it.

  Before heading back to Athens for the weekend, I stayed to enjoy one last meal with some of my Camp Wesley staff friends. We had some delicious Dutch oven jambalaya and cobbler beside the lake enjoying a gorgeous sunset and each other's company. It was the perfect end to the week. I miss them all so much already!

 

 

  Today (Saturday) I've spent most of the day relaxing, and finally put aside my stubbornness to see a doctor about the disgusting rashes all over my legs. I'm drugged up on all sorts of fun stuff because such a severe case required aggressive treatment. Good thing the upcoming week is shortened because of 4th of July! Hopefully whatever counselors are there with me for Wilderness Adventures will have plenty of patience to deal with my loopyness.  It's still going to be great though; I just know it!  :-)

 

 

Summer 2014: Week 2! Exciting Wilderness Adventures!

  Last week was the second week of camp and first week of Wilderness Adventures. We had only a few campers and a few issues (such has a camper with a 48 hour stomach bug and a camper who really wanted to go home for the first couple of days), but we ended up having lots of fun too! We had a couple of great nights of worship around the fire in our small group as well.

 

  As usual for Wilderness Adventures, we had 2 trips during the week. The first one was a kayaking trip down the Hocking River on Tuesday. We even got to play with Camp Otterbein's new whitewater kayaks at the end. One camper was terrified at first, but I coached her through it and she eventually started playing in the waves with the rest of us, smiling. Some of us braved "The chute" (a small waterfall) too. No one tipped over! And it was exhilarating!

On Thursday, we went hiking at Old Man's Cave in Hocking Hills with another small group. I inadvertently took us on a much longer than planned hike, but everyone said they had a great time in spite of being exhausted. And the scenery was gorgeous!

  On Wednesday, one of our activities was mountain biking. It was going great at first. At the end, I gave everyone the option to go down a hill for the camper that wanted the extra challenge. To my surprise, another camper also decided to try. He had done the rest of the bike ride without trouble, so we figured he could do it. The older camper rode first since he's a very strong cyclist and I followed. As we waited for the other camper, we heard a terrible scream and ran as fast as possible to help out. As we ran up the hill, we found the small camper laying down crying, surrounded by the 2 counselors and our program leader (second in command of camp), who just happened to be in the area at the time. They had already checked for more serious injuries (and found none) and started patching up his myriad of scrapes and scratches. We got the health officer who happened to be nearby to help out as well. Being the leader of the activity, I felt terrible. Fortunately, the camper was only scraped and bruised a bunch, nothing more. A bit later when I had some alone time, I just broke down, imagining how bad it could've been, praying my gratitude that our camper didn't get hurt any worse. That moment was not just a meltdown point, but also my spiritual breakthrough and biggest "God moment" as we call them for the week. It was amazing just how well protected that camper was. For the rest of the week, he was able to fully participate in activities and had a great attitude about the whole thing. The health officer just had to re-patch him a lot.

  Thursday night was the Camp Otterbein tradition of Capture the Flag. As usual, we had a blast! I spent most of the game sneaking through tall grass at the edge of the forest. It was super fun, but I made the mistake of wearing shorts instead of pants. And I am still dealing with the consequences of this (I'll explain in my next post). We had time for 2 rounds of the game, and each team won one. Yay for everyone being winners!

Overall, that week went pretty well. And I could not have asked for better counselors to help lead the adventures!

ROCK!

   The first week of camp was absolutely amazing! The bar has been set really high for the rest of the summer! We took a road trip to West Virginia and went on some awesome adventures!

 

    The first two days were spent at Seneca Rocks. There, we did some climbing and hiking. On the first day, we hiked up high to a great, but challenging climbing area. Not too long after lunch, we got chased away and drenched by rain. It cleared up by the time we hiked back down to our van. And we still decided to go for a swim in the large creek (or small river) right beside the mountain.

    The second day, we went to the top of the mountain and had our packed lunch up there. The view was just breathtaking! At about the same time as the previous day, the rain started. It once again cleared up by the time we hiked back down to the van. We then stopped by the visitors center and headed to our next campsite, a couple hours away.

    The next campsite was right beside a river and had a sheltered area to set up our tents so we could stay dry overnight. There was plenty of rain that night, so the shelter helped a lot. The downside was the train tracks just across the river and the road right up the hill from us.

     The next morning, we did a wild cave tour at Lost World Caverns. This was almost everyone's favorite part of the week. So much fun! We crawled, rolled, and climbed through some awesome passages! The guides were very fun and helpful.

    
    After caving, we headed to our last campsite, at River Expeditions, a whitewater rafting company. In spite of the rain (again), we enjoyed one last campfire dinner together and some great discussions. We even had a furry visitor! A kitty! She was very friendly and actually stayed for most of the evening. I really hope she had a home and was just exploring.

    
     On our last day, before heading back to Camp Otterbein, we went whitewater rafting on the New River. The water was surprisingly warm and refreshing, rather than cold like we thought it would be. We went on rapids ranging from class II to class V. We even had the opportunity to swim through a couple of the milder class II rapids. The rapids were exhilarating! Especially those class V's: wow! And we managed not to have anyone fall out through the entire trip.

     Arriving back at Camp Otterbein was bittersweet. It was great seeing the other camp staff members, who I really missed. However, it was sad to see our adventure come to an end and have to say goodbye to the amazing small group of campers. The group grew so close throughout the week!

     Someday, I plan on going back to all of these places! West Virginia is an amazing state full of wonders!