Will Starve for Food.

That was the slogan for the 2009 30 Hour Famine.

I was excited to be able to be a chaperone this year for my home church's youth group. I was especially impressed today with the number of donations that they got during our door-to-door canned food drive.

It's always sort of a bittersweet event though in the fact that I'm reminded of how huge the issue of world hunger really is, but great to see that people are taking a stand.

Now to figure out how to be more involved.

Things I've Learned from Middle Schoolers*

Here is a list of things that I have learned from middle schoolers in the past few weeks:

- It's still cool to dress like twins or triplets, even if you're a dude.
- Insanely bright, day-glow nail polish is still the best option.
- Who cares if they're an adult, go a head and ignore them.
- Saying "no offense" before a potentially offenisve statement makes it all ok.
- Even if you can't do something it's alright to tease others until they do the thing that you can't.
- Looking cool always comes before being safe.


Actually I really like middle schoolers, we've just had some interesting ones come through camp in the past few weeks. These were the funniest observations I made.


*Learned as in observed. Please don't miss the sarcasm!!

Rainbow!!

Today was wet and gross and cold. Until of course all our campers were one their bus home after one whirlwind day of ropes course activities. I hate Ohio weather.

Then it started to rain again after dinner. My mom and I had some shopping to do so we braved the icky-ness and went any way.

As soon as we stepped out of the car I looked up and noticed that half the sky was cloudy and the other was really sunny. I immediately yelled "Where's the rainbow?!" because I knew that there were perfect conditions for one.

Both my mom and I did a quick scan of the sky and almost simeltaenously exlaimed "THERE IT IS!!" and both pointed to the sky. When I went to look where she was pointing she was pointing in the complete opposite direction of where I was.

We had found both ends.

I went into the store where we were and there were 2-3 workers and 2 customers in there. I made an announcement to all to immediately stop what they were all doing and go out and look at the rainbow. One of the customers was especially excited, rather quickly got up from where she was seated waiting for her friend and went outside.

Rainbow are not only pretty, but a great reminder that rain isn't all that bad. Even if it makes for an icky day on the ropes course. Not to mention a great reminder of God's promise to us and all that jazz.

Good day overall.

Gray Squirrel, Gray Squirrel, swish your bushy tail!

Ok, so I don't usually post twice in one day let alone in one week. However today was quite an exciting day.... sort of. Right after I finished my previous post and turned off my laptop I accompanied my dad on his daily walk around the neighborhood. Right around the corner from our street we came upon a baby squirrel in the middle of the road. We figured that we could probably shoo him back onto the grass by the road and hoped that he would find his way back to the tree where his home and perhaps his mom were waiting for him. Yet when we walked over to him he didn't move at all. Thinking that perhaps he was just too young to be afraid my dad picked him up and carried him back over to the closest yard.

We began to continue our walk. For about two steps when....

Baby squirrel followed us. We stopped and tried to shoo him away again but instead he got onto my left shoe.

And then proceeded to climb up my left leg.

No joke.

Realizing that he was not at all afraid of us, that he was shivering like crazy and that he would be far safer with us than left to fend for himself we took him on our walk with us. Upon returning home we did a bit of research and called a few rehabilitation places and figured out what we needed to provide to get the little guy through the night. We should be able to take him some place tomorrow but for now he's in a tub asleep on our kitchen table.

It's not everyday a baby squirrel climbs up your leg.

Fresh cut grass

I love the smell of fresh cut grass. It has to be in the top 10 of amazing smells. I'm excited that it's finally getting warm enough to where this might be a much more common sent in my life. I'm also excited to be working at a camp for my internship with lots of grass. That might make it even more likely that I will get to smell the fresh-cut smell even more often than I might otherwise. :)

Spring Quarter

G-O-O-D-M-O-R-N-I-N-G
Good Morning, HEY HEY, Good Morning!!

Almost time to head out for day 3 of my internship. I feel like I've been there a week already and it's only been 2 days. That's just usually they way camp works though. If you only have campers for 3 or less days you gotta cram as much into that time span as possible. In the short time I've been there I've already learned just about everything that makes up the Challenge/Adventure program. I think that learning the OE (Outdoor Education) half of it might take just a bit longer. I'm especially excited to learn more about the Living History/Underground Railroad program and start working/acting for that.

It's fun and a little strange to be back in the Cincinnati camping scene. I'm working with two people that I've worked with before and getting all the updates on people I used to work with but am also meeting a ton of new people. I already have a great feeling about how the next two months are going to go and then I'm sure I'll be totally ready to tackle the summer. There's a good mix of familiarity and new stuff to keep me interested in what's going on at all times.

And with that I should probably finish my breakfast and get moving since I'm not yet living at camp and have to commute. Lata!