i want to be eight again...

this past weekend, i went to will-a-way and worked on saturday. the camp was just there for that one day of activities. camp sweet life, for kids with type 1 diabetes. the most energetic kids ever! they were so enthusiastic and nice and willing to do everything, it was so much fun. i spent most of the day on the high ropes course, its my favorite to lead! everyone is terrified when they get 40 feet in the air, but seeing who steps up and encourages and leads is an awesome experience. in the morning we had the older girls. it was just a basic session, everyone got to go up, and everyone made it across! there were tears and people fell, but taking everyone off the zip line, i didn't get one complaint or sad face, they were all ecstatic. thats how it always is and that's why i love it! second session was older boys, this one didn't go nearly as smoothly...
to start off the sessions we always go over fears and try and get everyone comfortable as well as going over rules for when were in the air, well there was this one boy named rj, and he is adorable! we were talking about silly bands while he was waiting for his turn to go up. the whole theme of the camp that week was toy story, so all the silly bands were toy story ones and he was showing me his. he had this awesome bullseye, you know, woody's horse..., and i was like o thats so cute, so he gave it to me, and it just made me miss being a little kid, when all a boy had to do was give you a silly band or be nice to you and it made your whole day better. because it did. getting the brown bullseye silly band made my entire day, the crappy week before just got erased from my mind because of this adorable thirteen year old. this is why i love camp!
but back the session...there were some boys that were really excited, and others that were not. like not at all. the first two boys got up there nice and easy (in order to get up, you have to climb up this cargo net). the next one had to take a lot of breaks on the way up and then got really light headed at the top and so we tried to perform a rescue up on the platform (belaying him straight down to the ground), but he couldnt hold himself up and his harness would not hold him in if he was not sitting up, so we had to get him to climb back down the cargo net, only problem with that is that if you lean forward too far you start tumbling down the net, and obviously that is no good. so i climbed down with him and it was awesome. everyone applauded because he even tried. it was so cool. then we had to get two other boys down too. but everyone else went across successfully and made it to the zip line. we had a candy snack break up in the air to get peoples blood sugars up, it was a lovely time!
my last session of the day was biking. it was with older boys, so we actually got to go on trails. it was great. lots of fun, and a nice little work out.

all in all it was a great weekend, very fun, but too short. can't wait for the next one!

Hardgrove

So the summer is over, and I know at the end i slacked hardcore on keeping you updated. (i say you, because i think julia is the only person who ever read this!)

anyways...it was the absolute best summer of my life. like changed my life. i changed my major because of it and my whole life course basically. these kids and the people i worked with were incredible.

i still get the privilege of working a few weekends with new camps or camps that come back. this past weekend i worked with hardgrove. its a camp for adults with brain injuries. they were awesome. there were some really old people who were absolutely adorable and kind of hard to understand. most of them just wanted to talk. hearing the gossip of old ladies is wonderful :). i got hit on by a 33 year old man. had a 20 min walk with him because it took him that long to get down from the bike shed to his cabin. that one walk made the weekend all worth it. there was also a war veteran who was very with it and helpful with everyone, and an ex- pro basketball player. there was also a 21 year old kid (well he was 3 days away from 21 and super excited about it!) his story is sad though...he was in high school when his brain injury happened. he was very popular and active, but one day he just flipped and shot himself in the head. he survived, but not without some major problems. he is such a fun guy though its hard to think that he wanted to end his life. people and stories like that are what keep me coming back to camp. and theyre the reason i changed my life plans.

amazing stories still to come, just not as often. enjoy

dancing machines

another morning of lifting little girls up the climbing wall. these were neuro normal, however, so it was a little easier to at least get them to face the wall so their butts were not just hitting random rocks as we lifted them up, and some were a little heavier so they had to do a lot more work, but it was still awesome seeing their faces coming down. what makes it all worth while.
after the wall i went off to dance and movement, my second least favorite camp activity :) i try and get out of it all the time, but we are just slammed this week. so i get to the dining hall and the kids are there, we wait until its time to start and i go back to the ipod to get the music playing and its dead....like won't even turn on dead...and the dock we use does not charge it....so i'm frantically asking around for another ipod with camp dance music on it...no such luck obviously! so i find one of the ladies that works with us because she has a stereo dock that charges them, so i go get her radio, but guess what, it doesn't charge this ipod! so one of the counselors says that she has an auxillary cord...thank god!!!! i have no idea what we would have done without it. so i just had to have the charger in and hook the cord up to the stereo and place a microphone near the stereo speakers so it would be loud enough. no big...! it was a decent dance session, it was with the developmental disability group again, the one with the little girls that we had to lift up the rock wall, so they didn't really catch on to a lot of the dances, but they love just jumping and twirling around. we had a meeting about keeping the dance sessions orderly and flowing, but that wasn't really working out, so i figure them having fun was more important and let them sing some michael jackson and justin beiber. camp favorites!

all in all a good morning. lunch and then rest house and then an off session. my favorite! means i get a 2 hour rest break technically. which means i have plenty of time to get food, because were having "sub pizza", and nap. lovely!

two and a half weeks left :(

rock "climbing"

so i just had an epic/scary rock climbing session. it went well...i think. it was with a developmental disabilities camp and they were really little girls, most very low functioning. well these counselors are intense and with kids crying they pulled them up the whole way. i was real nervous about it, but when the girls got down they were giggling hysterically and had huge smiles on their faces bragging about how good they did climbing the wall. its hard to tell sometimes what is acceptable and how far is too far to push a child. i have never lifted a kid so much though. good thing they were little!

why i love camp...still

so were 10 weeks in and i still love this camp times a billion! every week its a new demographic and every week they make me fall in love with them! its been a while, but i just had an awesome archery session that i had to share. i don't really know why, but it was awesome, i mean this happens all the time, but maybe its just because of the kid. we were just shooting like usual and then i put balloons out for the last 2 rounds. now this is camp inspire, its the special olympics kids, so they all have intellectual disabilities, but they are a fabulous group! so this one kid shot the balloon. popped it on the spot. and yes i was holding his bow to make sure it wasnt pointing at his neighbors face and maybe the arrow wasnt wriggling around because my finger was on it, but he had no idea. i was doing absolutely nothing in his mind and that is what was so great about it! he did. all by himself. it was like he had just won the gold metal for archery. he might as well have. again, i don't know why this one stuck out so much to me, but it made me so happy to see him going around high fiving everyone in his cabin because he popped the balloon. love these kind of days! love these kids. love this camp.

its been a while...

we had 2 weeks of camp big heart. the first week was kids, second was adults. they were awesome, both groups! it was real different from the other camps we have in the organization and involvement that we had with the campers but i think it worked out pretty well. fun times, very tiring though. a lot to deal with but also super rewarding.

this week we have twitch and shout and camp journey. twitch and shout is for kids with tourettes. journey is for kids with autism. they don't do much together because they are obviously very different camps, but they do all of the same activities, so its very exciting for both of them. i am cabin buddies with a twitch and shout group. little boys about 10 years old. adorable!!! troublesome, but adorable none the less. it kind of stinks though because i don't get to spend much time with the journey kids, except for while running some activities. i did get to attend their dance tonight though, that was excellent! it was very different from most because to start it their director had a whole shpeel about how to ask someone to dance and how close is too close and so on. it was funny, but they followed it perfectly. most of them were very into so it was a success. then we went down and met up with twitch and shout for their camp fire, and it was very noisy! still trying to not be startled by the sudden yells or jumps, its fascinating though. seeing how they deal with it and how its not a big deal at all. everyone has different tics and they just accept it. sometimes other kids will ask if that was a tic or if he is just weird, but once they discover its a tic they tell about a really odd tic they have. its just a great group of kids with a lot of energy.

today we put a twitch and shout group up on the tech course which is our high group ropes. they were ticing away at 40 feet in the air. up there the "shits" and "fucks" didn't seem so out of place! it was definitely nerve racking though, especially when the boy who has jumping tics went up, but he was a rockstar and didnt even fall, just stepped over those cables like a pro.

already love them and its only monday, cannot wait for the rest of the week. but now its time to catch up on sleep :)

you just let me know

these kids are awesome! all they want are some friends. and thats exactly what this camp is giving them. they are eating it up. i get high fives from almost every person i pass, i know almost all of their names and what makes them freak out or what means they are happy. its so fun seeing them interact with one another and just by themselves. some of the activities are not as interesting to them as kids usually find them, but they enjoy them in their own ways, even if its just sitting down for an hour instead of standing around.
they had their talent show tonight and it was funny. they all got really into it so it was a success. we started outside, but then the rain came, and we had to run to the dining hall and finish indoors. good times none the less.

the weekend is calling my name. it has been a long, hot week. i am ready for some athens...