Don't you dare touch my candy

Summer is almost over. This statement brings a lot of mixed feelings. I'm sad to leave the mountains..but so excited to move into an actual apartment and start classes and my new job. We have our last full group of kids this week. Hopefully it will be a good one. Then I'm trying to get the last week off so I can get ready for school. A day and a half is definitely not enough to move in and get books and everything. Doable…but not fun. Quite a few events have occurred this week. First I had this brilliant idea that I would surprise my family and come home and see them during Thanksgiving. The only problem with this is that tickets are 500-600 dollars. Not exactly in my budget. Then I had this brilliant idea to email the airlines and see if they would give me a discount :) I told them that I am a hardworking college student and that I would endorse them by wearing their shirt and telling everyone that they were a great airline. Sadly….I was not effective enough. They told me thank you for my heartfelt letter. And then kindly shut me down. How rude haha. It was worth a try! The next thing that happened was so weird. I had gotten a roll of rollos from my boss but I couldn't eat them because they have sugar in them. I decided to put them on my shelf and save them for when I can eat sugar again. Then a couple of days ago I woke up and there were these wrappers all over the floor. I couldn't figure out what they were and didn't really pay attention to them until I realized the were rollo wrappers!! They were completely shredded up in little pieces with no chocolate to be found. It was the weirdest thing. I think the mouse or a potgut age them. Some of my friends think that I was craving sugar so bad that I went and raided them in my sleep. I'm pretty sure I didn't since I did not wake up with chocolate all over my mouth. Then today I was cleaning out my bottom drawer and found rollos hidden in my clothes!! So bizarre! And creepy. So who knows what happened..I blame it on the mouse though. I got to watch a meteor shower this week. That was so cool!!!! There are so many stars up in the mountains .. It is so pretty. We went out at about 12:30 and just watched the meteors flash across the sky. Well that's it for now!

Peanut Butter and Jelly

The summer is going by so quickly. I can't believe that it is actually August. I will be starting school in less than a month. A day and a half after this job ends. I get quite the break. I'm living with three girls that I knew from last year which will be great. And then my roommate that I will share a room with is someone random. I won't be meeting her until the day I move in. We'll see how this all works out! Meanwhile I am still quite occupied here up at Aspen Grove. As you can see from the picture..we had an eighties night. It was time for the dance and some people decided we should dress up. We made quite the entrance...it was sweet. As we ran in they were playing the song Freak Out. By some of the people's faces when they saw us they definitely were. It was funny. Luckily my kids weren't too embarrassed of me. Although one girl was running away from me. Hopefully that was a joke and not serious :) So the summer ending soon also coincides with me being able to eat sugar again!!! I'm trying to decide if I will keep not eating sugar or start right back eating a bunch of sweets. The hope is that I will just hate sugar and deserts when I get to have them again. But knowing me it will be quite the opposite. We have another huge group this week but so far they seem like well behaved kids which is great! But you never know...one of the guys was miming today soooooo who knows. One thing I can't wait for in the fall is being able eat my own food. I have discovered that I am such a picky eater. I really didn't think I was until I came here to Aspen. For a lot A LOT of my meals I end up having peanut butter and jelly or cereal or something. There's great food don't get me wrong but I just don't like most of it. I end up making the weirdest combinations. But hey it is free food so I can't complain. My co counselor was telling me that going off sugar and getting 200 dollars is a waste of money because up here the food is free so the more food you eat... the more money you "gain". While this is a clever idea...I don't think they understood the point. If you count food as money...you would blow up like a balloon. I will justify this 200$. It is definitely worth it....it better be :) Anyway life is great. I have the greatest friends up here. And even though there have definitely been ups and downs, I have no regrets about taking this job. Besides the fact that I miss my family. But other than that it has been amazing.

Christmas in July

I finally got my camera usb connector that I ordered from Hong Kong for five dollars!! So I will now be able to post pictures :) I ordered the cord off of Amazon and got free shipping. I was very proud of myself. The big news of the week: I GOT A JOB!!!!!!! I applied for a TA position for Physical Science. I was competing against 21 other people and did a phone interview because I wasn't able to get down to the place where they were holding interviews. It will be a job for fall and winter semesters and I get 8.12 an hour!! I am so blessed and I can't believe it!! Now I don't have to apply for any other jobs. I will be working somewhere around 20 hours a week. It's going to be crazy but it will be so nice to be putting my own money towards college. The group we had this week was great. There were 36 kids total. There were SO many kids. But I loved all of them. However .... I did have some interesting experiences including hitting a boy in the face and giving him a bloody nose. But let me explain. We were playing parachute games and I was under the parachute..I was the shark and was supposed to pull people under. You can only see the feet of everyone playing because they are on the other side of the parachute. I went to grab someone and on the way to grab them I hit their face on accident. I didn't think I hit him very hard and thought he was more startled than anything...when his nose started gushing. I felt so bad!! But it stopped bleeding quickly and he was fine. Quite the experience. The kids were also trying to set my co counselor and I up. I'm surprised it hasn't really occurred to other groups. One of the boys asked Brandon if he was single and he said yes. Then he asked me and I said yes. Then he said well you're both lonely so.....Yup my kids are great haha. Then at the dance when all of the parents were dancing they had us dance with each other and we had an audience of 12 of the kids watching us and applauding. We also had Christmas in July this week which was so much fun!! We got to ride the little train which was the "Polar Express" to the dining hall. Then we did a present exchange and took family photos.

This is a picture of the roommates and I :) They are the best. I can't believe the summer is more than half over! It is going so fast.

Potguts and Stinging Nettle

This has been quite the week. The group is a pretty good group which is nice..most of them listen to me..something I have to enjoy while it lasts. But holy COW are they slow at getting places. Brandon always leads the front of the pack and I take the back. And usually the back arrives a minute or two after. But this week..no no. We arrive probably five minutes after. Today I was trying to take the back of the group back to the lawn to meet their families. They apparently wouldn't have it. One of the girls hurt her ankle so it took her forever to walk and she was limping. Then one of the crazy boys I was trying to keep track of runs out into the road and starts stabbing this dead roadkill ( a potgut I believe) with some iron rod he found who knows where. It was gross I can tell you that much. And he of course ignored me as I was screaming at him to leave the dead animal alone. Fun stuff. Then we were playing this game called Castle Camo today. You have to run and hide in this wooded ampitheatre area. I stalked up on bandaids and alchohol wipes because so many people last week fell and scraped themselves up. However this week it was my turn. As I was running, being my graceful self, I slipped and cut my finger on stinging nettle. It started swelling almost immediately. Man that stuff is lethal. Luckily it wears off in about 10-15 minutes but for that time period the itch is intense. Lets see...oh! I also was able to go to my grandparents this weekend. That was really fun. They babied me and took me out to Village Inn. It was a great way to recover from the flu. The only problem was that when they dropped me off at Aspen, they drove away and my phone went with them. I had forgotten it in the backseat. I figured I would be fine without it but it is hard to get a hold of people when you don't have a phone or numbers. But luckily my friend Jena :) drove me down to Provo and my Grandpa was wonderful enough to come bring it to us. So the phone's now back in buisness. One last thing. In church this week one of my friends that was supposed to teach the lesson got sick so I offered to teach for her. My lesson was supposed to be next week and thankfully I had prepared a lot of it. I had one hour to get it all ready to go. That was quite the experience. But I'm grateful for it now that it's over :) Over all I will be honest. Life is nuts right now. But I still have so much to be grateful and happy about and this is still a wonderful job. Yes. That's all.

The Epidemic

So. At the beginning of this blog I talked about how I couldn't sleep in past 7:20. Funny how that works. I now couldn't get up at 7:20 if my life depended on it. Well maybe then...but only as a last resort. Breakfast is at 8:15 and I wake up at around 8:00 every day. I was woken up at 7:00 a couple days ago but that's only because everyone in the dorm was yelling that someone should call 911. Luckily it wasn't anything serious. One of the girls had the flu and had fainted, but she woke up so it was all good. This past week at the camp everyoneeee and their dog had the flu. The custodians were troopers..there were so many calls to clean up after people. It was insane. We had something like 24 kids at the beginning of the week and then Wednesday we were down to 9. What a week. I haven't gotten sick yet, but we'll see. I am not looking forward to spending a night in the community bathrooms hugging the porcelain bowl and hopefully I won't have to. But other than the flu epidemic last week was good. We had one kid in our group that had something like down syndrom. He was the sweetest kid, but always needed my attention. It was a good experience though learning how to help him and everyone else at the same time. I got to see my family for the last time this weekend before they went back to Michigan. They're the best. Aaaand that's the summary.

Another Encounter with Wildlife

At 10:30 last night I was conned into going to Wendys with a bunch of my close friends. I wasn't planning on going, but it ended up being really fun. We were told to watch for deer going down and back up the canyon because it was dark and there are always deer running around. We were returning from our little food run..in the middle of a populated city (not even to the canyon yet) when a deer runs across the road. Janell (the driver) semi swerved to avoid the deer but we didnt' see it in time so the front of the car crashed into it. Then the deer quickly got up and ran away so uhhh..hopefully it is fine! And oddly enough there wasn't a dent on the car. We were so blessed! The only thing that moved were my spicy chicken tenders which at some point flew up into the front seat. But what the heck...we don't run into a deer in the canyon but we do in the middle of Provo. Anyways. I went on our hike with the group on Wednesday. Everything went well and we were on our way back..passing quite a few hikers on our way. When suddenly one of the kids (Ben) realizes he forgot his hat. So of course I got to go back with him to find it. He had already taken off looking for the hat so I had to run after him. The hikers were probably wondering what I was doing. We finally found his hat and I got to redo a 1/3 of the hike. And then he started booking it back up all the hills because he is twelve and full of energy and goes on crazy boy scout hikes. I barely kept up. But it was definitely a work out!! One great thing (there are many others) about this week was that I was able to have my family come up to Aspen Grove!! That was so much fun. I love having them see where I work and what I do. Lets see..the no sugar bet is still going strong. Oh! One day this week I was having a really bad day and I went to take a shower. When I came back I had the cutest card on my bed from my friends. The people up here are the greatest!! And that's all :)

Mafia and a Moose

Today I had the funniest experience. There was a moose wandering around camp, and the managers try to keep it from being noticed so that it won't charge people that come to look at it. We were playing werewolf outside (a more intense version of mafia) and the kids all had their heads down on the table while we gave them their jobs for the game. As they had their heads down, the moose comes walking by and it was about five feet away from them. And they didn't even notice. They had no idea that a moose was RIGHT THERE. One of the counselors goes "oh shoot!!!!" and starts walking after it. And then one of the managers starts walking after the moose. It walked away after a minute or two, and then we had the kids "wake up" and lift their heads. They were completely oblivious and it was hilarious. I also find it funny that my family was in Yellowstone looking for a moose the whole trip, and then I'm twenty feet away from one at camp a few days later. But anyways, life is good. I get 200$ if I don't eat sweets till the end of the summer. So far I've been able to make it...it has been two days ha ha. But I do miss sugar. We'll see if I last.

State of Confusion

Yesterday was a very..very..very eventful day. Lets just say I was leading my little campers on a hike and I uhh got lost. I was running after this boy who was leading the group and had disappeared ahead so I had to catch up with them. And at some point while I was running after him I missed where the trail split and took the wrong trail. I didn't notice for a while and then the trail looked unfamiliar and I asked anyone if it looked familiar and I got a resounding no. Luckily we came to the road five minutes later and were close to Aspen. I was so grateful that we were safe and found the way back! I had a heart attack moment. It was funny after it happened. Then we went to play dodge ball after lunch. Oooh boy. One girl had a really bad sunburn and got hit in the head with a ball and it took off a layer of skin. And then another girl hit her hand against the wall and had to wrap her thumb. We thought it was broken but luckily it was just jammed. That was an eventful game. But for some reason it was still a good day? I'm still trying to figure that one out. Well that's it for now. I just had to blog about that before I forgot. The kids leave tomorrow morning. It's always bitter sweet. This group ended up being awesome as usual.

vida

This weekend I had my first "full" day off. I was able to go spend the night at one of my old roommates houses in American Fork and we had a little roommate reunion. It was so great to see everyone!! I got to try Coldstone's new ice cream which is this oreo filling flavor. It probably sounds gross but it is sooooooo good. I have discovered that up here at Apsen Grove I have been doing a lot of things that I never would have voluntarily done on my own. My 12 year olds have this high ropes course that they climb on Tuesdays. And they would always ask me if it was scary and everything and I would always encourage them to do it. But...I had never done it and was basically terrified to try it. I didn't think I would have to until this past week when all of the kids got done on the course really quickly and wanted to see me do it. I couldn't just back out so I braved it. You have to climb up this tall swinging log, and then transfer over to this rock wall by walking on a wood beam that is probably 3 inches wide. Then you have to climb up the rock wall and reach the platform at the top. THEN you have to take your clips and hook them on to a wire. You have to walk on a wire while holding onto the top wire. When you come to trees you have to unhook yourself and put the hooks on the other side of the tree. THEN... you come back to the platform and have to repel down. It is quite the high ropes course. I'm probably making this sound more dramatic then it is but it was a huge step for me. All of the kids were cheering for me and then some of them thought it would be funny to throw pine cones at me while I was on the wires. That was interesting. Another experience I had was playing the piano in church. I actually volunteered and when I went up to play I wasn't even nervous which is huge. It was actually pretty enjoyable. And then next week in church I have to teach a lesson to a bunch of people that are older than me. I'm really nervous but also excited because I'm learning a lot by preparing. I've had more responsibility this summer then I've ever had before. I think it is good for me though. It's given me a lot of life experience that will be really helpful in the future. And that's all fer now :)

Life

Schedule Yesterday:
-Morning hike from 9:30-12:00. It was a three mile hike round trip to a waterfall. It was beautiful. But definitely a work out.
-Lunch with the kids. Wednesdays we get the kids for the whole day. The boys at our table started having a burping contest with the boys from another table in a different group. That was cute.
-Marshmallow wars in cowboy village.
-Arts and Crafts I got to make boondoggle!! I've never made it before..don't know how I missed that during childhood.
-Swimming: I again ended up carrying seven children around the pool. Then they started tickling me and that started to be life threatening because I couldn't breathe. Apparently the counselors are the best toys in the pool.
-Dinner
-FHE: We learned some dances to preform for the families at the dance tonight..including the Hoedown Throwdown
-Night Games: I didn't have to go to this but I just felt like it. And because I went my twelve year olds were able to go.
-Bed
The work days are crazy and wear me out sooooo much but it's a good tired feeling. Like I've really accomplished something with my day and had fun doing it.

Bugs

Attempting to sleep at Snowshoe Lodge is an interesting experience to say the least. You can hear everything...and things don't quiet down till 11:30 or 12:00 every night. Which is usually fine since I can't sleep till then anyway. But bugs are NOT fine. Last night I was ready for a relaxing night, and there was a BIG HUGE FAT SPIDER right above where I sleep. Not ok. So I called for someone to come and they came and killed it :) So I thought everything would be fine and dandy. I was ready for bed and relaxing when I turned to the side of my bed where I was facing the wall. There are two black spots that look like bugs, and so I glanced quickly at them and figured everything was fine. But then there was another spot. And it was moving. It was a BIG FAT HUGE ANT. I swear it was at least an inch and a half long. It was 12:15 AM...but luckily people were up talking and they came in and smacked it with a shoe. So I'm grateful for the people that stay up till 12 talking :) It has its benefits. So anyway my group this week is still amazing. Except for when 6 of the girls were chasing me and draggged me around the pool. They are so strong for 12 year olds....it's scary. I got to help kids shoot of rockets today for family games. That's about it. Life is good...the food is amazing......and yeah life is good.

Bring in the new

This might possibly have been one of the craziest weeks of my life. My group of kids just left that were here for the mini camp....and they were SUCH a handful. Holy cow. We had 25 twelve year olds. And there were three boys that wouldn't listen to anything. They were chucking rocks at people and things and I told them to stop..so they started throwing pinecones. Then when I vetoed that..they started chucking moss from the pond. Then they bribed one of the boys to jump in the pond for money, which I again vetoed, but then he dissappeared and came back dripping wet so I have no question that he did. And then I had a girl who kept crying whenever she lost at a game. It was really hard to keep comforting her and stay patient. But then at the end of the week she gave me the cutest note. It said "thanks for being the greatest counselor and staying with me through everything". It was so cute, and made everything totally worth it. There was another boy who was a little autistic and ADD, so I kept trying to include him in everything. And at the dance I got him to come and dance with us. His mom was so nice and thanked me and the parents asked me to take pictures with their kids. This is where the job is worth it, and it pays off...because the actual pay we get for the job does not cover all the work we do. But the thanks definitely do. I was talking to someone the other day and I discovered that even though the kids were driving me nuts, I still wanted the best for them and really care about what happens to them. It's really interesting how that works. And I love it. I worked at the store today again for my stand by. I got to make soft serve ice cream for people and scoop the other ice cream. The soft serve ice cream I made definitely likes the floor. We got our next group of kids today for our first full week. They are seriously a bunch of SAINTS compared to our last group. I was so happy!! I can tell this will be a better week. They actually listen to what we say. Oh...I can't forget to give a shout out to Will...so here you go. All I'm going to say is: Hawaii, Barney, and 25 cents. That's all :) Anyway..life is stressful but good. I'm definitely learning a lot of patience, and skills that will be so useful for the rest of my life.

earning my money

My schedule today:

1. Woke up at 7:30
2. Breakfast at 8:00...then cleaned from 8:30 to 12:30. Made beds, vacuumed..I never want to see another vacuum again, etc.
3. Lunch
4. Entertained crazy 12 year olds...I have 25 kids in my group this time.
5. Worked Aspen Follies. This is where each staff member picks a game and each family rotates to each game, and they get points for each game and try to get first place. My game was called the Plunger Race. Enough said.
6. Went swimming
7. Ate dinner
8. Opening show
9. Stand by at the store from 8:30 -10:30. I organized stuffed animals and shirts most of the time. Really helped me increase my tendancy for ocd. When you stare at shirts for an hour..you notice everything.
10. bed hopefully

The end.

Grandma's Clothes

I have decided that I am happier than I have been in a long time. This job, so far, is perfect. It's hard work and takes so much energy, but is so rewarding. This weekend, I had my first group of kids come. It was our first camp, and it was a single parent camp, that was free for all of the parents. I had 12 twelve year old boys, and two girls. That was crazy. Kids seriously never run out of energy. One of the boys was telling me how he as to take riddilin during the school year, but doesn't have to take it during the summer. He was so happy about it...I don't know how I feel about that haha but it definitely explained his crazy behavior. In the afternoon we got to play capture the flag in the woods. We had cabins and all of these trees...it was the perfect set up. One of the kids named Taylor wasn't having fun in the morning, and I was trying to cheer him up. And then at capture the flag he asked me to be on his team and make sure he didn't forget his football. It was so cute. I was already attached to the kids after one day with them..I can't imagine how it will be after a week!! Oh! So how I was saying I discovered chocolate milk....little did I know the chocolate milk was only a special treat for us. So I will have to find something else to enjoy. They do have mint hot chocolate which should work until it warms up. After my busy Saturday, the grandparents came to pick me up for a day. I thought I had everything packed in my bag for the next day. But when I woke up in the morning..I ran into some problems. I didn't have my clothes for church. So..I got to borrow my grandmas clothes. What an experience. I finally found something that looked semi young, and luckily it fit. Then my aunt brought me a jean jacket so I survived. After church, I was packing up my stuff to go back to Aspen, and looked in the closet to make sure I hadn't forgotten anything. And there were my church clothes...hanging up in the closet. That just goes to show how often I hang things up. And I have learned an important lesson..that hanging things up is pointless. But anyway I finally got back to Aspen, and I can't wait for this next week!

Chocolate MIlk

So...I have decided to create a blog for this summer. I started work at Aspen Grove on Monday,and it seemed like something I need to write about so I wont' forget the experience..and I thought I would share it with everyone :). It is amazing up here. I literally open the door of our dorm and the mountains are right there, covered in pine trees. Nothing like provo. On Monday I woke up to six inches of snow. That was crazy, but the mountains looked beautiful. It felt like winter. So far we have been doing training and just getting to know everyone. The dorm is so much fun. It's called Snowshoe Lodge, and there's a lobby between the girls and boys rooms, where everyone just comes and crashes. I'm not a fan of the community bathrooms...but hopefully that will change. Also, the walls don't go up to the ceiling between eath room, and there are four girls in each room. You can seriously hear everything. In the morning, you hear seven or eight alarm clocks going off, and it's impossible to sleep in. Which I thought would never be a problem for me. So far I haven't gotten up later than 7:20. Pretty crazy. We're in the middle of racket ball courts, tennis courts, a basketball court, and cabins. There's also this Cowboy Village which is the so cool. It's a little mini town, with a place where you can pan for gold, and a barber shopt, a bank, a jail, and all of these other houses. Basically a little kid's dream world. It's been fun watching the trees change color. When I first got here all of the trees were dead, and each day more of the trees have turned greener. It's really exciting. Everyone here is really nice and friendly, and it's really fun working with everyone. For training today, we watched a movie about how to pick up things correctly without hurting your back...so random. On Monday, we went through 7-8 hours of CPR and First Aid training. That was a looooooon day. Tomorrow the the families start coming!! We cleaned out the lodges today to get them ready for the families. The biggest life changing experience I have had so far is my discovered love of chocolate milk. I used to hate it, and I was definitely not a fan at all. Then I randomly decided to try the chocolate milk at Aspen because for some odd reason I felt like it. And it was amazing!!!! I'm starting to get addicted. They ran out of it at dinner..and it was pretty depressing. Anyway that's it for now! So far I love it, and can't wait for the rest of it :)