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.