official road warriers

So much sweet stuff has happened in the past week to tell about that I don't even know where to start.

I'll just start off with that title.

As Program Staff members this week, Jen and I volunteered to take over the job of Couriers when our regular courier was called in to be a cabin leader. Camp's tricky like that. Here's us with our courier van.

We loaded and unloaded junk into this constantly.

We drove Kansas back roads. South to West to Headquarters to West to South. And we were good at it. One time we tried to pull over and take some cornfield pictures, but the sheriff pulled up behind us so we had to leave. That's fine.

Our job mostly consisted of loading stuff into tubs like this.

Although usually they didn't have people in them. Just mail and stuff.

We made several wrong turns the first two days, but we always figured it out. It's just that, contrary to the belief of the YouthFront staff and the regular Courier, West is so confusing to get to. But the last day we made it our goal to make no wrong turns or miss our turns and we did it, so I think we were successful couriers.

The rest of our Program Staff week we pretty much just slept and ate and played the nightime games and of course, were quizmasters.

We look sweet. By quizmastering, I'm referring to Bible Quizzing, for those of you that don't know what I'm talking about. I don't really feel like further explaining it, so you can just ask if you're interested.

Some other highlights from the week...

-Scaring children at Night Strike.

-Demonstrating square dancing on Hillbilly night. This picture was taken when Jen was being like a mom at a school dance taking pictures of her child.

-Going to Encounter but being able to walk out on it when they start singing Words to Build a Life On. Yeah, I'm letting the secret out: I strongly dislike that song. Oh man, more than any other worship song by far. But look, I'm not even gonna get into it here.

-Playing hula hoop with Kyle in the chapel.

-Riding in the paddleboat with Jen for pirate night.

-Playing soccer with Kendon in the chapel.

-Playing dodgeball with the Teen Staff Friday night, even though I got completely rocked by the Boulder of Doom and almost dislocated my shoulder. Or something. All I know is it was painful.

-Just getting to play all the time and be camper-free for a few days.

The week was great, and it was followed by an incredible weekend, which is still going on as I type.

Yesterday our friends came to visit camp.

It was sweet. So sweet. We started out with a tour of camp which included free ice cream from Lideyah in the Snack Shack.

My next idea was for us to do one the low element team-building activities that we have to do with campers. We started with the Whale Watch, which is a silly balancing game. It was lame and the boys were being dumb, so it didn't last long.

So next we decided to attempt the wall. I'm not gonna get into it here, because it was a long intense process, but I will say this: Our team of eight--Steve, Justin, Micah, Alan, Jen, Danielle, Melissa, me--all got over the wall without much injury. I was the last to go over, and that process involved me banging my body--mostly my knees--against the wall several times in a row and finally getting over the wall by grabbing a pair of pants a certain boy had removed and thrown over the edge for me.

Which means I was being helped up by two boys who were laughing hysterically and another one was trying to cover my eyes to prevent me from seeing the boy who had removed his pants in his underwear. I don't really remember what went on during orientation, but I'm pretty sure this is not the way you're supposed to get over the wall. But that's fine. We do what we want.

This is me examining the wounds on my knee. Don't worry, I'm fine, and they're not very big bruises.

After the wall, which pretty much exhausted all of us I think, an intense tetherball game broke out with the boys.

2 on 2. They don't mess around. Especially Steve. Look at what a ninja he is.

Then came swim time, which was real fun.

Danielle and I pretended to be going down the water slide, but there wasn't actually any water on it. So had we attempted to go down, it would have ended in more bruises and cuts.

After our sweet day of fun at camp, we headed back to Lawrence to enjoy pizza in the park. First off, this was sweet because Steve is back, Courtney Mischshkjk is in town, Maggie is around, P-Dex came with us and we all hung out together.

While sitting enjoying the food, we noticed some short-shorts kickball players having practice across the park. Not a game, just practice. So naturally, I went to talk to them to see what was going on. All of the people started yelling, "Tate challenge them to a game!" So I did.

We played. It was sweet and we lost. But man, it was good times. I love South Park. I can;t believe I have to move away from it in a week. Let's not talk about that.

Sherpa Ball. We beat Jennifer Ivie today, and it was everything we hoped it would be. The season is over, but we ended on a win, so I am satisfied with life.

I'm pretty much real tired of writing this now. That was a lot. But I just needed to record how incredible the past week has been. And I even left lots of stuff out. I could have written an entire long good post at the end of everyday.

God is so good and blessing me constantly. Praise Him.

Tomorrow I head back to camp to be a Jedi. The theatre kids are coming, it's gonna be crazy. And hopefully awesome.

Did you know there's a song called "I love my chick"? Ridiculous. Chicks.