May 27th, 2009

So it has been alittle over a week since i last wrote. I worked all of last week for our opperations director in exchange for food and housing (Pretty sweet deal if you ask me). It was alot of fun, but also alot of work. I was a blessing to get to hang out with some staff that was around last summer as well as people who will continue into this summer. They were people that i knew last summer from our program team but didnt really "get to know". We had been working from 8 am to 5pm. Different odds and ends jobs to fix up camp and the property in time for staff training to happen in just a few days!!!!! wow time flies.

Since i was not trained and didnt know how to do many of the "list" items (those of you who work at camp will know the significance of the list!!), i was paired with someone else or given stupid proof jobs to do. One day i got the short end of the stick and was assigned to work on finishing digging out the whole for the septic tank, yes the septic tank, covered by a small piece of 1/4 inch partical board that bent whenever is stepped on it, luckily the tanks were just emptied......right.......

I worked another day on the swamp coolers, the airconditionaing units on all the buildings. We had to clean them out and prepare them for the summer. This was a fairly painless and fun job, since i got to play with water and climb on roofs all day. My most favorite job was to clear the "tree stumps" in the ropes course area, which turned out to be wriste size twigs sticking out of the ground. But since i am Axe lol i got to play with chainsaws all day!!! oh what fun it was!!!! I then spent the other half of the day cleaning the saws that i had packed with mud and dust from cutting so low to the ground (Adrian i know you are wincing and i am sorry, dont worry i took care of them).

All in all it was a good week, a few other friends arrived as the week ended. I spent thursday in the park researching new trails, and new sights for our day trips with our youngest campers. I found out that one of the trails was wiped out by rock slide, so i just had to go check it out (dont try this at home....or when other people are around because the sign definately said turn back). But it was soooo cool, trees thrown all over huge boulders covering the trail and the hill side, it was like a avalanche on steroids!!!!

I got to spend sometime working on nature center stuff. We caught an awesome Gopher snake that i am currently thinking about the fact that it hasnt eaten in awhile so i hope it is alive when i get back. opps. But he is super calm and chill, the perfect snake for the kids to handle and experience. I am working on building it a bigger snake tank, which is what my last day at camp consisted of. I also organized the bay with all of the nature supplies and started my usual pre camp list of things to buy.

We got to eat at the forks burger (awssome food.....come and visit and eat some!!!!!) as a goodbye to a long time friend of camp Meredith. I didnt know her well except with i had visited camp to see lauren when we dated, so i wasnt too attached to her. Friday we took a ride down to Fresno for star trek, always a blast with camp people and won ourselves a ton of 3D glasses (Pele and i stole them) which are sure to be a neccessity for camp this summer (not sure how yet).

So now i am back in chicago, i got to see my sister graduate on sunday, which was awesome and weird all at the same time. weird that she has grown up so much, yet she still has along ways to go. I got to give her, her bible for graduation and she actually responded alot better than i would have thought. Since i have been home i have gotten the chance to talk with all of my family about faith in a setting and environment that is pretty comforting. It has always been really hard to come back here without a strong faith community and a family who are not believers, but i realize the importance of my visits here.

Being home has been very boring, i have spent way too much time looking at gear, no time training and the same amount working on stuff for camp....oh boy! But it has been nice to just relax for a bit. I can really see that i burnt myself out last week trying to get too much stuff done at once, and i still have two weeks before our kids show up.

Well that is my rambling, i will try to keep these shorter and more brief, alot has happened since i last wrote. God bless everyone!!!!

Miss you all

Doug (Axe)