Wow! Where do I even begin? At the beginning? That sounds like a nice place to start.
Well, after my family and I survived three straight days of driving, we arrived back at home in Minnesota. It was sooo nice to finally be home. I spent the first day or so sorting through everything I brought back with me. Whew! What a task! I also spent a lot of time hanging out with my boy and catching up with a few other friends. It was a good week and a half.
Following that, I packed up again and drove up to northern MN to work at Trout Lake Camps for the summer. I'm employed as a counselor, watching over 8-12 young girls every week. It doesn't pay much, but it's lots of fun.
It can also be pretty challenging sometimes. The first week of camp, I had a down syndrome camper in my cabin. She was a total sweetheart, but it was her first time away from her parents for an extended period of time, which presented some issues. Yet despite all of my confusion and frustration with learning how to take care of her, it was a blessing to have her in my cabin. One night when I was taking her to the nurse (she had frequent stomach aches), she looked at me and said, "You're nice." I think my heart melted right out of my chest and dribbled down into my flip-flops. It made it all worthwhile.
We did have one extremely interesting night however. On Thursday, there were some thunderstorms coming through the area, which freaked many of the girls out. When my CIT (counselor in training) and myself finally got the girls calmed down, I began to say our evening prayer. Just then the smoke detector started going off (it had low batteries). Of course that caused a huge fiasco, resulting in one of the program staff members coming to cut the dang detector off the ceiling. We ended up getting to bed 45 minutes after lights out. Looking back on it now, it's a humorous story, but at the time, I was exhausted and nearly at the end of my rope.
The second week of camp, I went with Trout's VBS (Vacation Bible School) program to assist a church with running their VBS. It was SOO much fun. Andy, one of the male counselors, and myself worked with the third-graders, and they were totally awesome. The families at the church were all really great too! The host family I stayed with was so gracious and it was refreshing not to have campers in my sleeping quarters at night. I needed to catch up on sleep after the week before.
The sleeping arrangements in the Mergins' basement.
Last week, the third week of camp, I was counseling the junior high age group, which is definitely my favorite. We had so much fun, even though my poor little body was so worn down that I got a cold. One of my campers nearly died on the mountain scooters and I almost broke my shoulder slacklining, but it was a great week.
Walking the line...
Some of my girls from week three.
This week, I'm at home for my week off. It's great to see my family again, especially since my mom's birthday is today. I also got to spend the 4th with my family for the first time in 3 years, which was a lot of fun.
The staff members at camp this year are so awesome! There are very few people (such as myself), who have worked at Trout before. I was a little nervous about this at first, but it has turned out great! The staff members, and the counselors especially, have really bonded with each other. Weekends at Trout are tons of fun. Some of the activities so far have included a girls' movie night with funfetti cake, driving two hours to get to Chipotle, and seeing Transformers 2. We are still planning on a cliff-jumping trip and possibly another journey to Chipotle.
So that's been my summer so far! I also had a week of training at the beginning, in case you are wondering why my summer has only been three weeks long...it hasn't...it's been four. I head back up to Trout on Sunday morning, hopefully well-rested and refreshed. Even though a break is nice, I definitely miss Trout. This is my 13th summer being at Trout in some capacity, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
-Jojo
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