Working At Camp Is Exhausting

I have been up to trouble, my friends. Lots and lots of horrible, wonderful, wild and delicious trouble. Not only do I manage to gracefully tan like an Indian girl so that I will not only be old when I'm old, but wrinkly too, but I also threaten children daily with five more minutes of foof if you absolutely do not just quiet down already! But I watch movies (quote You are about to be crushed by a giant corn end quote), I make blankets (horribly, horribly fuzzy warm soft blankets my friends!), and I do an insanely insane amount of tubing and hurting myself as I fling and fly and toss and roll across the surface of the ever beautiful sometimes warm but mostly cold lake water.

Ahhh. Doesn't it just sound like summer to you? Like the epitome of a summery summer, yes? You know? It's not, but I so much wish it was that in my moments where I feel like this summer is going to crush my soul and eat out my eyeballs I think about that time that Jordan and I almost rolled his jet ski on Upper Twin and I feel so much better. And just today there was wonder of all wonders, MUSIC at the water front during our swim time, and my oh my did I burst out in off pitch sing song voices and dance around like a six year old.

You would have been impressed, I'm telling you.

I sing a lot here at camp. A lot, a lot. And a lot of the time it's with my co-workers. Who also love to sing a lot, a lot. This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shiiiiine! Anyone? Anyone?

Okay then.

But here I am, sitting in the office on the computer when I could be at the house with Prince Charming sleeping on his lap while he blows things up on his PS3 and tries not to check his eyelids for cracks while doing so. Or I could have gone home for a church picnic that unfortunately I am now too tragically tired to grace with my presence. It's a true bummer.

Can I just admit to you how lovely the thought of tomorrow is? Tomorrow is Saturday. Sleep in day. Do nothing but lounge about all day. Except I have to clean the cabin we used all week. But that's not a big deal. Actually, it will give me something to do when I don't feel horribly terribly rushed to move about the room like a chicken with its head cut off cleaning everything in sight just so I can go home and sleep.

Oh the pressure I just get from thinking about it.

Frightening.

I want summer to go on forever and ever. Can I just not go back to school in the fall? I mean, I can't believe that next semester I will begin my third year of college, be able to call myself a Junior, and be one year-ish away from graduation. I'm just not ready for that. For any of it.

And because of that, I refuse to dwell on it any longer. I'm going back into happy summer thought mode. Perhaps I'll go swimming this evening with the staff and then watch Blind Side because I oh so want to and Sarah has it and she told me we would watch it together.

I would just love that.

And I will apologize sincerely for my lack of postings this summer. I feel like I post even less than I did last summer. And wow, did I almost never ever post last summer. Off topic, but it's weird to think about the difference a year makes. Not that long amount of time in the big scheme of things, but at the same time it is a very unimaginably long period of time too. You know?

Holy Watermelons It's July Already?

In case you were wondering about my whereabouts in the land of the internet, I've been absent for far too long my friends, far too long. And I'm afraid it's going to get worse before it gets better, dear Bloggies.

But anyway, if you were also happening to wondering about my whereabouts in the land of the living, allow me to show you through pictures. :)

We dressed up at Disney characters for a Bible Story play. Prince Charming was the Prince of Persia.

I was the lovely Princess Tamina (spelling anyone? Or is that even the right name more likely?) but more importantly, I have blonde hair and she doesn't so nobody got it except the people I told, but whatever. I got to draw on my wrist with eyeliner to imitate henna tattoos and they didn't. They're just jealous.

Right?

Then today, we visited Farragut State Park for a hike with our ever lovely but oh so annoying day camp group. I love most of them. But only most. However, today's warmth and excitement more than made up for it.

But what I definitely love more than most of is taking pictures. And this was one of my favorite shots from the hike. Absolutely awesome if you ask me.

Oh Princey, you are so charming!

I was giving Evs a piggy back ride because with a face that cute, how do you tell it no? Okay, okay. So I tell her no a lot. But she's one of my favorite campers so she gets away with a lot too. 

And the photo to end all photos to prove the world that Natalie does indeed not have a butt. And Evs' socks don't match her outfit, which makes me all sorts of giggly on my little girl insides.

And of course, playing in the water, which includes the merciless squirting of the innocent. I'm a ruthless dictator.

How is your summer lovelies? 

Coming To You Live From The Boonies

Bloggies! I've missed you! Terribly, terribly missed you! I was so worried that big exciting things had happened in blogworld since I've been missing, but I'm glad to say that I only have about a hundred and eight posts to catch up on!

But Bloggies, the internet here is. so. slow. Really, it's practically painful and I can just feel myself cringing from one loading sign to the next!

However, the weather today is BEAUTIFUL which is mostly awesome because the past three days have sucked more than a new filter on a Hoover vacuum. Just who's idea was it anyway to let mother nature wreak havoc in my little corner of the world? I just keep waiting for summer to actually to start and instead I'm get April all over again!

Since the sun is choosing to shine for me baby today, I brought my camera down from Staff Housing and have decided that today is the day for capturing the Beauty that is Twinlow so I can just show it to you the next time I bring my laptop with me to dinner. (Which hasn't actually ever happened before.)

Anyway, I'm just chomping at the bit to get outside and go from spooky ghosty to normal people color, if ya know what I mean?

And Prince and I need all the relaxation we can get because we are going from having 12 chilllens to ponder about to 30 screaming, name calling, I'm going to shove you in the lake, rugrats that will need our undivided attention from 7 in the morning until 6 in the evening.

That folks, is what I like to call a long day.

I love me some rugrats, I really do. But not even real life teachers are stuck with a classroom full of kids that long. It's almost painful, really. Good thing I'm young, vivacious and mostly insane. :) Right?

Someone Pass Me The H2O Before I Die of Exhaustion

It's Thursday morning, I lazily woke up around 10:30 because not having a job and staying up until 1 in the morning will do that to you. I knew it was my last day of freedom. I knew it was going to be busy. But I'm a professional procrastinator. A lackadaisical lazy-face. Why rush in the mornings, anyway? I mean, I'm barely awake, groggy, and still warm under the covers. There's no reason to change that sooner rather than later. I loves me some sleeps, you know. I'm a college kid, so of course I catch the Zs like a pro, but don't you? 

Anyways, I finally dragged my unwilling to start the day butt out of bed and lounged around the house talking with my mother in the kitchen while we tried desperately to figure out what we should eat since both of our stomachs believed that our respective throats were, in fact, cut. 

I had leftover chicken tacos and she had leftover Spanish rice and some home-made hamburger helper dish that looked positively revolting, but I'm biased towards anything that even remotely resembles hamburger helper. To each her own. 

Then around 12:30 I hopped online to check in the boyo who I seemingly am attached to at the hip, since we are often everywhere together. Our family and friends have even combined our names together, not unlike how we refer to Brad and Angelina, you know? Matalie, they call us. But you know, they're just jealous that they aren't entirely as awesome as we are, it's true. 

At 3 o'clock Prince and I drove out for a mutual friend's graduation party. What a life to be explored after the graduation of high school! And we talked and talked and talked with friends that I haven't seen all school year who are near and dear to my tired little heart. I was sad to leave them when time came, but I'll see them either tomorrow or Saturday because they too are camp staff and can't escape me whether they wanted to or not. They don't. :) 

Six thirty rolled around and we met my parental units at the new Texas Roadhouse for barbecued supper of sorts. Absolutely delicious food. Absolutely. Prince-y had a chicken fried steak, I had BBQ pulled pork, my mom and dad both got ribs with pulled pork and BBQ chicken respectively. It was really good food. They play country music, the waiters and waitresses line dance for you, they serve peanuts to snack on so nutshells cover the floor, and I got to play with crayons while filling in all the activities on the sheet of paper they bring to the table for small children. 

I'm super duper awesome, I know. 

It's really loud in the restaurant too, which isn't always a bad thing, but it sure makes it hard to hear. And I don't know what it was about today, but everybody and their brother was having a birthday it seemed. So of course the servers would yell and sing and dance for every birthday and it seems they couldn't go more than a couple of minutes without going through birthday withdraws and therefore belting out in song and dance about someone or another's wonderful birthday. It was nice at first, but got pretty old pretty fast. 

I'd go back on a day when there weren't so many birthdays. 

After thanking Dad and Mom for paying for dinner and saying goodbye in the parking lot, Prince and I waddled to my car and headed to Jack's house. I laid on Prince's chest while he played with my hair and he watched Jack and his girlfriend play Little Big Planet while I pretended to fall asleep.

 (Was that sentence long enough for you? I'm tired, can you tell?) 

At 10:00 we bid them farewell since tomorrow we are supposed to awake bright and early for work. I drove Prince-y home so he could finish packing for camp and then I arrived home to do the same thing. 

My jungle bedroom was filled with unnecessary tote piles and cardboard boxes that are simply ubiquitous in meaning. I opened up our storage compartment underneath our landing. My room is in the basement of our split level entry house if that clears anything up for you. Ahem. And then I went to town. 

I pulled out all the stuff I wanted to take to camp with me and put it outside my room on the floor of the family room. Then I pulled out boxes from under the landing, put away suitcases that had been out since I moved home for Moscow, and replaced certain boxes before I combine elements from different boxes, emptied another box and placed all the full ones back in the storage compartment. 

I'm just tired reading that sentence. 

By the time the whole ordeal was over, I'd repacked the box I'd earlier emptied with necessary items for camp life, packed my duffel bag with clothing items, removed the unnecessary road blockage from my jungle room (who knew my carpet was blue?), and chatted with Prince online before he retired to checking his eyelids for cracks. 

I should be sleeping, too, but I wanted to just pop in and bid you farewell for a few days, since I don't know when I'll be back here. Trust me when I tell you that I'm not disappearing for the entire summer, but my activity level will be way down. Poop. I know right? 

Seven o'clock will come super fast and my eyelids are in need of toothpicks to stay open. My poor body is tired, tired, tired, but on the bright side I will be starting work, and we all know what work means. 

Money. 

And we could all use more of that. AmIright? Right! 

I've Been A Bit Of A Night Owl Lately

I seem to be super busy these days, and I haven't even started working yet! I just always am doing something, and I love it that way! Today I made a rhubarb pie all by myself. Mom supervised and helped when I needed her to, but mostly I did all the work.

I've spent a lot of time out of the house wreaking havoc, causing chaos, and being generally disruptive in a superbly teenage fashion. My computer time usually starts around midnight or so, after all of my running around is officially finished and I'm still unwinding from my aforementioned errands. 

Then, I get on Blogger and I peruse through the blogs I follow, check to see what the Blog of Note is today, Facebook to my hearts content and ponder writing a blog post about the days events while I stare at the blank box I'm suppose to type my blog post in. Eventually I give up trying to be creative and I leave the posting for another day when I potentially will have something more interesting to share.

Today, I still have nothing.

Sorry.

I think I should have a lot to say on the subject of summer since I've been here and there and everywhere, but it's all mundane ubiquitous events that no one and their mother would enjoy reading about, so I just don't write anything. And then I feel guilty about not saying anything about my day, but I really have no idea what to tell you!

And it's not even like I can blame it on the weather because as far as I'm concerned summer hasn't even arrived yet! I don't know about the state that you live in (denial, perhaps?) but here in Idaho it's been downright dreary. Rainy, windy, maybe partially cloudy if you're lucky, but mostly overcast and cold. Since I've been home from school I've worn shorts once.

Once.

What is wrong with mother nature? Is she sick?

Anyway, tomorrow I'm watching Avatar with Prince Charming on Blu-ray. He's never seen it before, but I watched it in IMAX 3D so now nothing will compare and I will always be disappointed. Oh well. I still enjoy the movie, even if the story is predictable. Whatever.

Friday I move off to camp. Prince Charming got promoted to being Day Camp Director so now instead of my co-worker he will be my boss. It'll be good for him. It'll mature him. I'm excited for him. I just hope the weather gets nicer sooner rather than later so I can feel like maybe it could potentially be summertime in the Pacific Northwest.

Oh how I miss me some good sunshine. I need a tan. My legs are the Pillsbury Dough Boy!

Turning the Page

Summer camp is mostly over! Last week Princey and I did an over night camp, which is way out of the norm for us, but it was fun anyway. We had a good group of boys and did a lot of fishing. We should have done some more sailing, but the weather wasn't that great. Some days it was too windy and choppy and other days the water was smooth as glass. But we all had an awesome time making some sweet crafts and FOOFing like no other. (BTW FOOF is Feet Off Of Floor aka rest time ;] )

But now day camp may or may not have one last week left, and then on Friday I move back down to Moscow for my second year of school! This year should be WAY better than the first year for a plethora of reasons. 1) The most obvious - Prince Charming will be there. 2) I'm taking art studio classes so I might actually be having some FUN at school. C) I already have a job down there that I know how to do and like doing. And Quatro) I'll have a car this year so I don't have to rely on other people for transportation, which makes me happy. And that's a good thing because I LOVE being happy. Ha, ha.

So for now, I'm hanging out with The Keeper and his friend, Cinco. We're jamming out to Owl City and being online surfer dorks. It's fun, but I kind of wish that I was still at camp. The only real reason that I'm home this weekend is because DP is getting baptized tomorrow! WOOHOO! There are a lot of similarities between our baptisms except that hers hasn't happened yet! ;)

But DP is totally worth coming home for - even if that means I missed the dinner that Princey made me. Which makes me totally sad. We went on a boat ride with the staff this evening, and it seemed that my elbow and Prince Charming's nose were destined to be together this boat ride because I must've hit him with it at least twice. In my defense though, my hood was up because it was raining and we all know that hood over head equals a periferal vision level of negative 250. Yeah.

The first time we collided I just moved seats because instead of letting me apologize, he just pushed me away and turned his head so that I felt like a total jerk of a person and not a very good girlfriend at all. The second time it happened we were headed to the boat house to replace our life jackets and I threw my arms in the air without the knowlege of Prince standing behind me and we collided yet again. Then he did the same thing - pushed me off and turned his head. I didn't think I could possibly feel worse.

When we get back to Staff Housing he grabs his PSP off the couch and then hibernates in his room while I sit out on the couch texting my mom for a ride home this weekend. We haven't spoken since we got home and I didn't know if I should go talk to him in his room or leave him alone - and then he left the house without a word to me. So my parents get there and I found out from another co-worker that Princey went for dinner. I leave without saying goodbye.

On the ride home Prince calls me, but I don't answer because I'm having a conversation with my parental units. He calls again and again I don't pick up. He calls me a third time and I figure I better answer before he loses his head in frustration.

The poor boy thought I'd left Camp for good since next week we don't technically have to work.

He made me dinner.

He fed it to the cats.

When he found out I'd left he threw the peanut butter jar across the room and slammed the door.

I felt so bad.

But on the bright side I'm going back to Camp tomorrow to finish up some stuff and maybe work Monday and Tuesday.

Anyway, I think I'll get back to a more regular posting schedule when I get back to school. Sorry I haven't been too terribly interesting all summer.

sleeping on the couch during FOOF

expert bow positions during yoga class :)

The Zeke Bear

So I bought Prince-y a teddy bear a while back for Christmas. It's one of those awesome build a bear teddies and I clothed it in pajamas similiar to the ones that Princey always wears. It's rather cute and extremely adorable when he carries it around the house and they are clad in the same outfit.

He also forgot to bring aformentioned teddy on his DisneyLand vacation and I found it today laying on his drawing book on top of his dresser. Naughty, naughty Prince Charming. Ha, ha. Anyway, I nabbed it off the dresser and took it into my room so that I can keep the bear company while Prince Charming is galavanting around Southern California riding rides and eating loads of cotton candy.

So Ezekiel (said teddy) is in my room on one of my bags on the floor. And today for FOOF (Feet Off Of Floor) time during Day Camp, we were at Staff Housing because the place where we are normally supposed to stay is occupied and the runner up place just had the carpets cleaned and pet treated so it basically smells like a litter box. In any case, we all ended up at Staff Housing and we put the girls in my room so they could rest. I told them both that they could play with Zeke if they so desired.

The littlest one, E, picked up the teddy from said location and held him up in front of her face with both her hands. And then she said one of the best and funniest words I've ever heard in my life.

"These kind of look like Prince's pajamas."

I just about died laughing. Who knew that a 5 year old pre-K cute little amazing girl would catch the similarity between my boyfriend and his teddy bear. E seriously made my entire day. And probably my whole week.

It's pretty hard being here by myself without Prince Charming. It's just a different feeling. I'm so used to having him around all the time and seeing him everywhere that to have him gone it just feels kind of empty. But we have a great group of kids this week, and what's even more awesome is that there's only four of them. So at least this week is an easy week.

And on Wednesday we are going to Cat Tails Zoological Park. I'm seriously so excited. Princey told me that while we are there I have to take loads of pictures because it's the exact same week that he missed last year when he went on vacation. So I'll try to do the park justice and take as many pictures as I can.

Long Week Doesn't Even Begin To Cover It

Life is what takes place when you are flying around at 100 miles an hour and your brain is nine ways from Sunday.

Last week at camp was hell week. And I mean that in the most devlish way possible.

Good thing there was no over night camp last week.

(I might have died.)

You see, we have the regulars. The kids that come back every week all summer. And then we have the floaters. The kids that maybe show up for one week or two. Possibly three if they're feeling ambitious. Sometimes you like them. Sometimes you don't.

I usually do.

Except for this week.

I love my job working with the Day Camp at Twinlow. Love it! However, I have recently found out that there are some weeks I will love more than other weeks and not everything is hunky dory-dory.

When you have five boys who are all cousins and one is five, one is seven and the rest are six, you think you can handle it. They're related. They'll be good friends. Not much work to do. WRONG. Oh so incredibly wrong. I'm talking in terms of you couldn't wronger (bad grammar because those kids have made me lose my mind, I swear).

These boys couldn't be trusted in a room by themselves. They picked on each other. They punched each other. They head butted each other in the eye. We had to seperate them during rest time so they each had their own room. That sort of made the other kids jealous because they wanted their own room too. Until I kindly informed them that having your own room meant you were in loads of trouble - then they were okay with not having their own room.

Anyway, I'm terrificly glad, enthralled even, that those mouthy boys will not be participating next week.

There were some fun moments though. Like the all out Pudding Fight that I did not want to be a part of, where dear, lovely, ever charming Princey decided to slather chocolate pudding on my middle. To make up for covering my jeans in pudding he's taking me to a movie.

Also the extra large slip'n'slide that didn't follow the curve of the hill, so when I tell you that I went off the slip'n'slide, I really went OFF THE SLIP'N'SLIDE. My body will thank me for that after my wounds heal. Ha, ha.

And last night was a big church barbeque at the city park with hot dogs, music, friends, fun and a large game of Lava Tag in Ft. Sherman Park. Followed by a serman, some useless standing around and then off to Dockside for some delectable Gooeys. Oh yes, enjoyable for sure. After that Prince and I headed off with one of his friends to play some video games.

There was some extreme disappointment on Prince Charming's end when we found out that the game we all wanted to play was left in Staff Housing and NOT in my PSP. Did I mention the extreme disappointment? Because it was the second time we had visited said friend with intent to play and had our epic plans thwarted. Anywho, the boys played and I fell alseep on Prince's lap until it was time to leave.

Oh the eventful days of life. I honestly don't think it could get much better...