Sometimes Reality makes me Sad

This article was in the spec this morning. It’s pretty sad. Part of me wishes the girl lived in our neighbourhood… and that we could find her. The other part of me is just plain scared of her… not wanting to face the reality that things like that are happening in the lives of 14 year olds.

A Rural Education

I cannot believe how quickly the summer is coming to a close. We have had a pretty quiet week at work. We spent most of Monday and part of Tuesday just sitting around looking at each other, enjoying that we actually had a moment to breathe. We visited with kids, played Scrabble, and just enjoyed each other’s company. Wednesday night we went out for Thai food to celebrate the summer. We went to My Thai and shared a couple of different dishes. I am really going to miss our staff… going out for Thai food and sharing dishes. We have really gotten close in the last couple of months. My Thai was good. I suggest the Sweet Basil Beef. The Pad Thai was disappointing but the experience made up for it. I even learned how to use chop sticks a bit and feel fairly confident that I could actually make it though a meal with them next time.

Last night was the wrap-up event for our junior high ministries (although they aren’t really wrapping up until next week). We took the kids camping overnight out in Fisherville at a family’s house. The kids are SO funny. It’s pretty clear most of them have never been camping. The things they pack are SO random and they brought WAY more stuff than they needed for 3 days. It was a really good time. We played a lot of games in the open field next to their house and hung out around the campfire. I think it was the first time many of the kids got to sleep in a tent. They were confused by the rural water system and didn’t understand why we couldn’t flush the toilet or drink the tap water. That was a pretty big thing for them to get over which I thought was kind of funny. I think the highlight for me was that one of the girls that had moved out of our neighbourhood found out about the trip from friends who we are still connected with so she asked if she could come. It was great to see her again and it makes me feel good that she still wants to be involved in things.

Tomorrow my parents are coming to visit. We are going to pack a picnic and check out Webster’s Falls. I am looking forward to it. In just over a week I will be on glorious vacation… something that I am in desperate need of. Sanda and I have a possible itinerary for our Ottawa trip which includes an overnight stay in Montreal which I am excited about. For now, I need to go and pretend to do something productive. Four hours of sleep in a night does not equal good results the next day!

Day Camp: A Review

Well, another week of day camp has come to an end. It was a busy but very enjoyable one. The kids got really into the theme and enjoyed catching villains. Our staff worked really well and we had some pretty awesome volunteers which always helps to make things run more smoothly. My favourite part of the week was getting to do some 1:1 with a little guy. He was certainly active but we eventually found out that he loved bubbles (doesn’t every kid) and were able to use that to keep him in one place. Today he wore an entire Spider-Man outfit. Also today, he decided that throwing water balloons wasn’t enough and decided to climb into the huge pail of water balloons – much to the frustration of others on his team as this activity also involved breaking most of the balloons. I forgot how much I love doing 1:1.

Last night we took the junior leaders out to Pizza Hut as a thank-you for their help with day camp. It was pretty clear from the get-go that they don’t go out much but we thankfully we had the restaurant to ourselves for most of the evening. When I was a kid I remember going to Pizza Hut for choir parties and we always had an awesome time so it was good to keep that in mind when the girls were doing all sorts of crazy things and making 18 trips to the bathroom. Dinner wasn’t even all that expensive… oh for even more reasons to love Pizza Hut.

I had another conversation with one of the kids this week that really made me feel loved and appreciated… right up there with the conversation about my style of dress on Monday. I’ll share it with you… keep in mind the kid in question is a 12 year old girl that I’ve been investing in all year.

Child: Where do you work?
Me: Here.
Child: What do you do?
Me: Hang out with you?
Child: Do you get paid?
Me: Kind of
Child: Man, I should get a job like that… just get paid to sit on your butt all the time.

Thank you very much for that pick-me-up. I actually thought it was pretty funny. Alright, I have to go… I have returned from house-sitting and have a long list of things to do. Oh wait, I forgot the original purpose of the post. While I was house-sitting I read the seventh Harry Potter book… it was amazing… definitely my favourite… I actually couldn’t wait to see the movie while I was reading it… so, that’s my review of the book… it’s good.

Happy Anniversary to ME!

Well, tomorrow is my one-year anniversary of moving to Hamilton. I can’t believe how fast the year has gone and how much has changed in me and what is happening here. It’s pretty amazing!

This week has been our last week of day camp so things have been a little bit crazy around the church. The kids are getting really into everything around the theme (superheroes) so it’s been pretty fun. One of my favourite comments this week has been ‘Tracy, I caught my first villian’. It was pretty hilarious.

Saturday we took a couple of the kids to the bayfront for a picnic. They played at the park and in the splash pad which was pretty awesome fun. I had a great time. Oh, and we went to laser tag Friday night for one of the kids’ birthdays. That was also pretty fun.

Sunday night/Monday morning I was viciously ill and throwing up all night. I decided on Monday that I needed to get some more sleep so I called in sick for the morning of day camp. We changed the schedule so that I could do the Bible story with the kids in the afternoon. I will share with you one of the reasons that I love ‘my’ kids.

Kid: Hey, where were you this morning?
Tracy: I was sick last night so I stayed home this morning.
Kid: Why are you dressed so crappy?
Tracy: Kid, I spent last night throwing up.
Kid: Well, you never dress like that. Just because you’re sick doesn’t mean you have to dress so crappy!

Thank you very much for the morale boost! Alright, I have things to do, people to see and Bible stories to get ready to tell. YAY for day camp.

Vacation, Vacation, Vacation

Seeing as this is the first year that I’ve actually had a ‘real’ job this is also the first year that I’ve gotten to take vacation from work… let me tell you, it’s a pretty sweet thing! So this last week was my first week of vacation. I had decided that I was going to camp for the week which people were concerned about because it wasn’t really a vacation. We were running a three night out trip along the Bruce Trail for kids aged 10-14. So for anyone who was concerned I would just like to say that I had an awesome week and I definitely felt relaxed and ‘on vacation like’. We had 10 kids register for the trip (which was an almost perfect number). Only one of them was 10 which turned out to be very good because he had some troubles on the hike. We hiked a four hour round trip on Monday to get to Hilton Falls from Kelso (and back). Then Tuesday we hiked four and a half hours from Kelso to Rattlesnake Point. Wednesday the kids got to rock climb on the Niagara Escarpment which was super cool (even though I didn’t get to climb). We also played a lot of football (a game I’ve never been able to understand so I spent most of the time just running around in circles singing Disney songs) and a couple games of Flags. We also, unfortunately, played mass amounts of Skip Bo. I really wish I had thought to pack a normal deck of cards but Skip Bo was the best we had. Highlights from the week include; standing under the waterfall at Hilton Falls, eating mass amounts of trail mix, singing Banana Phone about 1600 times and getting stung by a bee for the first time in my 25 years of life. Oh yeah, and I lost 5 pounds in a week… not sure if that’s healthy!

The rest of my vacation was spent with my family and some old friends. Friday night, after camp, I went out for ice cream with an old camp friend. We had a good long talk which reminded me of just how much I have changed this year (there’s nothing like hanging out with old friends to remind me of that). Saturday I put washer fluid and oil in my car by myself… be proud of me people! Saturday night I went to this country concert with a couple of friends. The concert was Doc Walker and Michelle Wright. I loved Doc Walker but I knew I wouldn’t know very many of the songs by Michelle Wright. It was nice to just get to hang out with my friends though… and I saw another friend at the concert so that was an added bonus.

Yesterday was the event I have been referring to as “The Wedding of the Century”. Scott and Kathy got married yesterday. It was all very nice… except I couldn’t get over the feeling that I’d been in their reception hall before which was kind of creepy! I got to see lots of people that I haven’t seen in ages… AND I got to sit at a table with my surrogate family. I met their oldest daughter while I was working at camp and slowly became a part of their family… we’re related somehow too which probably helped the process. I’ve worked at camp with each of their kids now and we all got to sit together last night.

So that’s pretty much my week of vacation. Today I have big plans to clean this house and spend some time trying to figure out my life. I realized that it’s now August which means that I have less than a month before kids go back to school and I have to know what I’m doing at the church for this year… eek! Then it will be no time at all before I have to figure out what I’m doing next year…