March Break Camp

Post March Break camp thoughts...
SO we just finished helping out with this years' camp, and I am all gross and congested. I caught a disgusting cold on Tuesday, and was totally out of it for a couple of days (while still having to mind our kids and run nature walks, games and campfires), and I'm still coughing and ew. Fun.

I was in Cabin 1, with 11 girls ages 6 to 8.
Just so everyone knows, the kids that came to camp were from our community in Regent Park, which is officially known as behavioural challenge land. Not really, but hey. There were about 67 kids to start with, and 7 of them behaved so badly and refused to listen and settle down that they had to be taken home. We had to send one of our girls home on Thursday morning because she would never do as she was asked, and screamed whenever it suited her (alot) and bugged the other girls constantly (who bugged her back - generally, each of them rubbed the other up the wrong way...) and spat at people...

She had massive shouting contests with the other girls at bedtime, and eventually ended up being taken outside to be spoken to on Tuesday night by Kanga (cabin leader) and Sandra (corps officer) who she screamed at, argued with and shouted at for an hour or more...

So basically they required constant supervision. If not for the bickering, just to make sure they had warm enough (and dry enough) clothes on so they wouldn't freeze. But in general, my girls were awesome. Draining, but awesome. They were: Katherine, Chanoa, Janessa, Akaya, Janae, Cassandra, Ashly, Lauren, Destiney, Kendra and Angela. And Rosa (who is 14) helped out for the whole week. Slept in with the girls and everything. She is Angela's older sister. There were other teen leaders there for the weekend, but she was the only one I think who was staying in one cabin the whole time, and I think she did a great job. Champion effort Rosa! Then the cabin leader was Kanga (who was away frequently on camp business, since she was a camp leader as well) and me and Alexa were there as well.

There were cool moments :) There was a boy called Trinity - about 6, really cute little kid who made antennae and wings one day at craft and went around camp as a butterfly for the latter half of the week. One day he "couldn't" get out of bed, and Heather went to find out why he wouldn't get up, and it was because he didn't know where he'd put his antennae. Lol... And my entire cabin had pretty much the entire repetoire of songs from bible time memorised; 15 ish songs or so, and went around singing them :) Then there was the day the girls made mud pies during cabin time. Pretty much froze their hands off, but had a great time... One girl wore mitts while making them... Mitts were a write off, but she kept her hands clean :)

Yeah. Cut that I don't get to hang with the girls after camp, cos they're not in my squad, but hey. Cassandra is in the grade 2 math class that I help with on Tuesdays, so I see her, yay. I didn't mean to make that rhyme... hmmm. I may want to go home now and finish cleaning my clothes and stuff. Later!

Photos from our holiness retreat

Where we all got holier than everyone else for the weekend :) Kidding! It was fun anyway. We (the Ignite people) went with our mentors and Fiona (Ignite coordinator) and Sandra (Corps Officer) to Crieff Hills. It had awesome food, I saw cardinals and bluejays, and red squirrels and rabbit tracks. And we went to the most phenomenal buffet on the way home. Freezer full of ice cream, a guy to cut roast pork or beef off the bone for you, waffles, a whole breakfast section including hash browns... dude. It was sweet. Seriously.

So here are some pics. Two of holiness retreat, and one from squad sleepover with my footprints out onto the frozen lake :)

Lent and freezing snow :)

Yo! Wat up?
Yeah. I have been slack... and busy, so I kinda have an excuse :)
What have I done recently? I went on a sleepover with one of my kids squads last weekend. Three eleven year old boys, three guys and me, and a cabin next to a frozen lake in a whole tonne of snow :)
It was pretty fun, the cabin was colder inside than the weather outside was, and it took like, four hours to get the temperature up to zero using a fireplace in conjunction with the electric heating. Two of the boys were fully whiney babies and refused to go out snow-shoeing, instead opting to stay indoors near the fire. EVEN THOUGH it was seriously several degrees warmer outside, and one of them ended up crying cos his feet were SO cold! And I'm like, GUYS! What part of ITS WARMER OUTSIDE don't you understand??!!? But we eventually got the cabin heated up to like, 26 degrees. Highlights of the weekend include tramping through snow halfway up my thighs to get to the OUTHOUSE, walking on water (even though it was frozen so it doesn't count...) and yeah. Great view of the stars at night, and random people on snow mobiles riding across the frozen lake.

Next... we get to give something up for lent. Yay. Not much left to give up really, lol. Not that that's unusual - I don't usually have the time for TV or the cash for fast food anyway, so yeah. So I have given up some sleep. Three days a week I get up half an hour early. It SUCKS. But I don't do it when I have to get up early anyway, or when I have a late night the night before, so in theory, if I wasn't so busy, I could just go to sleep earlier... Not that it ever happens :)
Kingsley gave up junk food on the first day (Wed. night), then changed it to meat on the second day, then bought a chicken burger for lunch ON THE SAME DAY cos he thinks veggie burgers suck, then on Sunday, he HAD to eat the chicken that Joy cooked for dinner for the whole church (we eat dinner after church every week) because Joy cooked it and it would've been rude not to... WHATEVER!!! I think someone is missing the point... ANYWAY...

And today it started in on the bad weather. We got a storm prediction, with freezing rain and ice pellets. Yeah. Snow is great on the ground, but when it's flying into your face and getting all into the scarf round your neck... And then melting... EWWWWW so annoying. So it's only going to get worse tonight. Yippee. But DUDE!! It's like a snow day or something!!! Everything is fully cancelled! So I have the night off to catch up on assignments and stuff.

I just had a break in my blogging to drive someone across town, and we got halfway there and turned back cos the traffic is so horrendous because of the snow. I guess the freezing rain and ice pellets don't come till later...

Yay! That is it for now I guess. The photo is of Lawrence - one of the squad kids at our sleepover.