Great idea in Texas...

Our last day of week two was absolutely fantastic! So many wonderful kids at camp this week! Everyone worked so hard and we all had a blast! They are already planning to start two DI teams in the fall!! We got a bunch of goodbye hugs and I was even invited to a birthday party (the girl didn't realized I wasn't staying at Randolph forever).

After camp we had a great idea to dress up a little and go off base for dinner. Yea great idea... kinda. So there we were minding our own business, walking around when out of nowhere dark angry clouds appeared and began pelting us with rain. We were soaked in seconds. After we were dripping wet, the sun came waltzing back out as if nothing happened. haha good one Mother Nature! We'll miss you Texas!

Sad and wet face!

Ryan was a little sad too...

Then we went to a restaurant where you can draw on the place mats!! This was fun!

Ryan drew me...

And this is my picture!

Traumatized in Texas!

All of our campers this week get better everyday! It's so much fun to work with engaged learners who are excited to be at camp and are sad to leave at the end of the day!

This afternoon we had a minor road block when I was attacked by an ENORMOUS, DISGUSTING, THICK, HAIRY, BROWN SPIDER that literally tried to eat me when I was organizing the supplies table. Naturally, I ran and got Ryan and told him to CATCH IT!!!!! Unfortunately, as I mentioned in an earlier blog Ryan has a huge bug phobia and runs away screaming from mosquitos! He was a champ though! Despite his fears, he grabbed a frisbee and a cup (just like a DI kid) and chased that spider down. At one point a camper came up and said, "ummm Miss Rachael?" I said, "Yes James?" He asked in a concerned tone, "What's Mr. Ryan doing?? I'm a little worried!" I told him not to worry and that Mr. Ryan is a professional bug catcher and has saved my life on numerous occasions. He went back to his team still a little unconvinced despite my reassurance. :)

The story ends with King Ryan catching that monster spider in a cup! He took it outside and released it in the middle of the road (even though it tried to eat me, we decided to spare it's life) at which time a bird swooped down and ate it.... yes I'm totally serious... a bird gobbled up that ENORMOUS, DISGUSTING, THICK, HAIRY, BROWN, SPIDER and all campers and counselors lived happily ever after... kinda... I still drop everything I'm holding and start slapping my legs every five minutes convinced that it's on me.

WOW! What an adventure though!

ENORMOUS, DISGUSTING, THICK, HAIRY, BROWN SPIDER!!

A Whole New World!

Yesterday we ventured to Sea World!!!!!

We rode the rides and watched great shows!

Here are the people from the Cool Vibrations Water Show!

Shamu's "Believe" show!

Anything is possible...

... if you just believe!

Cool Vibrations show!

I tripped and hit my ankle really hard on the bleachers right before this picture... typical!

We LOVE Sea World!!

Today we had the first day of our second week of camps! It is literally a "Whole New World" on our new base! Both the morning and the afternoon sessions were wonderful and I'm so excited for this week of camp on Randolph Air Force Base!

We ended the evening by cooking a delicious/healthy meal!

And by "we" I mean Ryan cooked a delicious/healthy meal and I gave moral support by blasting Disney songs and singing at the top of my lungs!

We ate out on the pretty hotel patio!

Adventure in San Antonio!

We traveled a whopping 25 minutes to our second base today and we love it already!!

First things first... we found the Starbucks!

Our wonderful point of contact on base helped us get base passes so that we can actually leave base and get back on! (So we will have food this week!!!!)

We decided to travel to downtown San Antonio where we visited the Alamo and strolled along the river walk!

We went and saw Toy Story 3 in Imax during which Ryan and I both cried the entire movie.

The solid end to the evening included me spotting my princess carriage and dragging Ryan on a "FOLLOW THAT CARRIAGE" mission through town until we were close enough to take a picture!

Stay tuned because tomorrow we head to....

wait for it....

SEA WORLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Breakthrough in Texas!

My prayers were answered when both sessions ended on a great note today! It was such a relief to send happy campers out the door! Ryan and I are already planning our strategies to ensure a great camp for the kids next week and all the weeks after.

Precious moments of the day:

*4 of the campers in the afternoon session drew pictures of Ryan and I during the reflection activity. One little boy drew a big picture of my face. Another boy said, "I drew Miss Rachael and Mr. Ryan because they are special to me and I will always remember them." I'm not going to lie, I teared up a bit! This made it all worth it!

Mosquito bite update for the day:

*Grand total of 34 now!

Beyond pooped in Texas...

So I'm not gonna lie, TGIF- almost! It's not that I don't love this job but man oh man am I pooped!!! I am looking forward to a fresh start next week so Ryan and I can fix all the things that didn't go well this week. I'm afraid there are about 100 improvements we can make each day of the camp. Live and learn though, right?

Note to self: I'm pretty sure I'm allergic to Texan mosquitos hence the little girl asking "Miss Rachael, what's wrong with your face?" I replied "Ummm I don't know... what's wrong with it?" Curious, I took a look in the mirror and I easily figured out she was referring to all the swelling around the bug bites and brick red coloring...

Speechless in Texas!

WOW!! Well we just finished day 3 of our first camp! I don't even know what to say...

Ryan and I are both exhausted... and hungry! We've been able to find food the past couple days though so that's excellent! :) The positive is that I am getting so much practice with classroom management! We've seen amazing growth in the morning session which is so rewarding. However, we are still trying to find a way to really reach the afternoon campers. Every night I talk to my mom (who's an amazing teacher) on the phone trying to come up with new strategies for managing the behavior problems and poor attitudes without taking away from the learning. It's definitely tough but I'm excited to keep going because I've learned so much already and so have the campers. I know it will all come together and each week is going to be more and more amazing!

Hungry for Military Orders! :)

Everything is fantastic... except we can't purchase

hardly and food or drinks without Military orders... those don't come till tomorrow! It got to be 1:00 this afternoon and we realized that neither of us had had anything except water all day!

Some important lessons that I've learned today include:

*Purchase food at the airport before going to the base!

*Texas is not the state to live in if you have naturally curly hair! Just when I get my hair tamed down, I walk outside and POOF, big ball of friz!

*We should always hang out in Ryan's room since he believes the guest should just sit there while he pampers them.

Ryan wants to be a dermatologist so he's obsessed with sunscreen and won't let me leave the room without it! So I will have nice skin when I get home this summer!

*9 mosquito bites make that really cute bench we ate our pizza on not so cute anymore! Ryan brought sunscreen but not bug spray?????

*The bugs here are SUPER SIZED ENORMOUS!!!! Ryan is terrified of them and runs away screaming so I have to wear "the pants" in the part of the relationship that includes keeping bugs away! :)

*Everything closes at like 6:00pm on Sunday!

The youth center that we are doing our camp in is absolutely beautiful!! Jared (our "person") is wonderful!! Here is a picture of the gym we are working in!

Here are two of my 9 beautiful mosquito bites!

Bedroom

Living room and Kitchen

Ryan and I did finally find food!

My jet plane is a little late...

Well today is still the day even though my first attempt to leave this morning wasn't successful. Apparently my seat was canceled on my US airways flight and I was booked on a Delta flight leaving at 4:25pm instead. So I got to come back home for a while and I will be leaving for my take 2 at the airport in a couple hours. The bright side is that I'm getting to practice flexibility. This must be exactly what Ginger Green meant in my second interview for the job when she said, "THINGS WILL GO WRONG AT AIRPORTS!!!!!!!!!" I appreciate the heads up! :)

I'm leeeaaavvin' on a jet plane, don't know when I'll be back again.... hum.. la dee da ...

Tomorrow's the day! Supposedly a person holding a sign with my name on it will be standing outside my terminal when my plane lands in San Antonio, TX.

For those of you who are wondering why the heck I'm meeting a stranger in San Antonio, Texas, let me explain...

I am so excited to be a Destination Imagination Air Force Base Camp Counselor for the summer!! My co-counselor Ryan and I will be traveling to a different base every week for 8 weeks where we will be running camps. If you don't know what Destination Imagination is... google it! It's AMAZING!

More later... gotta go pack!