It's a sauna camp in Jersey!

So today during camp it was 87 degrees outside.... it was about 5 degrees hotter than that in the gym! I don't think I've mentioned it yet but we don't have air conditioning in our gym at the youth center this week so our poor kids leave everyday dehydrated and most are practically suffering from heat stroke. Since it was cooler outside than in, we decided to try "tie the knot" out by the playground .

I think I've mentioned once or twice though that Ryan and I tend to be slightly unlucky so naturally after only 5 minutes we received a "LIGHTNING WITHIN 5 MILES" warning and had to hurry back into our roasting gym.

Despite the blazing heat though our kiddos were awesome! Obviously the heat didn't impact their creativity! All four teams came up with absolutely solid performances for "Celebrity Suitcase!" I now have a new motto though: "When in doubt, just make a poster." I'm finding that most our campers are visual learners so when they struggle to understand a challenge we write it out for them to see. We made a Celebrity Suitcase Check List for each team to follow.

Green Team!! From left to right we have Peyton Manning, Lady Gaga, airport security, and Johnny Depp!

Blue Team!! Celebrities- Beyonce, Alicia Keys, and Janet Jackson.

Red Team! Celebrities- Lil wayne, Michael Jackson, and Justin Bieber

Purple Team! Celebrities- Selena Gomez, Hanna Montana, and Alicia Keys.

This week we've only had one major behavior problem. We've had a girl that just can't work well on a team because she has such a negative attitude. Her team wasn't getting anything done and everyone involved seemed to be extremely frustrated. She blamed everyone else for everything and nothing was ever her fault. We tried a new strategy today where we had the girl start camp by sitting out and her task was to observe what working on a team with a positive attitude looks like. At first she was really angry and told me she saw "ABSOLUTELY NO TEAMWORK" so I took her over to the target we made at the beginning of the week and gave her a piece of paper. I told her to focus specifically on teamwork traits from the target and she could only write down positive things. She eventually came up with a pretty good list and when she was done we had her sign the bottom saying that she would commit to following everything she observed on the other teams. When she was ready to join her team, she was a completely different girl than the previous days. We could tell she was really trying to be positive and her team seemed really excited to have the new "her" working with them.

Here is the "Teamwork observations" list

At the end of the day, the kids were absolutely exhausted and drenched in sweat! They persevered through the heat and worked so hard at camp!

Here's our poor dehydrated group.

Despite their exhaustion though they finished strong with big smiles!

Another picture of our champions!

After a long but fantastic day of camp our awesome POC took us out to dinner at a fun little place on base. This was the first POC to take us out and it was so much fun. Another staff member from the youth center also joined us. It was the best ending to our already solid day! We will definitely miss McGuire AFB!

It's one surprise after another... are you surprised?

When I woke up this morning I decided to try and forget about the parking ticket and focus on having a great day of camp!

Ryan and I got all set up and ready to go for the 23 campers we had yesterday when all of a sudden at 8:58 am I looked over and SURPRISE... 38 kids came running in the gym full of energy and excited for camp! I looked at Ryan and we both instantly jumped into motion readjusting our plans. While Ryan signed kids in, I helped make sure everyone had a name tag.

Since we had so many new kids join us today we decided to spend the first 15 minutes focusing on pre-teaching and reviewing the target and teamwork poster we made with the kids yesterday. Our campers from day 1 helped teach the new kids everything we talked about yesterday morning. We allowed everyone a chance to add new ideas to our target.

After expectations were clear we divided into 5 teams and had each team create a team name and a cheer that we will refer back to throughout the rest of the week. We then moved right into a water balloon team building activity that was by far one of the favorites of the day!

The Green Team!

The Red, Orange, Purple, and Blue teams!

Throughout the week we teach the kids generating and focusing tools that they can use to help their team solve challenges. This week we decided to try a new strategy for teaching the tools. We created a DI "tool box" and after the kids learn a new tool they can add it to the box. This has been really effective in acting as an anchor that the kids can always refer back to.

Here is our tool box. So far we've learned one new tool called Attribute Listing. Tomorrow we will add another!

Even though it was a crazy day at DI camp it was tons of fun! The kids had a lot that they were proud of so we let them hang their work on the wall.

Here is our great group!

After camp Ryan and I headed to the pool at our hotel where I surprisingly switched over from using teaching strategies this morning to using parenting strategies I learned from my parents to keep Ryan entertained. Those of you who know Ryan will probably agree that he is a bit of a wiggly kid. He doesn't really sit still. So our afternoon of relaxing at the pool turned out a little differently than I had planned.

Here's how it went down-

Ryan- (swimming in the pool) "Rachael, come play with me!!"

Rachael- (relaxing in a chair) "Ryan, I'm relaxing"

Ryan - "awww okay."

5 minutes later

Ryan- "Rachael watch, are my legs straight?"

I looked over to find Ryan doing a handstand in the pool. I quickly realized that I needed to come up with something to keep poor Ryan entertained so I remembered back to when I was a kid at the pool with my parents. While I relaxed on the side I scored Ryan's handstands and other water gymnastics on a scale of 1-10.

Ryan- "How was that one?"

Rachael- "Ummm 8.5"

Ryan- "WHAT????"

Rachael- "you're legs weren't straight and you didn't point your toes."

Ryan- "okay, how about this one?"

Rachael- "Better, I give it a 9"

Unfortunately this only lasted about 10 minutes so I pulled out another game my parents used to do with my siblings and I. Good thing I brought my purse along with all my change in it.

Rachael- "Ryan, want to play another game?"

Ryan- "YES!!!"

Rachael- "Okay, here's $2.60 in change ( throwing it all over the bottom of the pool), your challenge is to swim around and collect all the money.

Ryan- "OKAY!!!"

As it turns out, Ryan is quite the little fish! $2.60 didn't last very long so I went back and pulled out EVERY PENNY I had. I then threw in a total of $4.99 for him to go find. Ryan had lots of fun with this game!

Here's Ryan counting the money to see how much more he needed to find. We even practiced our math skills today!

YAY! He found all $4.99!!

It got a little awkward when an old man decided to go for a swim too. He just stared at me while Ryan closed his eyes and I threw money all over the pool.

I just smiled and said, "Don't mind me, I'm just throwing money in the pool for my friend to go find! Would you like to play?"He said, "ummm no" and continued on his way swimming around and over Ryan as he fished for coins.

Eventually I got bored and hopped in the pool to play "find the coins" too! That only lasted a short time though because Ryan is extremely competitive and I'm very much a "let's be on the same team and share all the coins" kind of person. We kinda conflicted a bit with this game. :)

After I got out Ryan discovered that he could just throw the coins around the pool himself so I headed back over to my chair. Unfortunately on my way, I stepped on a piece of glass and cut my foot. Only I would find glass at the pool and step on it! Luckily it was a small piece and I was easily able to pull it out. I laid back down in my chair and relaxed. I even got to take a short nap!

Overall, it was a very solid Tuesday!!

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly...

The Good-

*Our first day of camp was fantastic! The kids are so full of energy and I can tell it's going to be an awesome week!

Here are a couple pictures from our fabulous first day!

*We drove to Cherry Hill to see one of our other fabulous counselors!! ALYSSA!!! YAY! She is on a different tour than us and we haven't seen her since Global Finals in May. It was so wonderful to catch up!

Alyssa and I at dinner shortly before she knocked over her glass of water sending it all into my lap. Definitely made for a funny story we could laugh about the rest of the evening! :)

The Bad-

* Yesterday an alarm went off in our hotel that required everyone to evacuate the building. We thought maybe it had to do with the tornado warning that was a few miles away but it didn't seem like the safest plan to evacuate us all to the front of the hotel where we stood outside for a half hour so we had to assume it wasn't that. We never found out for sure what happened. All we know is it sure attracted a lot of fire men!

The Ugly-

Today while we were in Philadelphia with Alyssa I got a parking ticket. Ryan and I didn't discover it of course until I was driving 65 mph down the freeway in the dark. Ryan saw something flapping around on the front windshield so he rolled down his window, stuck his arm out, and grabbed it. We still have no idea what we did wrong but we obviously did something to get a $76 ticket! Naturally I called my parents in hysterical sobs since I've never even gotten a library book fine. Once I calmed down enough to breathe again, my parents told me that it's no big deal and it happens frequently in busy cities. I'm going to send the ticket to my wonderful parents and they will take care of it for me. My heart rate still isn't quite back to normal yet but I'm working on it.

Excited for the adventures of the second half!

Let me start off by saying that my week at home was amazing! It was so great to visit with friends and family. On Monday my brothers and I drove to Spokane to spend the evening with two of my fellow counselors who are on a different tour. I absolutely loved catching up with Paige and Evan!!!

Here's Paige, Evan, and I at River Front Park

My brothers and I

Also while I was home I was able to visit my two favorite nephews Rocket and Trey!

After a fantastic week at home, I headed to the Pasco airport yesterday morning to start the second half of my summer adventure as a Destination Imagination Air Force Base Camp Counselor.

Everything seemed to start off fine! I got to the airport early enough to have a nice breakfast with my parents. They walked with me to security where just as I was about to wave goodbye I was stopped by the security lady because my name on my ID didn't match the name on my boarding pass. I looked at my boarding pass and sure enough, it had the wrong name on it. Since my name is obviously not Kristen Basil, I had to run back to the Horizon counter where I found out they not only checked me in as the wrong person but they also marked my luggage with her name and I apparently paid for her luggage with my credit card. After getting that all sorted out I headed back to security where I prepared myself for the normal full body search. I was pleasantly surprised when the lady recognized me as "the girl with the whole backpack full of liquid meds." Just as if we were BFF's she let me through with a smile and a wave and no questions asked!

My connecting flights in Seattle and Detroit were both extremely quick so I literally jumped off one plane and ran onto the other. I really thought I was having an A plus day until I boarded my flight from Detroit to Newark, NJ. I'm not sure what I did to offend the flight attendant but something about me seemed to really annoy him. It all started when they decided to ask trivia questions to give away free seats in first class because it wasn't a full flight. After the first question was about a bar, I asked if I could just move to the seat behind me because I knew I wouldn't know the answer. The flight attendant put his hand on his hip and said, "FINE but that WILL be your LAST move!!" I was extremely startled by his unpleasant tone so I just smiled and said, "okiedokie, no problem." The guy sitting next to me finished my sentence for me by saying, "Ummm we just aren't up to date on our bar trivia so excuse us for not knowing the answer." I smiled and gave him the thumbs up while I moved to the seat behind him.

Just when I thought we were ready for take off I look up to find the extra grumpy flight attendant glaring down at me AGAIN. He then announced to the back of the plane (while staring at me the whole time) that he needed three volunteers to follow him. Since I knew I'd need all the good karma I could get for my drive to base, I volunteered. When I began to take my backpack full of meds with me he instructed me to leave those right where they were because there would be no room for them where I was going. Not wanting to make a scene while the whole plane was watching me I just smiled once again and followed him up to the front few seats behind first class. I realized that my attempts at good karma backfired and I no longer had my own seat. Luckily the flight went by pretty fast. So when we landed I walked to the back of the plane to get my backpack before I followed everyone else off.

I would just like to say that it was very exciting to actually have my luggage arrive at the same place as me at the same time! Maybe my good karma move did work? :)

This is where the journey gets a little scary...

After I got my luggage, I dragged my two suitcases, my backpack, and shoulder bag up 3 flights of stairs where I realized I had to take the air train to the rental place. Once I arrived I dragged all the bags back down 3 flights of stairs into the National car place. Once I gave all my info my instructions from the guy were to "go ahead and follow the path outside. All the keys are inside the cars, pick anyone you'd like." Naturally I was super excited when I walked outside and the first car I saw was a shiny gold Cadillac SRX with a push button start. REALLY excited now, I put all my stuff in that one. Just when I was about to pull out I nearly jumped out of my seat when I heard a knock on the window. I looked over and a lady was yelling, "MAM THAT'S NOT YOUR CAR!!!!" Startled, I got out and unloaded all my stuff while trying to explain that "the guy told me to pick any car and I thought that one was the cutest." Apparently, he forgot to tell me I couldn't take a luxury car. Ooops....

Finally I was pointed in the right direction of my correct car which turned out to be a white toyota corolla. Oh well, it was like being reunited with an old friend.

When I finally loaded all my stuff in the "correct car" it was 12:30am. I put on my brave face and began my 62 mile drive from the airport to my hotel outside base by myself. Naturally right when I started moving it began to pour rain. It was rain like I've never seen before. Luckily it only lasted 15 min because I literally couldn't see anything out the window. I guess the lack of visibility during the rain led me into a huge parking garage where I had to turn around and completely start over. Thank goodness I have the greatest dad in the world who stayed on speaker phone with me the whole time and read me google map directions. I will say that I was really confused when I drove up to a thing called a "toll." Yea, we don't have those in Washington so i just kinda took a ticket and went with the flow. With the help of my dad and a GPS that "recalculated" pretty much every 5 minutes I finally made it to my hotel at about 2:00 am. I literally plopped down on my bed and didn't wake up till morning.

I'm excited to head to the youth center and set up and jump back into the swing of things!

Stay tuned for more adventures and what I'm sure is going to be a fantastic week of camp!!

I should have known something was up...

Have you ever heard of Pacific Wings Airline?? Yea... neither have I. I should have known that something was up when we got to the airport and it was closed. There were no people and no airplanes in sight so we sat in our rental car feeling confused wondering if we should start driving from Macon, Georgia to Atlanta ourselves! Naturally, I called my mom at 3:00am her time and she did an internet search and found us a help line number. The man we reached on the help line couldn't figure out what in the world inspired us to go to an airport 2 and a half hours early. Silly us!! Exactly an hour before our flight was scheduled to depart, somebody came out of nowhere and unlocked the front door. But it wasn't until 15 min before departure time that security opened and let the four passengers through. Can you believe that such a little airport searches 50% of their passengers?? Guess which two passengers got searched???

It wasn't hard to pick out our airplane since it was the only plane at the airport. I'm not gonna lie, we were both a little nervous when we spotted it.

There was no fancy intercom to announce our boarding. Instead a man, who turned out to be the co-pilot shouted "Let's go!" When we got on board, the pilot welcomed us and said, "hi guys, pick a seat! Safety card is in the seat pocket. Let's go!" And go we went with our carry-on items scattered about the plane and cell phones still on. This is where Ryan and I found out we handle our nerves in different ways. While Ryan dove for the safety card and worked to memorize it, I got a severe case of the giggles... That is until the pilot turned around and said, "Did you have a question?" I responded, "Nope!"

Since all four passengers were sitting pretty much in the same spot, we all had the same view of the pilots/flight attendants!

When we arrived in Atlanta where I was supposed to have a 12 hour layover, I discovered that Delta had never heard of Pacific Winds Airline either. But thank heavens for Monique at the Delta counter! She put me on a flight that left pretty much immediately!! I had a wonderful non-stop flight to Seattle where my parents picked me up.

All was great until everyone on my flight got their luggage except me. The baggage claim people in Seattle have never heard of Pacific Wings Airline either! I was NOT surprised. But, they are great people and they assured me they would find my luggage by tomorrow morning which means my parents I get to spend the night in Seattle!!!

I'm looking forward to a week with family and friends!

Reflection at the half way point...

Since Ryan and I are now half way through our summer adventure as Destination Imagination Air Force Base Camp Counselors, I thought it would be a good time to look back and reflect on what's happened so far, the struggles we've faced, and how we've overcome them.

When I left training at DI Head Quarters about 2 months ago, I was so pumped and eager to jump into my first week of camps. However, after day 1 of our first week we realized that we were in for the biggest learning experience of our lives. That first week was a HUGE struggle. After those first few days all I could think was, "Oh my gosh... CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT... HELP!!!" So after many phone conferences with my AMAZING teacher parents, Ryan and I were able to combine their ideas and past experiences with our own experiences and come up with a solid lesson plan that has worked wonders. So, here's what we've come up with over the past few weeks!

PRE-TEACHING!!!! We start day 1 off every week with an introduction to camp. We have the kids help us make a target or anchor chart of what they think is important to make the week successful and fun for everyone. Each day if kids come up with new things to add to the target they grab a marker and write it on. The target is hung in the front of the room so that we can always refer back to it.

Throughout the week we also award teamwork points to teams. When we see something outstanding happen on a team, we point it out and allow that team to mark how ever many points we award under their team color. They LOVE this!!!

This week we implemented a "team contract." We had a team that had a very bossy team member who prevented the team from having any fun and from getting anything done. So I had them create a team contract that they all had to sign and it was amazing! They all ended on a great note today!!

These are just a few of the strategies that help create a fun and safe learning environment where everyone has a successful week. My favorite part is seeing the growth the kids make from only Monday to Friday! We have them draw pictures on Friday of what DI camp meant to them. Here are a couple from this week.

This is by Shannon- 10 years old

This is Ronald's. He's 9

Here are a few other great pictures from the week!

Green Team! They were so proud of their Wallercoaster!

Half of the Red team. Please note that one of their teammates is in the newspaper building!

The Blue team!! This old man is "old wonder man". He's a super hero!

Seeing all these smiles and watching each kid unfold as the week goes on has been unbelievably rewarding!!

SEVERE WEATHER?? Okay, I get it now!

Well, I now understand what the weatherman means when he says to expect "severe weather." I thought I had been in a thunderstorm before, but apparently not. I learned a new definition of storm this week. I don't know, but I'm thinking someone told this base how unlucky I am. My room is located directly under the base loud speaker. I'm not used to having people talk to me over loud speakers anyways, but it feels a little like there's a weatherman on my roof shouting to run for cover when there is lightning right above us! It sounded a bit like there was a major war going on a few inches from my ceiling. I'm not going to lie, it was scary and I curled up under my covers thinking it would pass quickly, but it wasn't until 2:00 am that they announced the storm had passed! We survived though and had a beautiful day today minus how blazing hot it was!!

Oh but let me say that the weather is not the only thing that is dramatic in Georgia, so are the kids! Here are a couple of my favorite quotes:

First one is from Kaley, she is 7 years old.

Kaley- "Miss Rachael it's so hot in here!"

Miss Rachael - (not feeling hot at all) "It is?"

Kaley - "YES I'm burning up!"

Miss Rachael - "oh my! Well are you alright?"

Kaley -"Yes don't worry, I'm just hot by nature!"

Second one is from Rianna, she's 9.

Scene- The kids did a communication challenge with Ryan where half the kids were in one room with a walkie-talkie and the other half were standing in another room in front of a grid of cups on the floor. The first group needed to communicate to the second group which cups to pick up. They wanted a duck to be underneath because they were trying to save the ducks but if they picked up one with a hackie sack then it was a land mind and they blew up.

So...

Ryan asked after "Can you think of a time in real life when communication like this is really important?"

Camper responded in all seriousness, "Well obviously it is important for when you're trying to save real ducks from being blown up. "

Ryan and I were so excited when we passed this sign coming into town last Saturday because we both loved learning about Harriet Tubman in school! So we drove back to Macon yesterday to go to this museum and the Georgia Music Hall of Fame museum. As we passed through each room we kept thinking, "Oh I bet the rest of the museum is about Harriet Tubman and this is just an introduction...."

We left a little confused because there was only one mention of her in the whole place at the very end. This is what was displayed about Harriet Tubman at the Tubman museum...

We just walked outside and stood in the parking lot for a while.. speechless.

The good news is that there really was music history in the Georgia Music Hall of Fame Museum!

Here is Ray Charles and I in my favorite area of the museum called...

RHYTHM AND BLUES! :)

We each posed with all the golden records!

We left this museum with lots to talk about!

Tomorrow is our last day of camp at Robins AFB. We will definitely miss it! The kids have been a blast to work with!

Home cooked meal in Georgia!

Both our first and second days of camp were fantastic!! We absolutely love our group of campers this week! They are so exuberant and full of energy and it just makes it so enjoyable for us! We had several parents tell us at family camp tonight that their kids talk about DI camp all night when they get home which is what we love to hear! At the end of family camp we had a couple families stay after and chat with us because they really want to get teams started!! YAY!!!!

After camp today we went off base to Walmart to get a few things and instead discovered that our stars and moons are a little mixed up today. When we went to pay, Ryan somehow spilled our entire bag of grapes all over the register. We obviously didn't want those ones anymore because they were covered in germs so while Ryan picked those up and handed them to the Walmart lady, I ran back to get another bag. Suddenly out of nowhere an old lady on a scooter ran me over! I'm totally serious, she put her scooter in reverse and took me out. After that mildly unpleasant experience, we hustled out to the parking lot where I tried to get into the wrong car. Clearly, we were not supposed to spend anymore time at Walmart!!

When we finally made it back to base safely, Ryan and I spent our afternoon before family camp going for a walk to Duck Lake which is a cute little lake not far from our lodging. We of course took along our cameras and my tripod so we could actually get a couple pictures of both of us!

Naturally on the way there Ryan belted out songs about anything and everything!

I just smiled and nodded and said, "yeah... sing it!!"

We found a cute little gazebo by the water and decided it was an appropriate place for a photo shoot!

We smiled...

... and hugged...

... and I cried while Ryan tried to jump over the edge...

... then we smiled more...

... then Ryan tried to push me...

... so I made faces at him...

... I thought we were supposed to rock out here but according to Ryan's face, I was extremely incorrect...

... then we realized we were surrounded by hornet nests and quickly exited the gazebo!!

After family camp we decided to use the fire pit outside our rooms and make dinner! It was an adventure but it turned out to be the best dinner we've had the whole summer so far!

I was just so excited that he actually got a fire started since we failed miserably last night.

Ryan cooking the chicken! He only ended up with a few minor burns...

Here is my contribution, I cooked the veggies!

... and here's the final product! Our very own home cooked meal in Georgia!!

The plan was to have s'mores for dessert but when an announcement came on over the loud speakers and said, "WARNING ROBIN'S AIR FORCE BASE, THERE IS LIGHTNING WITHIN FIVE MILES!!" we promptly picked up our stuff and ran inside.

I may have mentioned once or twice that I tend to be unlucky and attract things such as bugs, alligators and sharks. Well lightning falls into that group too!

So we went inside and Ryan improvised an indoor s'mores dessert that we ate while we listened to the thunder and rain rattle the windows!

Very solid day!!

Oh and just a side note- My computer randomly decided it wanted to underline everything part way through and I couldn't figure out how to make it stop.