Almost there!

Even though last week was one of our most challenging weeks of camp, it ended up being great! Thursday was probably our best day. We started off by having all the little kids stay inside with me while Ryan took the older ones outside to do the Tie the Knot challenge. While we were inside, I read a book to them called "Have you filled a bucket today?" If you haven't read it, you need to! It's a short children's book but it has the most wonderful message! At the end, we had a fantastic discussion together about what it means to fill someone's bucket and how they could fill some buckets at DI camp. Honestly, this conversation was so precious that I wish I had video taped it. It was probably my favorite moment of the whole summer.

Everyone needs to read this book!!

One of the most important things I think Ryan and I focused on last week was the idea of breaking big targets up into manageable little ones when we weren't seeing growth in our campers. Since we had such a young group, two of our "tools" that we normally teach were too hard. So instead Ryan and I created a lesson where we read them the book "Stellaluna" then as a group we made a chart that recognized the beginning, middle, and end of the story. After we did this together as a group, each team got their own beginning, middle, and end poster that they used to plan their performance for one of the challenges. At the beginning of the week we recognized that story structure was lacking in all the performances the kids came up with so we broke it down for them in a mini lesson. It seemed to really work. Every team came up with a solid story for their performance.

Our group poster on the story Stellaluna

At the end of the week, our sweet campers and youth center staff got us both wonderful gifts!

Since our flight on Saturday to Seattle wasn't until 8:00pm, we spent the majority of the day walking around Hollywood Blvd.

Look who I found! My good buddy Shrek!

We decided to walk to the place my Grandma recommended for us to eat at called M Cafe. Well, 5 miles and 900 homeless people later, we found it and had a lovely lunch! We even learned from this experience... "next time take the car!"

Our journey from Los Angeles was an interesting one! Naturally Ryan was searched going through security so I just had a seat on the other side and waited for him before continuing to our gate. I volunteered to give up my seat and sit in an exit row which ended up being fantastic because I sat next to a lovely girl my age who I learned I had a lot in common with! She goes to WSU Pullman (go Cougs) and is also going into Elementary Education. Her mom is a teacher and her dad is a super intendant! We had a nice chat before we both fell asleep and slept pretty much the whole flight.

Ryan and I some how never received a rental car reservation for this week so when we arrived in Seattle we went to the only rental car place that was open and got a cute little Kia to use for the week. Naturally we got lost on our way to base because we couldn't figure out how to use the GPS! You know, just normal everyday challenges for Ryan and Rachael.

When we finally figured out where to go we headed to the home of one of the youth center staff. Since Ryan is a "foreign visitor" he had to get his own special pass for this base. We picked his up from a SUPER nice guy named Robert and headed to the main gate where my pass was supposed to be waiting for me. Guess what? The people at the gate had no idea who I was or what I was talking about. Shocking I know since I'm usually so lucky! haha! So we headed to a hotel off base for the night. When we received our keys and hauled all our luggage up to our rooms, Ryan opened his door and headed in to get settled in for the 6 hours we'd be there. When I tried to open my door the key didn't work... shocking again I know! So I headed all the way back down to the lobby with my luggage where a random man told me I looked "extremely tired" and I got a different key to try. Luckily this one worked!

Sunday morning we woke up and headed back to base to the visitor center where the people there were able to write me a pass! YAY! Feeling like all was good, we headed to the base lodging where the lady at the counter bursted our bubbles by explaining that since we didn't show up Saturday night both our reservations for the week had been canceled! We tried to explain that they literally wouldn't let us on base but she didn't care. So we had to call another youth center staff member named Tracie to come and use her military ID to rebook our rooms. Just like Robert, Tracie was wonderful and helped us get everything resolved.

Sunday afternoon we went into Seattle to Pike's Place market! It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed walking around. We were tempted to just skip this week of camp and hop on this cruise ship but we decided against it.

What a beautiful day!

After visiting several places including the Original Starbucks we decided to buy some beautiful flowers from the market and take them to My Great Aunt Ruth who I ABSOLUTELY ADORE!!!

She loved the pretty flowers!

It feels so great to be back in Washington State! It seems weird that this is our 8th and final base! We have only 8 kids at this youth center and they are ages 8 to 11. I can tell they are going to be a fantastic group! I'm looking forward to a great last week and to going home on Friday!