settling in
Now Playing: "Gotta Have Gospel - On the Street"
I'm disappointed in the selection of emoticons for "mood" in this blogger thing, there is no "content", which is how I feel today. I feel like I am settling back into life in Vancouver.

Yesterday I had a perfect lunch with Karen and Tara (well, as perfect as it could be without Kristy there) at the Bread Garden. The Bread Garden is one of those distinctly Vancouverish places, and sitting on the patio was so westcoast, it almost made me want to giggle. Then we went shopping afterwards at an asian dish shop that had some beautiful stuff, and browsing around Metrotown I felt like I was home, and oh so happy to be shopping with the girls. I was very excited to pick up my UPass transit pass on Monday at school. Now I can be independent again and take transit anywhere I want, anytime I want. I think that is something I missed this summer, being independent. I know I missed public transit (you should have seen my big smile when I took the train to Metrotown yesterday) but I think it was more the independence that transit affords me that I missed.

A resolution for the upcoming school year: take more pictures! I have a digital camera, why don't I use it more often? I used it lots this summer, so I will try to use it often this fall too.

home again
so here I am, back home again. Probably there aren't as many folks reading this now, since I'm not in Detroit anymore. But I'm going to keep writing anyways.

I had a fabulous week at Sr. high camp - Kimtah - as a counsellor and girl friday. It was so nice to relax and enjoy nature. There were lots of bald eagle and shooting star sightings, both of which always seem to point to God for me. My big accomplishment was putting together the camp log book, "Whispers", which should be online sometime in the next year.

I have to post a few pictures, the camp was so much fun.

It was a small camp, with 8 boys and 8 girls. Small groups are good though, because all of the campers were very good about making sure everyone was included in all the activities. Here is the camp picture:

Here is the group of awesome young women who were in my cabin:

Here is our brother-sister cabin group:

Here we are looking for inspiration for the sand sculpture competition during our day trip to a beach at Deception Pass:

Here are the girls serenading the boys one night after waking the boys up and serving them ice cream sundaes. This was the first year in a long time that this old tradition was revived, it was a lot of fun.

Morning worship:

Joy & I hamming it up in the dish line

Here are some pictures of the campgrounds:

the last Detroit entry
Since I leave tomorrow morning, I thought it would be fitting to write one last entry before I go. The final week here was a lot of ups and downs. The kids are really getting at each other, which I think is partially just what all kids go through when they are spending more time together during the summer than they usually would during the school year. We had a good Sunday at Bluewater a week ago. It was the start of Flint reunion, and I had the chance to visit with some Graceland folks. There were lots of young adults there, which is very inspiring, it's good to know that the church cares about young adults. It was a day of good conversation and good worship, which were things I was in need of. The worship service was in a tent overlooking Lake Huron, which was a fabulous setting for a service.

It was good to have John C, Linda and Jordan back at the church for the week, the five of us made a really good team. We had lots of fun with the kids, in spite of some crazy times. Wednesday morning John and I went shopping for supplies, sending two avid shoppers (I haven't been an avid shopper until recently, and now I can't get enough) out with a wallet full of money can be dangerous, but we didn't spend too much. We got back to find Linda in a kitchen disaster - burger grease everywhere from cooking cheap, fatty hamburgers on the griddle. So I left right away to buy two industrial sized jugs of de-greaser from a food-service store. Linda and I sprayed down the entire kitchen. We threw away the vertical blinds, which were disgusting from years and years of greasy cooking. The floor was even covered in grease, so we were slipping and sliding all over the place. We shut down that area of the church and the kids did craft time outside - tie-dying t-shirts. All we could do was laugh really, poor linda was covered in grease herself from being in the kitchen while the burgers were cooking. Thankfully she was able to rescue the chocolate cake that Helen made for us earlier in the week. Several times I had chocolate cake for breakfast last week, shhh, don't tell my mom;)

In the past two weeks Jacob painted another awesome mural, around the corner from the first one. This one is of Jesus:

A guy from this area came by with some games and lego to donate on Tuesday, which was awesome. I think Jacob & Jordan had just as much fun with the lego as the kids did:

And here's John playing twister with DJ:

And little John and Ariane playing a game:

On Thursday, which was our last day with the kids, we had a big water fight and grill-out party. Jacob and I had fun buying water toys and filling over 100 water balloons on Wednesday night. It was great because John A. was able to be there too. We had our cookout first, which was fun. Here is Linda cooking some corn:

And here is Jordan chatting with a hungry passer-by (we don't turn anyone away when they ask for food):

We bought some face paint too, and Dave wanted a tiger face:

And Britney wanted a poodle face:

There was a slip and slide:

Everyone looking up to see where the water balloons are coming from...

...from John, John, and Jordan on the roof:

the kids either had to trapse through the kitchen to fill their buckets and guns:

or bravely try to fill them from the hose, which John was in charge of, which meant the risk of having the hose aimed at them:

A fun time was had by all. We sent the kids home to dry off and put on dry clothes, and then they came right back to play games and work on the newspaper. To end off the day, instead of our bible lesson time, Jacob and I were presented with great big cards that the kids made for us, and we each said a few last words. John bought us ice cream cake as a send-off, which we of course had with the kids. When it was time to leave, we all took a picture in front of the mural:

It has been a summer of ups and downs, good and bad days. I am so sad to have to leave these kids, they have become very important to me. I do miss home though, and the people there. Being away definitely helps me appreciate what I have even more. The lessons I have learned this summer will be with me forever, and I have only just begun to process everything that has happened. I am sure that telling my stories when I'm back home will be a lesson as well. I can't wait to share with all of you, face to face, and not just through this blog!

how do you spell pon?
Amazingly enough, today there is actually a cool breeze blowing and so I sat outside to write this out by hand and am now typing it in.
It was almost unbearably hot these past two weeks, especially since I spent a lot of my time in the kitchen with the hot stove and oven. I was proud of myself because last week I bravely lit the oven for the first time. It's a gas oven and you have to light it using a flame. So we bought one of those long-handled lighters and I lit it. I am now an old pro and had no trouble lighting it to keep the quesadillas warm that I made for lunch on Wednesday. I think my body has adjusted to the heat though, because this week I haven't noticed it as much. The humidity is really gross - I don't like breathing thick air when it gets really humid. For all you Mommy types reading this, yes I am drinking lots of water, I even caved in to the trend and bought a cheap, purple, Eddie Bauer knockoff of a Nalgene bottle at Target this week. We keep a big cooler filled with water for the kids all the time to make sure they stay hydrated.

We did a week-long pillow making project for crafts this week. The kids decorated fabric using puff paints and then made pillows by cutting a fringe and then knotting it to make seams. It worked ok for some, but others couldn't do it so we bought a cheap little sewing machine (the kind you see on tv) at Target to finish the pillows. Of course, as you would expect from a $25 device, about halfway through the afternoon it would only work by plugging and unplugging it instead of pressing the pedal, and the little hand-held sticher that came with it died as well. I still haven't decided whether or not we should take it back. I am sure all you sewing geniuses out there who are reading this wish you could help! Next week for crafts we'll be tie-dying t-shirts, which should be lots of fun and is a bit easier than pillows.

Today I am resting, which is nice. I could have gone up to Bluewater campground with Bruce, Helen and Jacob, but I decided to stay here and rest instead. I want Jacob to be able to spend time with his girlfriend Rachel (who is at that camp this week as a Graceland University Representative) without me hanging around. There isn't anyone up there right now who I know so I would just be following Bruce & Helen around. Besides, like I've said before, I'm the type of person who needs lots of processing time on my own. Jacob and I also need time apart - lately we've been bickering like brother and sister quite a bit.

Yesterday was a special treat - Troy, a good friend of both Jacob and I from Graceland, came to visit us at the church, hang out for the evening, and stay the night here at Bruce & Helen's before heading out of town today. He also taught our "Gettin' Real With Jesus" time in the afternoon at the church:

He likened the story of Jesus falling asleep in the boat to a Detroit Pistons basketball player falling asleep in the locker room, it was a good story and the kids were very engaged.
I had a good talk with Troy about my time here, he is a good person to reflect with, and it was a much more beneficial conversation than my midterm evaluation was. It was fun to remember our time in university and remember things like the fact that Troy and I are both so competitive that he actually suggested we keep score while we watched Jeopardy and I seriously considered the idea. We didn't keep score, although Helen keeps insisting that I should go on the show since I'm always calling out answers when we watch. We got hooked this summer on watching the Mormon guy, Ken, who has been the returning Jeopardy champion for pretty much the entire summer. We keep making jokes about the bishop back in Salt Lake gleefully keeping a running tally of how much the Mormon church's 10% cut of Ken's winnings is growing each night.

Yesterday the kids finished up their stuff for this week's newspaper (I am still struggling to upload last week's paper to the web, I really want you all to see it!). I have had a really good time working with them in the computer lab:

Some days I feel more like a teacher, especially when I keep getting asked things like Keiron did the other day:
"Shannon! How do you spell pon?"
"What?"
"HOW DO YOU SPELL PON?!"
"What do you mean?"
"You know, like 'once a pon a time'"
"OOhhh!"
And I try to stick with my usual rule for computer teaching: I will tell people how to do something, step by step, but I won't do it for them. It works most of the time, except for the long days when I've been asked umpteen times where the paint program is. I am so happy that they are getting the opportunity to just spend time on the computers and increase their comfort level. I even don't mind if they play games - I just don't tell them that when they play the "Mavis Beacon Typing Tutor" games, they're actually increasing their typing skills. hee hee hee.

what a day
These past two days have been exhausting. Yesterday was both emotionally and physically exhausting. We arrived Monday morning to find a huge mess had been left behind by one of the groups that uses the church on Sundays. There were dirty dishes all over the kitchen; food scraps on the sink, counter and floor; sticky, dirty floors; our craft supplies used; mess everywhere. I was so frustrated and upset that I cried. I worked so hard last week to keep that kitchen clean so I could cook good meals for our kids every day, and all that hard work had been ruined. In a way I felt personally attacked, it hurts to see hard work disregarded that way.

Bruce and Helen came to help us out, which was a wonderful blessing. I could tell that it was hard for them to see their old church in such disarray. We also have two other Michigan girls helping us out this week - we miss John C, Jordan and Linda, but they will be back next week. It was good yesterday to have lots of hands helping out. I was so upset about the messy church that I really needed to get out of the church and get some air. So when we needed to get water (I have probably neglected to mention that the tap water in that neighbourhood has often been muddy, so we only give our kids bottled water, or water that we cart over to the church from Bruce & Helen's), I volunteered to go. I had a good cry and a good pray in the car on my way to the store, and was able to calm down. It is frustrating because we are really only here to observe and help, not to question the system or petition for change. That means we're not supposed to contact the Mission Center (the next level up of church governance) to make suggestions about problems. We have to call John, who is at camp, and get him to contact the MC. For me, a person used to trying my hardest to make positive change happen, the process can be frustrating.

Once the kids arrived, though, my spirits immediately lifted. I had a couple of them help me put together the newspaper while Helen cooked lunch. It was fun to see their work come out on paper, and I am so incredibly proud of them. We had new kids come, which is always exciting, and everyone was very well behaved.

Today was a good day, though very hot and tiring. Tuesdays are pizza church and we are there longer than usual. My body is aching this evening, probably from tiredness and because I am on my feet nearly all day - cooking, cleaning, and supervising in the computer lab. We have shopping to do for tomorrow's lunch, but I have a feeling we will be doing it tomorrow morning and not tonight.

I'm off to change laundry loads.