Memorial Day Weekend

Hi!

Sorry it's been a few days. I find that the longer I'm here, the less I need to write. Things were a bit rocky at first, with getting to know people has gotten a lot better -- barriers are breaking down and we're all beginning to become a family. I'm really glad that we'll have all been here for 2 weeks before any summer stuff or work crew shows up -- it gives us time to establish ourselves as a intern group and get closer to each other before meeting a flood of new people!

This weekend (Sat - Mon) we've all had off because there are no campers here. Last week we had an Inter Varsity group, and tomorrow work week starts, but this weekend we were the only ones here (thus spurring a lot of singing of our 'theme' song -- "we're interns, we do what we effing want, but not really because we dont have any actual power..." ... a joke, and we say effing not the real word, dont get crazy.) its funny because i think that everyone (well not everyone but...) there is this concept that interns run the show but really, we dont. we get told what to do, and many assigned team people see us as just glorified summer staffers. we have keys, but really.... they dont mean anything. haha. we have the highest expectiations out of anyone, including property staff. shoot.

Friday night Maddie and Alicia (cooks) made us a fantastic flank steak dinner and we all enjoyed that at one large community table (vs the round 8 seaters we usually eat at.) we dressed a little nicer and had a fun night. after that we had a meeting with Greg (camp manager) and talked about what the summer is going to look like. he announced we'd be having the amazing race on sunday/monday. the interns were spit into teams of 4, and we had to made team names and then shirts (more later)

Saturday we got to sleep in and the first thing we did at 10:30 was we set up carnival, which we will do once a week (but with the help of WC and SS). we had to set it up because we were changing the orientation of hwo things were set up. despite the economy, many of our camp weeks are packed so we had to make the carnival area bigger. so we had to set everything up (~45 minutes) and then move stuff around, then we had lunch, then we tore it all down. after that, bunch of us went to Fargo, ND which was a lot of fun. We went to Scheel's, which is like REI/Dick's. I got a rainjacket, which i really needed, and a pair of shorts, as i realized many of which i had werent quite conducive to what i was doing. then we went to target and i got some craft items (shock!) and some other assorted things. we went to B dubs for dinner and my spicy garlic sandwich, at the very least, left something to be desired.

saturday after coming back some of us were hanging out in the cutter (SS housing) and people were tinkering around on the music stuff down there - keyboard, drums, guitars. it ended up with joey and kate started singing a blues song about joey getting a ticket the night before. it was probably 10 minutes long and the funniest thing that has happened yet. after that just hung out and went to bed late becuase we didnt have anything to do in the AM.

sunday was waking up late again and then some of us headed to the flea market, which was AMAZING. i wish i had sundays off because i would go all the time. hopefully i can get out of work early enough sometime to make it over there again. they had some great stuff that i would love to decorate my future apartment/house with.... ahhh, so great. i got a necklace that im going to take apart and make a new necklace with. yes, i would.

afternoon was the amazing race. my team was kate, jimmy, and alicia and i and were were the rhymnoceri (after flight of the conchords song). the events were:

- put the buildings at castaway in order based on when they were built (super hard)
- fill up cups on people's heads from 3 stories up
- canoe around a bouey, someone retreave something at the bottom of the lake near the bouey, and get back. we got sabatoged when someone (STEPHANIE) swam over our canoe and made it take on too much water. then i tried to swim down and get the object but the lake was too cold (mind you, it had ice on it a month ago) and i almost hyperventaliated so.... we bailed on that one.
- retreive 2 leeches each from a bucket and run 30 yards back to our own bucket and put it in it (gross, but doable.)
- bow and arrow -- each person had to hit the target (and i was the first out of everyone to hit it... on my second shot! i remember doing it when i was young... i guess it helped!)

after that we had pizza and hung out. we had worship and a talk from greg, and then went to DQ where i found out jimmy and i have the same "regular" blizzard - cookie dough with choc ice cream. i introduced him to bananas in it, and it was magical. more hanging out commenced when we got home, and i went to bed early b/c i was tirrred.

woke up this morning and just hung out until amazing race part 2. we went to park and had to do a photo scavenger hunt for 4 different locations and then also take pictures of letters spelling out 'castaway club'. apparently, it was supposed to be using signs, but we got creative and used objects, too (honestly, i didnt hear "signs" but others made it clear and said we were cheating.... actually, we were being creative.) here are a few pictures from the event:

Us and Lady Liberty

and A

An L

After that we went to Greg's for a BBQ (kind of.... it was rainy all day so we were inside) and had one final task - to be a garage band and perform a song. we won by doing a re-write of "light the fire" about being interns. it was epic.

then we came back and just hung out, which is what we are doing now. but i've been writing this post for like 2 hours on and off so im going to finish.

goodnight!
em