A day in the life of post camp season.

7:30 Wake up, realize I don't have to be awake, go back to sleep.

9:30 Wake up, just kidding, go back to sleep.

10:30 Move to couch to watch Olympics.

12:30 Nap time.

2:30 Go to work, return a few emails, phone calls

4:00 Home after a long hard day.

4:45 shower. (no I did not shower before work, the un kept look will often encourage co-workers to tell you to go home and get some rest)

6:00 go to Brothers house for barbeque.

7-10:00pm Drink heavily, talk with friends, listen to music, eat.

10:00pm Pass out mid-party in my brothers room.

7:30am Go home to resume current schedule (thought I have been at work from 8:30-12:00 today- I know, I will take it easy later. It is after all nap time.)


this will basically be my schedule for the next two weeks. After not sleeping since mid April/// average of 3-4 hours per night, the reductions of stress has clearly worked wonders and now I am struggling to stay awake for more than eight hours a day... but all will pass, it has only been two days.


What better way to wrap up a summer than a trip to Branson!! YEEHAW. as part of our Trip camp program we send people over the age of fourteen on week long trip to various destinations around the mid west... at the end of the summer it becomes difficult to find trip leaders so I decided to take the group. Might I also add that in my eight years witht his camp I have been to Branson six times for percisely this reason. Those that know me also know that i do not own of prefer any variation of country music. period. But Branson is a beautiful place and the hospitality to folks with special needs in unparralleled. After listening to my own cd's all the way down I was ready for some serious country music.... and then we went to a new show, a magic show that was the creepiest thing i have ever seen. It advertised exotic animals and as far as I could see there was one appearance by a tiger. and it could have been stuffed. the show was a cross between days of our lives meets the band Poison meets high school dance team 'Pacesetters" meets Tammy Fay Baker. Unreal. at the end of this little man telling us in his creepy pre-puberty Frodo voice match that he has been given a gift but the only person capable of magic is the Lord Jesus Christ... alright- so you have your opinions... but at a magic show.... It left me with yet another unsettled feeling that this guy was a strange puppet. He had a really nice wig though.

Friday I returned to camp to deal with the last of the drama and to send a few friends on their way. It never gets any easier to say goodbye but my emotions seem to check out earlier and earlier every year. I guess I have confidence that we will see each other again. and I know going in to the summer that we will become close and have to say goodbye as apposed to a first time experience, or even second where you forget how much you love the people around you ... how much you have been through together only to have to say goodbye with the uncertainty of a reunion looming.

so I went Camping. Cody and I drove two and a half hours (we were supposed to leave at 5:30 but finally got out of town at 8:00pm) to North East Iowa near Elgin and Wadena. At the private campsite were our dearest friends waiting. Travis, Erin, James, Tony, Darian, Jeremy, Frank... great times! Friday we stayed up until 5am drinking and talking and looking at the brightest stars I have ever seen in my life. Saturday we went tubing down the Turkey River where we spent 5 hours on a slow moving current with five cases of beer between us... it really doesn't get any better. Of course I was able to provide comic relief by getting caught in the rapids... water was a little low and I bottomed out... so I had to stand up in the rapids, (at this point I am a little drunk), my tube floats away, i try to stand again and I get a horrific cramp in my clf, which forces me to do stretches in the rapids... as my tube floats away. So graceful. At this point I am yelling at Erin to get my raft... and she does- love the Gr. At upon completetion of my journey I was compared to a Grizzly Bear swatting for salmon. I didn't say it was pretty but it was the most amusong of tubing experiences.

I returned home sunday for a 7 hour nap followed by Monday which I spent with my brother. We had an excellent day if I do say so myself.

alright- I ma going to grad some lunch and have a little siesta... beacuase I can.

lovin to all.
c