Rain, Zip Line and Costumes

(I feel like I start off most of my blogs by saying that I am sorry for how long it has been since I last blogged and for how long this blog will be. So, in order to keep things from getting old and boring, I am not going to open my blog in that fashion this time. Just know that I am thinking it and I am really sorry.............)

To condense the entire last few days into one blog (and because it is more fun to read) I have assembled and organized bullet points.

Last week: (in no particular order)

• We cleaned.
• It rained so outdoor ed groups canceled and we worked on initiatives.
  
• We made a "Maizefest canceled" sign just in case corn maze was canceled, I got to use a power tool and a paintbrush!
• We served meals to the groups that didn't cancel.
• We had a three day weekend because corn maze was canceled because it rained.
• We went shopping.
• I worked on my costume.
• I babysat the Cline girls. They are fun.
• We played like 4 games of settlers. (Did I mention it rained)
• I actually did 100 push-ups, sit-ups and jumping jacks during pt!!!!!!!
  

Tuesday:

• We cleaned all of camp.
• We set up for corn maze.
• I worked on my costume.
  

Wednesday:

• Baby Merson was born!
• We had a large group in for Outdoor Ed. I ran the zip line unload all day. (When I say "all day" I mean from 9 - 2 with a 15 min lunch break. And when I say "ran" I mean ran. Physically.
• I worked on my costume.
  

Thursday:

• Early morning. Worked the exit tree at high ropes from 8:30-11.
• Ran the zip line unload from 11:15-1:15. (Once again... I mean "ran")
• I worked on my costume.
• We went to see baby Merson.
• I finished my costume!
• I started Bill and Taco's costumes.

Friday: (today)

• Another early morning. Worked the giant swing from 8:30-11.
• Ran the zip line unload from 11:15-1:15. (Yes, that is correct, and yes, once again...I mean ran.)
• Blog.
• Now I am going to work on Bill and Taco's costumes.

Funny note: I really have no clue what I am doing with these costumes. (mine looks pretty sweet though.) Case in point..... when we were in the fabric store getting stuff for Bill and Taco's costumes.....I picked up a child size pattern by mistake and didn't realize till we got back. But it is better than having no pattern at all!.......Right?!?!?!?! ...

Epic Fail Wal-Mart....

Ok so a lot has happened in the last week. But it was all stuff that happens every week. (mostly)
Clean, serve meals, host, run ropes activities, repeat! Same stuff done in new and fun ways all the time. Something different that happened this week....

The interns have been looking for costumes to wear on Halloween at the corn maze and to a party later that night. It has been a difficult process for most of us. I for one had no idea what I wanted to be. That is till I talked to my sister. She told me about a costume idea that a friend of ours had a couple of years ago! (thanks Meredith, hope you don't mind my copying your idea, and congrats on the wedding!) I could be a crayon!!!!!! I love this idea.... so I decided that for Halloween I am going to be a green crayola crayon! That's right.. awesome... I know! I figured out what all I would need to make this costume and how I was going to make it so that it would be all of three things...1. warm 2. comfortable and easy to move around and work in 3. freaking awesome! With all this in mind Taco and I headed out to Wal-Mart last night. (Everyone else was busy or lame.) We decided that since the Wal-Marts in some of the closer towns had failed us in the past, we would go to the Super Wal-Mart just past the PA border line. (about 10 min. farther away in the opposite direction) When we got to the Super Wal-Mart we went to the toy section. There we found some cool stuff, got distracted a little, and found out that the sand pail that I wanted to use as a hat to be the sharp part of the crayon was a seasonal item. They didn't have any. Ok... re-think. No biggy, I half expected this. Plan B: a plastic flower pot! In the lawn and garden section we were told "No, we don't have any of those right now, we are getting ready for our Christmas decorations." !!!!!!!!!!!!!! CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS!!!!!!! How are people supposed to make Halloween costumes if all that is in stock are Christmas decorations!??????? (slight freak out/ laugh at the ridiculousness before moving on t0....) Plan C: a little basket we found on the clearance shelf that I could cover with green felt. Now, on to the body of the costume, my green wrapper. For this I need some fabric that I am planning on making into a jumper like thing. After wandering around Wal-Mart for 10 min and then asking the lady in sporting goods, we realize that Wal-Mart no longer has a fabric section. What is this world coming to!???? Ok.... on to Plan D: Standing there in sporting goods... trying to figure out what to do now... (because all the fabric stores are in the towns in the opposite direction of where we headed when we left RVR...) Taco spies a dark green fleece sleeping bag. It is pretty much just some fleece fabric with a zipper! It is on sale! I can cut it to the size I need and still have some left over. We then went to the craft section to find some felt for the black lettering and to cover my basket hat. The felt came in 8 x 11 sheets and was $o.47 a sheet! I would need like 6 or 7! Plus they didn't have a green that matched. Plan E: fabric paint would be better right? I told the nice lady in the craft section what I was doing and she told me that the type of paint they had wouldn't work as well as the felt because I was putting it on fleece. In other words... we don't have fabric paint, only puffy paint. Plan F: Taco spies some black duct tape! That will stick to fleece and I can stitch it down to make sure it stays. That means I can by a roll of tape for cheaper than I could paint or felt and I don't have to get fabric glue, just a needle and thread, which I needed to get anyway! Next step... get the needle and thread. They had all that! With hope restored we head to the clothing section to find a green sweat shirt that I can wear under my jumper-wrapper for my green body. They only have one color green and it doesn't match the green socks I was going to wear as the bottom. So I decide to get the matching sweat pants. By now I have a little basket, thread, needles, duct tape, matching sweatshirt and pants and a sleeping bag. All this improvising has made this costume a little more expensive then I had planed. And I still don't have anything to cover the basket. Plan G: We found a fleece blanket on sale for cheaper than the sleeping bag. I can use it just as well as I would have the sleeping bag and save like $6! cha ching! Problem is that the only color green sweats they have looks icky next the the only color green blanket. No one wants to be an icky color crayon. Plan H: forget the blankets... towels! There are a wide variety of green towels! Several of them look OK next to the sweats. The problem is that I would need to by two towels to have enough fabric and at that point the blanket is cheaper. Plan I: I got Beth to text me a picture of my green towels at home and decided that they would work since I use my pool towel at home anyway. On the way to putting the blanket back I see warm fleece hats! That would be better than covering a basket. Only they don't have green at all! Plan J: Get rid of the basket idea because I don't have anything to cover it with anyway, and buy and extra set of sweatpants to cut up and make into a hat that will be warmer than a basket and will actually match the rest of me! Wow... poor Taco has been following me around Wal-Mart, laughing and carrying random things for about an hour. I am sorry he had to see the train wreck that was my creative genius! We got out of there having told 3 employees about my costume idea, (one of them laughed, told me it was a good idea but that she wasn't creative and couldn't help me but good luck) having several people walk past as I was looking in the mirror with the basket on my head to see if it would work, and several more people walking past as I was wrapped in a towel trying to figure out if I would need one or two. None of this would have had to happen if Wal-Mart would have had what I needed! Then I wouldn't have had to improvise on the improvisations in the middle of Wal-Mart and end up on Plan J! Epic Fail Wal-Mart! Epic Fail! In the end I have what I need to make this costume work and I am pretty sure it is going to rock! (I'll post some pics of it when it is done! )

Bruises, pretzels, and bean-bag chairs..."Bless her beautiful hide..."

So this weekend I was a support host for the groups that were here. This means that I got meals and their activities started on time, made sure that they had everything they needed and was available to them in case they needed anything else. (which they did... a lot) It was pretty fun. Chris F. was the host that I was shadowing so we hung out a lot. He is crazy and lots of fun. One of the groups had high ropes for one of their activities so I belayed all afternoon on Saturday. It rained on Friday night so both groups had a hayride and a bonfire on Saturday night. While we were being flexible with that and trying to get everything ready both groups came to us and told us that they had a bathroom that was flooding. (it turned out to not be a big deal in either case) So we moped a lot that night. Support hosting means long hours. I was exhausted. On Sunday for lunch we ordered pizza. The last guest through the line got the last piece of pizza. That is cutting it close and we were sweating it. On Sunday afternoon Taco and LaDessa "surprised" us with a picnic and a fun afternoon in the park! It was great... we ate, busted a pinata, napped, talked and wrestled for the huge bean bag chair. Good day!

random fact of the day:
I am covered in bruises! they are all over my arms and legs and back. most of them I have no clue where they came from. they hurt too!

Funny things:

The girls had a hard time getting to sleep one night because some one (Beth) had more than just the giggles!

Sarah to Chris Fournier in an attempt to make small talk while waiting for the guests: how many siblings do you have?
Fournier: I am one of 7.
Sarah slightly intrigued: Really? Where are you in the line up?
Fournier showing pride in his position: Third from the top, fourth from the bottom.
Sarah thinking about this for a moment asks again and gets the same answer then says: Wait, that isn't enough... how many siblings are older than you?
Fournier:2.
Sarah: And how many younger?
Fournier: 4.
Sarah: Doesn't that mean that you are third from the top and fifth from the bottom?
Fournier pauses, counts in his head, looks at Sarah with a confused look and then exclaims: Wow, you are right. I have been telling people that my whole life and never knew. How come no one has ever caught that before!

The host staff and the tnt staff are just sitting down to lunch after a very busy and stressful weekend that came to a climax when we almost ran out of food when the sneeze guard falls over and smashes to the floor (not breaking, thank you) knocking over a big bowl of pretzels.(they shatter and scatter all over the floor) We all just look at it and Sarah says: Eat. We'll get it later.
When the other staff members come in for lunch and see the sea of pretzels on the floor that people are walking over they ask what happened and are told: What pretzels? There may or may not be pretzels on the floor... if there are, we are ignoring them.
After lunch instead of sweeping them up the tnt staff try to vacuum them up with the back-pack vac. in Bri's words: I feel like this is not necessary.
trust me... this was more than just funny... it was roll-on-the-floor-laughing-funny... guess you had to be there. and be as exhausted as we were in that moment.

Watching " Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" with the guys! 'nuff said

Bill realizing that he snores!

Wrestling for the beanbag chair. lots of tickling...lots of flipping...lots of screaming...lots of laughing...lots of grass stains...lots of fun!

What a week...

Ok so it's been like a week and a half since I last posted and a lot has been going on! I'll try to keep it to only the things that are blog worthy.... no promises. Bear with me... this could get long.

Thursday we celebrated LaDessa's Birthday after work by eating whoopie pies! Then we literally ran down the road to Doug's to watch Survivor with a bunch of other people. While we were running Taco tripped over Ryan and flew and then landed on the side of the road on his face. He is fine! Much laughter occurred after that!

On Saturday we worked the zip line all afternoon. In the rain. Not fun.

Taco, LaDessa, Bill and I went to Bill's house in New Jersey over the weekend. We left Sunday after church. It is only about 2 hours away. We spent the evening with his family at his sister's house. There we had, in LaDessa's words, "Crab out of the crab." Too funny! Too good! Then we went across the bridge to Philly. and walked around a bit. On Monday we went to Jersey Shore and laid in the sand, walked the board walk and played in the waves. It was really windy and kinda chilly so we didn't get in the water. Then we came home! We played hot seat the whole time we were ever in the car and sometimes when we were out of the car! It was great! When we got home we watched Ratatouille and Equilibrium while I did laundry!

Tuesday, or as I like to call it... My terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. (or "suck at life" day for short) I woke up to an unpleasant, angry visitor that proceeded to repeatedly kick me in the gut for the rest of the day. (are you with me on that one ladies?) Then while we were detailing I tripped over the vacuum cord. At lunch I stubbed my toes on the coffee table and got my arm stuck in the fly paper. While we were working in the corn maze after lunch I fell in the ditch full of corn stalks. Then I couldn't"t break the rock with the sludge hammer and I got scratched by a nail while moving picnic tables. I thought my day had taken a turn for the better when the lady at Chick-fil-a offered me a free cheese cake sample, but then I knocked over my sweet tea. Lucky for me it had a lid or me and several other people whom I do not know would have gotten very wet and sticky. The day ended at Wherly's. It is a hill billy auction. Pretty fun. We got some cool stuff cheap. But my Ibuprofen ran out so I was ready to go home.

Wednesday. We had PT this morning. I didn't die! Work was detail in the morning, serving meals and maizefest prep. in the afternoon. We had fun with maizefest prep. We played on the playground at fort roller and on the mine shaft (mini zip line)! We also man handled some inflatables and trailers and boards and corn and hay... we were fairly productive! Then we went to Walmart and to Zach and Chris's "Tray-tray" for a bonfire!

Thursday. After we detailed and served meals, I refereed. paintball games all afternoon. Too fun! Then we had Merson Madness! Or game night at the Merson's! Fun stuff!

Funny sayings of the week:

Sarah, referring to Ryan's OCD dvd collection: I am gunna go through them one day and turn them all different ways.
Ryan, being all defiant and sassy and in a threatening voice: You do that and I'll spend an hour and a half putting them all back.
Taco, while the whole room is rolling in laughter: Wow, you really showed her!

Beth, laughing at Taco who was laughing at something funny that happened on 'the office',sprayed water out of her mouth and all over the room getting Michelle's pant leg wet. After a roar of laughter and Beth turning red and trying to apologize ...
Matt says: At least now you can say that you have spit on a pregnant woman.

And many, many other things that made us laugh really hard that I can't remember right now because they happened so long ago. Trust me, we are very funny people!