Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally..

Please excuse my laziness and inattention to this blog...along with finding out I'm really not supposed to be posting pictures of the campers, not a whole lot of newsworthy things have been going on around camp. I've had a nice little vacation for most of this week: I joined my family on a trip to the Dells over my birthday; both events were fabulous! It was great to spend time with my family and just be away from camp. I even left my phone at camp so I would not be distracted. I am working on uploading pictures of our little vacation. Hopefully I will get around to this tomorrow during my health lodge time. Back to work at 7am!

As always, I hope all is well in your respective corners of the world!

~SJ

And the beat goes on

Suffice it to say it has been a busy couple of weeks! Had a nice reprieve this weekend when I finally made it Noah's Ark...that only took 22 years! Got a massive sunburn to prove it, too. Stick around and I hope to be able to satiate your appetites with a mores substantial update soon!

~SJ

Highlights

A few highlights from DHH Week 2:

Below is a picture of the cabin the nursing assistants worked with, the Trappers. Four 16/17 year old boys. My favorite quote of the week came from the guy on the left hand side in the striped shirt. He didn't understand why he needed someone to walk to the cabin with him (the kids can't go anywhere alone). Trying to be funny I said, "Hey, I don't have enough 16 and 17 year old guy friends. So we're gonna hang out! I put on my make up, I put on my party dress, now let's go to the dance!" The camper said, "Ugh, you girls. I don't understand why you think you need make up." :) It was so cute!

One day last week, my lunch looked like an ad for portion control. Hey, at least I'm eating healthy!

~SJ

Guh-ross!

Gross story of the week:

I left a smidgen of apple juice in my water bottle over the weekend. In my hot room. It fermented. And now my water bottle won't stop smelling like fermented apple juice. Ewwww.

~SJ

The silver lining today is...

I'm not a twenty-something with a God complex...I'm a Goddess with a twenty-something complex.
Example: I said to Holli that I was bitter about having to sit in the health lodge today and that I hoped it rained. And then I walked outside to go get something from my cabin, and it started to rain.

WINNER!

~SJ

All's well that ends well at the end of the week

So here I am, already two day in to DHH week 2 and I have failed to make an update in quite a few days! Don't worry, you can unclench--I am alive and well! Haha. After a great week with campers that ended, as usual, with the dance, I headed to Oshkosh to spend the 4th with some great friends. Back at camp on Sunday our second week of deaf/hard of hearing kiddos arrived, all 90 of them (it's a smaller population because of the 4th). There are a ton more sign only kiddos this week and as far as the age range goes we are a little top heavy. On Sunday night I got to hang out with eight or nine girls who are 16 and 17. They all know each other through camp and have been coming for years! For some of them, this is it, they will graduate at the end of the week. It struck me, as I was talking to these high school aged girls who, in spite of their hearing impairments are living the same life as the rest of us, that they look up to me--"By golly," I thought, "I'm a role model!" I sure hope that's not a scary though for anybody. It isn't for me, although it does make me much more conscious about what I do and say. Luckily for everybody, I'm pretty well-behaved! (Right, mom?)

Not much else to say about this week. I'm finally getting to do some new and exciting things like archery (which I am decidedly poor at) and using the Gator to take night and morning meds to the cabins on camp outs. I love this because I love to drive and I like driving through the woods because it's so peaceful--until I come tearing through, I guess. teehee. Last Thursday morning I saw a deer and three turkeys.

Below are some pictures from last week's dance and the Health Lesson Holli and I did.

The theme of the week was Olympics, so many of our campers were sporting jerseys to the dance.

This was one of my favorite kiddos. He was sign only and I got to go pontoon fishing with him. He kept signing to me that I was crazy! Maybe it's my inability to put us on fish?!

No, we're not technically supposed to have favorites...but this kiddo captured my heart. She would routinely ask that I sit by her during meals :)

Holli and I taught a Health Lesson on nutrition!

We talked about the food pyramid, then gave the kids blank ones and asked them to draw and cut out different foods they could think of and glue them on to their pyramids. Holli and I were very happy with how they turned out and they are now hanging in the Health Lodge.
~SJ

Sneak. Snook. Snuck.

I ended up with Sneaky the other day at lunch.

I had to draw from the Sneaky jar.And as everybody knows, Sneaky can either be something good, or something not so good.

Sneaky's sentence: all the nursing assistants had to be bandaged TOGETHER for dinner. It was interesting but a lot of fun! I wish I had pictures. The four of us all had to sit on one side of the table because that's the only way we fit on a bench. Unfortunately for 3 of us...the fourth was gassy...and we all felt it vibrating the bench! We laughed so hard. Then one of the girls tried to tell us that she didn't poop or fart, because she was a girl, to which the gassy one replied, "Honey, I've been in the bathroom after you...ya poop." And we were sent into fits of giggles again. It was the best dinner ever :)

Oh how I love camp =D

~SJ