Time for Goodbye :(

Today was the last day of camp and a dinner banquet for all the kids and their families :) We played human bowling and messy eggs (crack eggs on your leaders head, either hard-boiled or raw), and even had pool Olympics - all before the rain broke out! Watching the kids participate in belly flop, diving, cannon ball, and whirlpool contests as well as animal races was such a highlight in my day. I got very close to many of the kids in my group as well as many other kids. The one little boy Peter always wanted me to come and clap his hands together with mine and do all the dances and hand-motions to the songs right with me. He was always smiling and laughing and liked to pretend he was sleeping on the bus just to tease you :P I will miss the kids soo much and was sad to see them leave :( I had to go before the banquet and the kids wanted us to stay soo bad; not letting go and then giving hugs and wanting to see us again. I love you guys <3 Special needs children are so very wonderful, and I'm excited to hopefully be working with them for the rest of my life.

Special Needs Camp :)

For the past two days I have had the opportunity to be a camp counselor at a special needs camp with Grace Fellowship Church and Capernaum Life ministries. The kids are full of joy and laughter and love to interact with all of the counselors. Some of them go to school together, others attend church together, and some are just meeting for the first time. Watching the joy on their faces as they get ready for camp has to be one of my favorite things :) Waking up early and hearing "miss miriam!! What are we gunna do today", the best feeling in the world. They may be disabled in some ways, however they have soo much joy in their hearts and do not care what others think of them or how they look :) They love each other.

Today was day two: County Fair Day :) Once we sang our songs and ate all of our crazy and somewhat gross food it was time to go to the farm (where we play games, eat  lunch, and get in the pool). Our games for the day were fair games: duck pond, milk bottle toss, frisbee toss, and of course a pie smash and a dunking booth (these were for the leaders specifically). You get your tickets by playing the games, once you have five tickets your camper gets to choose to dunk you or pie you in the face :P Of course my camper decided to do both...whooooo and dunk me 3 times :) The water was freezing, but it felt good in the hot sun. Oh i almost forgot the hay ride, a classic county fair fun event. Just a small taste of my week with 12 wonderful ( and many more in other colors) campers in my blue group :)

See ya'll tomorrow :)

First Day of Summer

First day of summer and it's beautiful outside :) Full week of relaxing, settling in to summer and getting to hangout with some friends before the craziness begins. Got my final report card today, 3.96 GPA and graduated with Suma (highest) Honors :) Not to shabby.

A Painting in the Sky

A sunset is a beautiful painting in the sky. The sky is the canvas and God is the painter. Color after color streaked across the sky, colors our eyes have never seen. An amazing display of God's power and beautiful creation :)

Every time my best friend goes away he takes a picture of the sunset where he is and sends it to me :) Each one is more beautiful than the next and shows a different view and background. What amazes me is that even though I am miles away from him and others we all see the same sunset. The same gorgeous colors in the sky, just with a different landscape. Here are just a few of the sunsets over the past month.

                  OBX, North Carolina:

                   
                  Virginia (Back-roads):

Weird Compliments.....ummm thank you?

Have you ever been complimented, yet your not entirely sure how to respond? It's one of those: "ummm thank you?" responses. Well I started a few years ago making a "book" of all the weird compliments I have gotten over the years. Today I think I just got the best one. In talking to my best friend, we were talking about how long my hair was and he was saying how much he likes it. Yet his compliment was: "Yeah it's soo long, and pretty and warm". Warm? That's a new one, but don't worry it gets better lol. I proceeded to question the warm compliment and got "yes, it's warm like a blanket made from Norwegian alpaca belly fur". Haha :) Not really sure how to respond to that, my hair got compared to this little guy: (and then blanket underneath)

Not Ready for Goodbye...

As you go through the school year, most of the time, all you want is to be done. Can't it be summer already is what most people say. I would say i fit into that category, well that was until now. All finals are finished, and possibly all finals for the rest of my high school :) Today was the last day, clean up the school day and pack up your lockers. Tomorrow is field day and Friday is awards ceremony. All i wanted was to be done school and get on with summer. But, now, looking back at the year I realized I'm going to miss everyone soo much. Seniors are gone and heading off to college and my class, all 8 of us, will be down to three. As i was thinking back over the memories we had, the inside jokes, and the lunch conversations it made me realize how much of a family we really are and were :) You guys I'm really going to miss you next year, more then you know. Even if at times I got annoyed, I want you to know that you guys will always my class even when you leave next year, our senior class will still be you guys. Oh and you guys better come to graduation, because you're sitting right behind us :P I love you guys and will miss you soo much :( That crazy 10-year reunion we always talk about somebody needs to organize :) Ryan, Joel, Sam, Nick, Dan, Dan and Joel  :)