Week 17: Forrest Gnomes and Pizza Ninjas

Only at Joshua will you learn about couch spirits and why your temperament is like poop. This week we had Fred Blackburn as our speaker. He seriously looks like a giant lawn gnome, beard and everything! It was pretty crazy! He talked about everything from Existentialism to Animism. He explained the 4 temperaments and how they relate to bodily wastes. I’m mostly sanguine which is like urine because “once it starts, it keeps on going!” People who are sanguine are like the life of the party, extroverts, care about other people, but are easily hurt and fragile.

Thursday I had SWEEPs in the Pondy kitchen. It was a lot of fun. I drained about 200lbs of meat for pot roasts and cut up a ton of pineapple. Shiloh and I played Perfect in Every Way the whole time. Matt and Dylan joined in and we had some pretty funny one come up like “perfect in every way except every time they say they love you, they throw up a little bit!” and “perfect in every way except they have to drink everything out of a sippie cup!” It was so much fun!

Thursday was also our Theme Dinner! This week the theme was Cowboys. I went against the grain and dressed up like a Native American! I got to borrow Tyler’s awesome headdress. We had soup and homemade biscuits and old fashioned root beer.  Afterwards, we played a game of melodrama mad libs, where a few people acted out a western mad lib that we chose the fill in words for. It was really funny to watch!

Our second Isaiah test was Friday. I’m pretty sure I bombed it. I studied but it’s so hard to study 39 chapters worth of Bible plus the commentary supplements. Hopefully I didn’t do too bad, but we’ll see… On the bright side, Bekah came up for winter camp this weekend! I was really excited to see her! I waited 4 and a half hours for her bus to get here. (They were supposed to be here at 3 but got here at 7:30). I didn’t get to see her until Saturday, though, because it was impossible to find her in the mob of campers. Friday night, however, I got to once again dress up like an indian and make pizzookie runs to the cabins! It was supposed to be Indians vs. Cowboys but it somehow ended up being Indians vs Storm Troopers vs wrestlers vs Mexicans vs Cowboys…  But it was still awesome!

I got to go to chapel with Bekah and Kirsten (her best friend) Saturday morning, which was really neat. It made me feel like I was at winter camp again. I still can’t believe that not even a year ago, I was a camper and now I work the camps! I spent the afternoon with those two, introducing them to all my Joshua brothers and sisters. Later we went to the OK Chalet and I bought them a pizzookie to share. I really enjoyed spending time with my sister. I miss her a lot. After they went off to other activities, I headed over to the snowboard run with a pizzokie and water for Jessica and Jordan. They were a little short staffed so I helped out for a couple hours, checking out snowboards and handing out boots. It was super hectic with mobs of people wanting snowboards.

That night, we went on a pizza run. We were the pizza ninjas, dressed in all black, summersaulting into rooms and tossing ninja stars everywhere. It was hilarious watching all the campers freeing out. As I was leaving a room, I even heard a girls say “Ahhh! … oh wait, is that food?”

Fortunately, I got to see Bekah before she left on Sunday. We wandered around the Clothing Co. and the General store. I then headed up the hill with Sara. I played a few rounds of Munchkin with her and Morgan. Such a fun game! I’d never played before then. Later, I came back down for dinner and church. We just started a series that’s going to go from Genesis all the way to Revelation, one book per week! It’s pretty cool. After church, some of us headed over to the Ark to play broom hockey! I’m pretty sure it was somewhere around 10 degrees because my body hurt from how cold it was!

This was a terrific week! And I seriously can’t believe that a week from today, I will be on a plane headed for the Dominican Republic!

Week 16: The Pizza Train Just Won't Stop!

Happy New Year! I got home on the 29^th, and immediately started work on the 30^th. I worked Support Services for the second time, but this time it was night SS which meant working until one in the morning. 56 jobs. 2 in SS. I got one of them. But it turned out okay. I was working by myself mostly, which really bummed me out. I’d been looking forward to interacting with the families and being a part of the experience again through dining hostess, activities, or concessions. Instead I was making beds, vacuuming, and taking out trash. I made the best of it though. New Year’s Eve, we did get to do what is known as the Pizza Train, which all the Joshua students get to dance pizza out to the tables for all the families. It was a ton of fun, plus I didn’t drop any pizza on anyone!

Now for the bad news… Unfortunately one of our Joshua brothers decided this wasn’t where he really needed to be right now and has left the program. Everyone here is hurting from it. Sara, Stephen, and I went outside right after hearing about it and blew our bubble pipes. We have a theory that no one can be sad when they’re blowing bubbles. It was especially hard hearing about it but then having to move on from it almost immediately because Joshua doesn’t stop when things gets tough. Classes went on as normal, we still had our Philippians chapter 2 test, life went on.

On a lighter note, Thursday was Pause night again and we got to go night sledding! It was a ton of fun, and we were going pretty far and fast. Afterwards, we went back to the house and had hot chocolate and played spoons. Scott even showed us the Broom Hockey video (which I am in) before any other Joshua student got to see it! It was a good escape from all the chaos and hurting going on in the building.

Friday work started right up again, only this time it was Winter Camp! 638 high school campers all pumped for Hume. I worked Activities this week, mostly on the tube run. They first day I was loading people onto the tube pulley which takes the kids up the hill so they don’t have to walk. One of the clips on the pulley cable swung out and clipped the back of my leg dragging me uphill a bit, so now I have a gnarly bruise below the back of my knee. Saturday, I was running the line for the tube run most the day, making sure people stayed in line, getting the tubes for the riders, entertaining people in line, etc. It was a lot of fun, but hard on my knee just standing for 4 hours straight. Michelle came to replace me and I went to go work the mechanical bull where I could sit for a while. I actually ended up staying there and hour past when I was supposed to get off because nobody told me when we stopped. My El Diablo duties had turned into day care duties as the staffs kids like to jump on the padding around El Diablo. I ended up missing dinner but my supervisor, Jake, was awesome and bought me dinner at the OK Chalet.

That night we had what is known as the one and only Boxsled Blitz! Some campers spend all year building these awesome sled creations out of cardboard and duct tape. We had everything from Mario Kart complete with banana peels, to a 20ft Noah’s Ark! Mustaches to Star Wars Land Speeders! It was incredible to watch! I was on fire duty so I made sure all the fire pits were stocked with wood. It was a crazy night, but very physically and emotionally taxing. One of the big fire pits ended up melting the snow on one side and falling over, hitting a guy in the process. Fortunately, he was okay. Just a couple scrapes and bruises, but trying to keep the campers away from the fire was incredibly frustrating. It was very icy around the pit and people kept slipping, nearing falling into the now open fire. Some of them just were not good listeners. Today we just worked on cleaning up and resetting everything. We also helped but chains on cars and vans heading down. I learned how to put on cables!

Sunday night, we had our first ever girls meeting. We’ve never really all gotten together other than girl’s nights on Tuesdays with staff. It was awesome to talk and listen to all the girls crammed into Kelsey’s room. Hopefully we’ll be able to continue this kind of thing in the future.

Week 15: That is Both Holly and Jolly!

Wow, I can’t believe I’m already back at the building! But it feels so good to be back in my own bed after Christmas break. I left around 3 on Wednesday the 19 with Morgan and Daniel (another car full of boys, sigh). It was fun though. They teased me for burning my tongue on a french fry and that I didn’t know what the “ halogen fluid” is in a car and how often I check it. (It doesn’t actually exist). I know nothing about cars!

Before we went home we went to see a house in Arroyo Grande who’s Christmas lights are all synced up to music! (I got special permission from Jen to do that)

I had planned on going to a BBQ with some of my college friends, but it didn’t work out so we went to Red Robin at 10pm. Afterwards, we went over to Alex’s house and played Phase 10 for, like, EVER! Well, at least until 2am.

I spent all day Saturday baking with my mom! We made Hot Cocoa Cookies, Peppermint Crumble Bars, Eggnog Cheesecake Bites, and Spritz Cookies! It was a lot of fun and I’m really glad I got to spend that time with my mom. We were the envy of Facebook after posting pictures of our finished treats.

Sunday after church, we went out to lunch with the Gerardi’s and McCuish’s to Applebees. Yummmm! That night I got to go roller skating with some friends. So much fun! Andrew and Jordan were both working. Andrew was working the DJ booth and Jordan was wiping water off the rink from the leaky ceiling. (it rained a lot the day before). I realized roller blade is a bazillion times easier than ice skating! Plus it doesn’t hurt as much when you fall! After skating, we all went to get something to eat at our fairly new Chipotle.

Kiwi attempting to steal presents.

Monday night, we went to the Christmas Eve service at Grace Baptist. I was totally expecting a normal manger and wise men kind of service, but Benji ended up talking about Joshaba and how God used pretty much a nobody in the Bible to basically save the line of David and Christmas all together. It was very interesting as I had never been to a Christmas Eve service that didn’t talk about Jesus’s birth.

Christmas was Tuesday! Ironically, my parents were the ones up and ready to open presents while my sister and I slept in. They had to come get us up before we slept till noon! We opened our stockings first (thanks Santa for the underwear…) and had Breakfast Casserole, one of my favorites!! For Christmas, I got a GPS (mostly because of the time I got lost in Fresno with Sara…), a bunch of jewelry, a program to help my learn to speak Spanish, and the most awesome t-shirt blanket, among other things. It was a really good day, getting to spend it with my family. We even got to watch a movie I gave to my parents calling Hearing Everett. It’s all about Ranch Sudo Mundo, the deaf school I went to in Mexico a few weeks ago.

Wednesday night, I had a little party with my friends. We played lots of board games and ate lots of food. My mom made us homemade hot chocolate, too. We all played Disney Apples to Apples for a long time before breaking off and playing different games like 5 Crowns and Clue. It was a great night.

Apples to Apples Disney style.

Driving to Sara's house.

I left at about 10 the next morning. We were going down to Thousand Oaks where Sara was going to pick me and Stephen up to stay at her house in San Bernardino for the last couple days of break. We got lunch at PrestoPasta before heading off to Sara’s house. We hit lots of traffic so it took a little longer to get there, but it was a fun trip. We got to her house and I changed so that we were all wearing the same thing (Sara and Stephen had accidently worn the same shirt that morning) ; red Hume flannel, cuffed jeans, and flip flops. Then we left to go get dinner at a Mexican restaurant where we met a few of Sara’s friends and we all came back to her house to eat. We played with card game called Mow Mow where every round the winner gets to add a new rule to the game. It was so frustrating trying to remember all of the rules! After her friends went home, we stayed up late talking before going to bed.

Morning faces....

Stephen's Christmas present.

The next day, headed out to a mall in Riverside. I should have brought my GPS because we got lost… but we finally found the exit and got to the mall. They had a C28 store (Christian clothing company)! We walked around Forever 21 and dressed up Stephen from the men’s section. Later, we got Italian food from the food court. It was really good, but I was so full afterwards! We saw a Thomas Kinkade Masterpieces store, maybe some dad I can take my dad! Sara and I ended up going crazy over earcuffs at Icing. Both of them had to drag me out of Bath and Body works. We finally got out of the mall and drove back to Sara’s house. We had a lap top party in her room for a while before going to BJ’s and getting some food. I got a Red Velvet Pizookie to-go. When we got back, we went outside and blew bubble pipes for a while. I have a firm belief that no one can be unhappy while blowing a bubble pipe! We talked for a bit before moving inside out of the cold. We shared bits and pieces of our testimonies until 2am.

Bubble pipes

Bubble pipes

Triplets!

Saturday, we got up around 8 to head back to Hume. Sara’s dad took us and Trevor up. We stopped at Bravo Farms for lunch, which was really cool. We got to try different cheeses and see turkeys and a giant tree house. It was a really neat place.

Now I’m back in the building and ready for the next chapter of Joshua, starting with New Year’s family camp!