Small update!

The scooter is LEGAL!!! And I haven't stopped driving it yet. It's so much fun to drive around town and have people honk and wave at me. I love to toot my own little squeaky horn right back. I drove it up to Walmart the other day and I had a bunch of people saying that they were going to look into getting themselves a scooter because of gas and such. It's such a blast! I can't wait for school to start so my classmates can see it. I can't wait to get teased about it because then I can tease right back about not having to spend $40 to fill it up!! Oh! I just can't wait.

Since I've been home from camp I've seen 3 of my co-counselor friends on a daily basis, and I've talked to every single one of them almost every day. But this week, my friend, Elizabeth, and I will be making a special trip to Starkville to visit one our favorite sweet heart, Joseph. (I call him sweet heart because he absolutely HATES it. He's a marine, and it ruins his reputation). I am sooo excited to go! I can't wait to just get away. Not that I don't just love Senatobia and being home and stuff, but camp gave me an opportunity to miss home, and now I miss having to miss it. So i'm going to run away to Starkville just long enough to miss home. lol. I'm making no sense at all, but I don't care. That's the only picture I have of the three of us--we're doing some kind of crazy cheer at camp. This week is going to be so much fun!

Missing...

Holy moly, man! I'm totally missing these guys. They were some of the best people I've ever met in my life. That's Miles, Joseph, Joel, Blake, Me, Mallory, Brienne, Ms. Veda, Elizabeth and Emily. They're so wonderful.

And I miss them.

An AMAZING story...

Summer is almost over--we have about 3 weeks before school starts back up. And let me just say that this summer is going to the be one of the most memorable summers that I've ever had. I've made some wonderful friends and met some wonderful children. I've really been loving my life lately. I loved camp so much that I started thinking about changing my major to elementary education. I love those kids and I long to teach them everything. So I've really been considering it.

We left camp Saturday afternoon and we all promised to stay in touch. I cried on the way home just because I know it doesn't work that way. Anyway, after being home for about 2 hours, I got a call from the sweetest sister counselors, Emily and Elizabeth, saying that they wanted to come spend time with me. So about 3 hours after that, I was in the company of my counselor friends. I told them about wanting to change my major and I asked for them to pray for me. Then, they called Joel, another counselor, and he wanted to come visit us all in Senatobia. So by 4:00 Sunday afternoon, 4 of the 8 counselors were together again. It was wonderful!

The last week at camp, one of the counselors, Blake, told me about the church that he leads worship for and I told him that I was going to come see him. He didn't believe me. But when Joel, Emily, and Elizabeth showed up at my doorstep, we made plans to travel to Oxford to hang out with Blake. I have to say, Blake's church is AWESOME. It's an Anglican church, and the people there were so sweet and so welcoming. We happened to come on a night that they were doing to communion, which made me nervous. But it was nice.

ANYWAY, back to the actual story. During communion I started praying that God would really just show me which way to go with my education. I like those flashing neon lights, ya know. So I was praying. And next thing I know, the President, David, had his hand on my head, praying with me. I heard him say, "God, thank you for your child and thank you that she's following you. God, please bless the people that she will be leading and, God, bless the children that she's going to be leading."

TALK ABOUT A FLASHING NEON LIGHT! I just started trembling and shaking. David had never met me before, yet God told him what to say to me. It was absolutely amazing. So today, me and my counselor friends are going to Northwest to change my major to Elementary Education! Wish me luck!

Camp Lakeside Week 4

What an AMAZING week at camp this was!! We had 52 kids signed up at the beginning of the week--an all-time record for Camp Lakeside. Six kids decided in the beginning of the week that they were bored and they wanted to go home. I hated to see them go, but I also hated their attitudes towards the experience they were getting, so we said good riddance to them and had an AWESOME God-filled week! We had ELEVEN children come to know Christ! ELEVEN!!!! That's an AMAZING number!! What an AMAZING GOD we serve!!! Here are some things that happened this week:

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Me and my very very good friend and coworker stayed in Wildwood cabin, along with 13 of the sweetest girls EVER!! It was so awesome to see and hear how God was present in each of these girls' lives. They were so sweet. And they ALL had something to say--every moment that I was around. I told them at one point that my name wasn't "Ms. Red" anymore, and that they had to guess my new name before I would listed to them. It was interesting hearing the things they made up for me!! The picture above was taken at 11:30 on the last night of camp. We told the girls that if they cleaned up, we had a surprise for them, so they cleaned and we had a DANCE PARTY!!! YMCA!!!!!

The next day, the last day of camp, we had some extra time in our cabins before swim time. We were all hanging out, talking and telling funny stories. Somehow the radio just happened to turn on thanks to one of the little girls and we had yet another dance party. It was so much fun to watch the girls go crazy over songs like YMCA and Wild Thing and Mony Mony. I was tired, so I was chilling on my bed, and I had a few of the girls rubbing my back and talking to me and stuff. Well the next thing I know, those girls who had been so sweet to rub my back, are pushing me on the FLOOR. I hit the ground, and I hear "get her! Get her!" I'm thinking to myself, "Oh dear. This is going to end badly" I look up, and they've all got SHAVING CREAM in their hands, running after Emily, who has been so busy dancing that she had NO IDEA what is about to hit her. Poor thing got creamed--bad. But it was SOOO funny!!!

Also on the last day, it rained like crazy! The sky was lighting up with lightning, so it cut into the kids' swim time. But I don't think it bothered them. We played and danced in the rain like nothing had ever happened. The lightning died down, but the kids were having so much playing in the rain. So the counselors snuck into the gated pool area, locked the door, and waited for the kids to notice. It was so funny watching them bang on gates and scream "We want in!!" hahahaha!! Of course, being the good guy counselors that they are, I got pushed in the pool, fully clothed. It was soo much fun. Oh, and yes, we did finally let the kids in to swim, but not until I got those silly boys back!!!

The talent show was amazing this week. We had 15 kids sign up to do all sorts of talents. There was singing, flexibility demonstrations, piano playing, dancing, and bouncing balls 100 times. It was so nice. At the end of every talent show Mr. Blake, the worship leader, surprises the kids with "Great Balls of Fire" and everyone gets up and dances and it's just a GREAT way to end the week. Then we announce the winners (everyone is a winner at Camp Lakeside!). This week, in the middle of Great Balls of Fire, we were very rudely interrupted. About 10 seconds before the song ended and about 3 minutes before the end of the talent show, everything went silent. Our guest preacher for the week had unplugged our AMP and then proceeded to yell at Blake (in front of parents, kids, and counselors) about how we should all be ashamed of bringing that music into the church (this was a talent show, not a worship service) and we should be ashamed to call ourselves Christians because we listened to that music (heaven forbid he finds out what we were listening to at the dance party!). OH AND he mentioned that we shouldn't bring the world into the church (being a preacher, shouldn't that be your desire? Isn't that how the world gets saved, by bringing them into the church?) ANYWAY, the night ended on a really sour note, and the parents, hearing and seeing the tension between the counselors and what-not, decided to leave. There were no rewards given, there was no "Goodnight, we had a great week" speech. It just ended sourly.

BUT I won't say that that little episode spoiled the whole week. It was an AMAZING week at camp. I can't wait for next week (day camp!). Although it makes me very sad to think that camp is almost over. I'm desperately going to miss the place--and the PEOPLE! Holy moly! God really knew what He was doing when He put us counselors together. I've made some AMAZING friends these past few weeks! (NOTE: I found out this past week that Emily and I will be in the same dorm building this next fall!!! I'm sooo excited about that!!)