Pictures!

Kaija and Dillon the night before Kaija left (last night).
Me playing with the action option on my camera, caught Hanna mid-sentence.

<3 Cute! It tried to steal my dinner!

Katy Feidler, Narnia area head....."working" in the Snack Bar.

Stealing Joe's funfetti frosting.

Christopher (9 years-old) trying to hold a stick-up for ice cream and pop.
Diana, I figured out how to change the color it focuses on!
The first picture taken with my camera, Ben.
Yesterday night I had 8 people volunteering for me. It was mayhem! After snack bar I went to the lodge 6 porch to hang out with my friends, especially Kaija because she left about 10 minutes ago.

So, here are the pictures from yesterday. These pictures aren't really anything special, these things happen every day, but now I have documentation!!

Yesterday I got a 1 hour massage from someone who gave me one because I'm always giving them to other people. It was fantastic!

Today was an eventful day

My camera came already!!! Yes, the one I ordered 2 days ago! Weird. My memory card has yet to come but this one will hold about 10 pictures so I'm ok for now.

This morning I got up early because I volunteered for Narnia ( a bunch of their staff left and they needed help). I told Katy (the area head) that I would help out if I didn't have to wipe a butt or change a diaper, and if someone licked me I would slap them and run away and never help again. She put me with the 7-10 year-olds. I got there and we hung out on the play ground, I make a fort with some boys. After that, we went up to the dining hall to make cookies for coffee break, then we played freeze tag. After freeze tag we went to play some game called German capture the flag. I was chasing a small child when I tripped over another small child, fell, and skinned my knee; it stings a little. Oh well...I also ripped another hole in my jeans when I tripped. After that we played on the playground again, then watched a puppet show, then went to lunch. After lunch I hauled my ice cream shipment with Julie and Reid. Snack bar went well. Here I am.

I documented these things because my camera came but it won't let me upload pictures right now. I'll try later. :)

Canon Powershot

Also, I just bought a new camera. I got a really good deal on Amazon. :)

New Orleans

I just applied to do disaster relief down in New Orleans through LDR (Lutheran Disaster Relief). It was easier to post it here rather than e-mailing everyone.

More porch time

Today Julie was back from the there day weekend I gave her (I felt bad about taking so much time off for Stehekin and dock day and the lift and stuff). She enjoyed her time and came back feeling refreshed. Yesterday afternoon was the busiest day I have ever had in the Snack Bar. There is a massive family reunion (they all have matching T-shirts too) in the village right now and their matching T-shirts say, "We're only here for the ice cream. Johnson family reunion" You can imagine how busy that was. About 30 minutes into the shift, right after I started the dishwasher mind you, the power went out. The dishwasher takes 45 minutes so when the power didn't come back on until a half hour before the shift ended, you can imagine how many dishes I had piled up from the rest of the shift. I ran out of cups and large dishes. I also ran out of every kind of pop and a few ice creams but I couldn't replenish them because the power was out and I couldn't see in the basement...also, my flashlight doesn't work. It was fun though, despite the craziness. There was nothing to do so I hung around and talked to some lady from Lake Stevens (I had an aquafest shirt on and she recognizes it). She goes to Holy Cross, we know a lot of the same people.

I've decided that there are too many things to finish on my medical testing for the Peace Corps, so I'll be coming home. I think if I wait the few weeks that it is going to take for me to be able to leave, I'll only have another month and a little before I leave for good so it won't be sooo bad using all my outs in one more go. I only have 3 out days left. I know some people who are going through Lake Stevens, and staying with people there so I'm toying with the idea of hitching a ride with him. On the other hand, that would make me miss some of my really close friends' last day. Hmmm. I'll figure it out. Stupid Polio booster.

This morning I got up (Pancake day!!!) with plenty of time to get to breakfast because I only get up on Tuesdays for pancakes. Then I went back to sleep. I woke up at 8:25, got dressed, and ran to the dining hall for pancakes. I got there 2 minutes afterthe time. They were still putting out pancakes late, so I got one, despite the harassement from a good friend of mine on waitri about what time breakfast ends.

At breakfast I sat with a father and daughter, the daughter had just come back from the national youth gathering in New Orleans. We talked about New Orleans for a while and the state it's in and what kinds of things they did for service projects. I'm interested in knowing more about New Orleans before I attempt to make my trek down there.

Maybe I'll spend this extra time I have (from waking up so early) looking for some kind of program. If you know of any, please let me know emediatly. I want some program that is doing disaster releif down in New Orleans, where I wouldn't have to pay for housing, I could just live there and work. I have some leads but I'm still looking.

Ok, busy day today, it's supposed to be hot again, and every day until Thursday. I'm hoping by some freak occurance people don't want ice cream today, I literally went though half of my shipment yesterday afternoon alone.....we'll see if I run out or if I have to ration again.

<3

Amy

Day off.

The longer I'm here, the more time I spend on porches. It's morphed into this. In the morning, afternoon, and around meal times, we're sitting on the upper floor porch of Lodge 1. At night, we change to The upper porch of Lodge 6 because it's farther away (so we can be lowder) and there is a hamoch and more seating. Last week a group of guests (the village is at capacity so they've been putting guests in the staff lodges) took over the upper Lodge 1 porch. We took drastic measures to re-claim it (including taking shifts sitting on the porches so they wouldn't take it. yesterday Matt wanted to take a nap so we had him sleep there. We all got him blankets and stuff so he would have incentive to stay there. It worked like a charm, the porch is ours again! We are the porch sitters!! We've decided to call it Central Porch, like in Friends, because that's where we all hang out when we're not sleeping or at work. After the last of my clost friends leave in the next two weeks I'm going to have to hang out on my own porch (Chalet 1). I knitted there today for a little bit while my roommate was playing the harp but it wasn't the same.

It is soo hot and we're understaffed so much that it seems like everyone is kind of on edge. The village is at capactiy and nobody has enough help. Everyone is working over 40 hours. I'm excited for cooler weather, less guests, and less work. That's ok though, I think everyone is kind of embracing the whole "work hard, play hard" modo.

I ran out of allergy medication.

I have to get a polio booster to finish my medical stuff for Peace Corps so I might be home before long. Then again, maybe I'll get it in Wenatchee and save my out days. I only have 3 out days left between now and September.

I woke up today to my alarm clock beeping and people standing outside my door talking about how loud my alarm clock in. I went outside and told them all that I'm a hard sleeper and it takes a lot to wake me up. They were like, "I guess!"

I guess that's all for now.....

I hope you enjoyed the random collection of thoughts in my head!

<3 Amy

Sunshine

The sun is warm. The village is warm and dusty. Actually, we've been having showers off and on amidst the intense sun. Those are always nice breaks. We need the rain too, it's too dry here.

I was dinking around the village and I came by the evacuation plan. If we were evacuated I would be a floater. I'm not sure what that means, but it seems important to me!

Wednesday I went to dock day with the minors and junior minors to say goodbye to my friend Sam. Three hours down by the lake and I didn't jump in once even though it was in the 90's. Dillon, Sam, Jo, and I ended up playing this game of hearts that lasted the entire time. Actually, 10 minutes of my time was consumed by my taking pictures of Dillon and Sam jumping into the lake doing different poses. They turned out really well.

When it came time to walk over to the normal dock from refrigerator harbor to say goodbye to Sam we all got really mopey. We walked over and hung out until the boat arrived. Once it was time for Sam to get one we all had probably 10 group hugs and individual hugs. All the people on the boat and on the dock were looking at us like we're crazy....but we just love each other! Anyway, Sam left and it was sad. Our last words were Hanna shouting out "Don't you leave us Sam Wise Gamjee (sp?)" Of course he shouted back, "And I don't mean to!" Then we waved at the boat while walking backwards until we turned a corner and couldn't see him anymore. Everyone slept on the bus ride up the hill.

We got back into the village and I went to the Snack bar (I had taken the shift off because I've been working Beanie (the espresso cart so often this week). I guess 2 people didn't show up to scoop so Maggie from the pool hall came up to work and they were short a person. Poor Julie, this was the 2nd shift she had done alone. Ohg well. I gave here a 3 day weekend to make up for my missing for dock day and the stehekin trip. She's thrilled.

We're all sad that Sam is gone but we are all planning to meet in Seattle for New Years Eve. I guess this is a yearly tradition. A lot of the people I'm friends with this year were all friends and staff from last summer. I'm excited because I'm going to be in the greater Seattle area for New Years too! Woohoo.

The last three days I have been working Beanie (the espresso cart) in the morning then going to my job in the afternoon and at night. I've been tired. When I work Beanie I start at 6:15am and finish at 11:00am. Then I start my job at 12:45pm and am pretty much doing that until 10:3opm. Looong days. Tom, director Tom, got wind of this and told me that I was working too hard and that he didn't want to have to worry about me but that it was a really really great cup of coffes that I made him and that he heard I was Starbucks trained? haha. That rumor made it around somehow because people ask me a lot. Weird. Anyway, I'm going to tell Paul that I can't do more than 1 shift a week, unless they're really jammed, just because I'm already at 40 hours wiht my job and another 14 hours on top of that makes it so I don't sleep much. Needless to say, I slept in until 1oam this morning. I do like working Beanie though, it's fun....I'm just tired.

MY POP CAME YESTERDAY! Finally, there is pop other than Dr. Pepper in the Snack bar. I had to wait for 2 barge runs because Weinstein bevereges deceided not to record my order. Oh well, it's here now. The only problem is that 14 canisters (5 gallons each) came in and they're probably 40lbs a peice. My arms and shoulders are hurting from carrying them. I was tempted to wait a little bit longer to put in the pop even though everyone knows it came it just because people were so rude about it. Then I decided not to be a brat :). I spent probably 30 minutes messing with the Diet Pepsi to get it to work until Aaron (the medic) finally pipped up that he knew how to fix it. He messed with it for longer than I did and determined that there was a clog in one of the hoses but that it was gone now and the machine was working.

Yesterday for dinner a bunch of us split the 24oz Mountain Dew that Same left to us. YUM.

Ok, what else is happening. I think I decided not to extend. I'm going to talk to the staff coordinators anyway to see what I would be doing if I did extend but I'm pretty sure I won't. I kind of want to go on this road trip down the washington, oregon, california coast, over through Arizona to see the grand canyon and over to New Orleans (I'm still stuck on doing disaster releif there, I just don't know how to do it). I have friends in places all the way down the coast so I wouldn't have to pay for lodging or anything.....I've always wanted to do a road trip like that too. The only hang up is that my car still won't pass emissions and all the money I would have to spend on the road trip will probably go toward fixing the car, then there wouldn't be much point to doing anything but selling it. Hmm. Anyone want to go on a road trip??

I think that's about it for today. I can't beleive that tomorrow is the 1st of Augest already! Weird. I need to get some people to scoop ice cream for today. Anouncement anouncement!

I guess that's about it. I'll try to get some pictures up soon. I decided what kind of camera I'm going to get! Now it's just a matter of finding a deal on it.

<3 Amy