Week 9

Day 56: Oct 5, 2014

I pretty much literally slept today away. I woke up for breakfast and then went back to bed until 1pm. I guess the hike really tuckered me out. Oh well. What else are days off for if not sleeping?

Day 57: Oct 6, 2014

I feel like all of the exciting things that happen in my life here happen after 4pm so that is where I am going to start this entry (the morning bits were the same as always and the afternoon was filled with knitting and a nap). Once I woke up from my nap I grabbed my knitting and headed out onto the porch. Sitting on the porch swing looking out over the village is hard to beat but it is made even better when friends join you. Today, I was first joined by Benji and we chatted until Alex came out. The chatter faded out as we sat and knit, admired the beauty around us, and read. This continued until dinner and after dinner we were joined by Riley and Leah. The reading ceased but music was introduced and so were the ten year olds- Jade and Flint. We quickly turned into a jungle gym for Jade and Flint has made up this great storyline for the village so we talked to him about it and about how he should write a little script for the upcoming variety show. It was so wonderful but vespers soon interrupted the wonder.

After vespers many of us gathered at chalet 1 for a birthday hootenanny. A banjo and guitar were played and songs were sung. It lasted for almost 2 hours and every second was enjoyable.

Day 58: Oct 7, 2014

A mouse definitely ran up and onto my foot this morning at the coffee cart. I may have freaked out a little and may have kicked out. Part of me hopes the mouse is ok and another part of me wants it out of my area. Hopefully it was fine but spread the word to stay away. Also, it was announced at breakfast this morning that two of our staff members got engaged. They told the story and everyone got excited. They even acted out a little bit of it. They were on a hike and he had hurt his knee so he had to awkwardly maneuver onto one knee so she knew what was happening before he got there. It was a surprise enough though because the ring ended up being too big. Once they were finished telling the story everyone started clapping and jumping up and down. The whole affair was adorable. Other than that the day was pretty routine- coffee cart, lunch, bus arrival, nap/Dr. Who, knit and porch sit. Not that that is a bad thing. I think my favorite part of routine days is the porch sitting after dinner. That is when all of the kids come out and play some form of tag and you get to see how good the high schoolers are with the young ones. It is like watching one big family play in the yard. When one trips others go and make sure that they are ok. There are rarely tears but every so often there is a game of keep away.

Day 59: Oct 8, 2014

I got to see part of the lunar eclipse this morning and I didn't even have to get up early to see it. I was at the ending half but really when you haven't seen the first half, the second half is really pretty exciting.

Other than that it was kind of a rough day. It is days like today when being so isolated is really hard. You find out news from home and, although I could make a call if I had to, it wouldn't do much good. A call can not fix everything and in this case probably would only make me feel worse about not being able to be there. I guess, at least here, there are people who care about me and can help support me when things bring me down but it isn't quite the same. I did make some cards to send out and that helped me to feel a little better but still. Just a note to my family: Even though I like doing arts and crafts and such does not mean that I want to make you a “Get well soon” card! Aka I do not want you to be sick or hurting or whatever! I love you guys and would rather send a “Hey, I am glad to hear everything is great with you” card.

Luckily, the day ended on a higher note. We did a clown worship service for vespers which is always fun. A clown service is where the leaders (usually camp counselors) dress up as clowns and put on clown face paint. The minute the white makeup goes on the clowns must be silent. The idea is that there is fun/calming music and the clowns act out the message of the day. It makes for a nice change of pace and is perfect for a vespers setting since the service is only 30 minutes. I tried to look up a good site to link you to for a better description but most of the sites were vilifying it, saying that clowning has no place in the church. While that might be true for a classic sunday morning worship (depending on the church), it is perfect for any place where there are large amounts of kids who might pay more attention or where the general population of the congregation is more open to a very untraditional service. Basically, Holden is a perfect setting for one and the service today was focusing on the Ten Commandments which makes it fairly easy to do without too many words. For this service there were two non-clowns who partook. One read the passage before everything started and one did a prayer at the end. That was really all that was needed. I got to be the sound technician for the service. Basically, my job was to press play, make sure the sound was coming out, and turn the volume down during the talking parts and then back up. It was a very important duty :) haha. I do what I can. After the service a group of us gathered to play some dominoes and it was so much fun. There were about ten of us playing so that helped to keep the game relatively short and kept conversation going in the right direction. Every time I feel a little down here there is always something to either distract me or help me up at least a little.

Day 60: Oct 9, 2014

Well, I thought I was going to has to write the happenings of the day tomorrow because my night went late but turns out my body is still not ready for bed so I figured I might as well write. The day was average but after vespers and a short stint at the bookstore I headed to the Lift (an awesome little performance area) for a birthday dance party. The theme was Stick It (a gymnastics movie) so people were dressed up in some crazy outfits and we dance for a good two hours. You would have thought that that would have tired me out enough to fall right asleep but apparently not. After the dance party a few of us gathered to rehydrate in the dining hall and talk for a little bit. We read the letter that Ellen, the birthday girl, got from her grandma which was fun because the writing was cramped and in cursive so it sounded like we were first graders learning how to read. I went back to my room at about 10pm and tossed and turned until 11:30 when I started coughing. I took some cough meds and went to the dining hall for some tea. That was where I ran into a hyped up Benji who apparently slept too much of the afternoon away. He was moving like a squirrel- lots of quick and tiny movements. It would have been really funny if I hadn't been so tired but it was nice to have someone to sit with while I waited for the meds to kick in. This was about perfect, I am done writing and I am starting to fall asleep. I have less than four hours until my alarm goes off....

Day 61: Oct 10, 2014

I really wanted today's entry to just be “boys suck” but since I do have something else to talk about I will refrain from a two word entry. Considering that I only had about 3.5 hours of sleep I was really not very tired today. Everything was pretty routine today. This evening while I was porch sitting a family of deer came up. There was even a two point buck who walked by and he had the best eyebrow markings. It made his expression hilarious. I just wish I could have gotten a picture.

Day 62: Oct 11, 2014

Today was so great! So after breakfast I went back to bed for a little while until it was bus departure time. This time, instead of waving goodbye to people, I was on the bus heading down to the lake. A group of us went to Stehekin, a small town up lake, for a little day trip. The ferry picked us up and stopped in Stehekin for 90 minutes and then was going to head back to Lucerne (our port) and Chelan. We decided to go this weekend because there is a world-class bakery about 2 miles from the port that is closing for the winter after this weekend. So we emailed the bike rental place to see if they could leave out some bikes for us so that we could make it to the bakery and have plenty of time there to enjoy ourselves. Well, when we got into port is was raining pretty bad but we had no other way to get to the bakery so we went to pick up our bikes. When we got there, the owner's wife was waiting for us in her van. She came up to talk to us about the bikes and it really sounded like she didn't want us to ride in the rain so we compromised. She drove us to the bakery in her van. We were going to have to walk back but hey, a free car ride is better than paying to ride a bike in the cold rain pretty much any day. Once at the bakery we bought some cinnamon rolls, pie, pizza, and some muffins. When it came time to leave, the local tourist bus had just pulled up. It was still raining so I decided that it was worth the $3 to hitch a ride back to the boat. I met up with one of the guys who came with us but didn't go to the bakery and we sat and chatted while waiting for the others to get back. The whole outing was so wonderful and rejuvenating. We were only out of the village for 5 hours but the excursion of leaving the village, taking a boat and going to a completely new place was really nice. Once we got back a bunch of us decided to watch a movie, Toy Story. I really enjoy watching movies here partly because people join in the watching as the walk by. At the beginning of the movie there were only two of us watching but by the end there were seven of us. Oh, also super exciting, when we got back to the village there was snow on the mountains that surround us. There was SO MUCH SNOW!! It was very exciting. This evening was spent setting up the coffee cart and getting ready for the coffee shop variety show. Before vespers I had to make sure that the coffee cart was warmed up and ready to go. After vespers I made a bunch of drinks and then went and enjoyed the show. One of the kids wrote out a story for a few of the characters that he made for some of the villagers. There were some jokes told by a first grader. A few songs written and played by villagers. Poems were read and improv was done in both song and acting forms. It was a wonderful end to the day. Even better, though, was when Benji taught Josh and later Andrew how to do some Norwegian folk dancing. Josh was taught on the boat and Andrew was taught after the talent show in the dining hall. I think today tops out as the most amount that I have laughed here so far. It was a pretty awesome day.