Our Family’s Summer

I did a “pic dump” last week on my blog. It consisted of all our odds and ends pictures from the summer that I never got posted to Facebook. Here are the rest that have been taken since then!

Trying to keep Adelynn entertained at Yoder Days…

We went to a wedding in Benton, Kansas on Saturday. Adelynn found a pinecone.

She also stayed very well hydrated.

We found that the iPad is the 21st century Quiet Book.
The wedding was very country, with some nice scenery.
She did great but got very tired and silly during the reception.

After returning home, she had a nap and spent some time looking out the window.

…and enjoyed her Bogey’s shake in the beautiful weather on the front porch. In the ice cream picture you can see a little red spot on her nose. This was taken right after she tumbled off the top of the porch and landed on her mouth on the sidewalk. She has a big fat lip now. But she’s a tough girl.

Hope everyone is enjoying their long weekend!

Grandma's Birthday Bash.
It was a fun time. Grandpa had wrapped her gift himself in a "balloon" bag.





And now onto the next event-Grandma and Uncle Tim prepare Grandma's photo for the State Fair..

The Heat Goes On

The topic of the day seems to be the heat. 100 degrees plus is still the norm. We have a few days in the 90's and that seemed cool!

In the midst of this we have acquired some new residents at the pasture. First to arrive was a baby coyote, a baby bobcat, 3 baby raccoons and 3 young pheasants. Next came the 4 fawns (my favorite) and after that one badger (he looked and sounded rather mean). Finally a full grown raccoon who promptly climbed to the top of the nearest tree when he was released. I talked to the new director of the zoo last week and they still have some kites, an owl and maybe another critter or two that they want to release soon.

For those of you who live far away, Grandpa is doing pretty good. He had appointments with the doctors that saw him in the hospital and they all thought he was doing well. The highlight of his week was when 2 cousins (one from Washington state and one from St John, KS) stopped to visit last week. It was good to see them and hear what is going on in their families.

Finally I am going to attempt to get some pictures lined up in the order that our new residents came except for the first one. Tell me if you can find the unusual object in the tree.

I prefer to be busy

Having kicked off the summer, the blog's schedule conspires to have me finish it off as well, what joy! Although, in all truth, this isn't actually the end of summer. I'm just used to the idea that when school's in, summer's out, so as I'm getting ready to return to school summer is ending (no matter how many more days are left on the calendar). All set to go back, the period between when work ended (August 5th, mercifully) and when I return to WestMo has been strange for me.

In my first post of the summer, I talked about how used to being busy I was, and how the downtime I had at home was difficult to adjust to. Now though, I'm not sure what I was talking about: I worked two weeks in June, had a week and a half off (9 days of which were spent in Denver and Boulder with a few of my housemates), then returned to work on July 9th, never having more than two days off until The Worst Camp Ever ended on August 5th. Let's work this review in reverse.

(We didn't have a place to stay at this point. We weren't worried)

My last camp of the summer was Merits of Space, a boyscout, 6-day extravaganza. It highlighted one of the lowlights of my job: being a nanny. Never would I have expected the boyscouts to be so delicate. 16 of 35 on medications. 4 sick campers required staying up on 2 different nights. 1 camper who didn't take his ADD meds. 1 camper scared of the dark. 1 camper scared of the storms. 1 who gashed his foot open on the shower and was lucky to have a fire science student talking to us in the dorm lobby. 1 who was a natural carrier of staph who had open sores on his foot (and showered on the same floor as the kid with the gashed foot). 2 thieves. 1 phonecall from a parent. Countless campers who had to call their parents RIGHT NOW. 1 camper who twisted his ankle. 27 campers who couldn't hold onto their stuff. 2 speeches by the directors, which reflects poorly on us as counselors when it has to happen. And 2 counselors who couldn't get along and I had to mediate between as head counselor. My graduation speech, when we finally got there was short: "To have survived these 6 days, you're either really stubborn or really patient. So congratulations and congratulations on your successful missions."

The prior two before that were some of the best. Both Space 201 camps, formerly level 2, they granted me the opportunity to enjoy one of the benefits of the job: personally connecting with campers and helping them do things they thought they couldn't do. However, the first one I worked started half a day after I returned from Houston...

I went to Houston with my second camp of July, a Space 301 that was an absolute blast. The entire experience was a constant balance between extremes: the bus had no A/C, but I'd never seen Johnson Space Center before; I had to clean up vomit, but helped inspire a future counselor; I got only a few hours of sleep on our return trip, but came back with big plans for the Cosmosphere's future. The consequence of not being able to sleep meant that when I went on the next camp as a night counselor (meaning I spent evenings and nights with the kids) the deficit grew and grew and grew and grew until I was absolutely destroyed on the final day. It saddened me, considering how much I enjoyed the kids on that camp that I was incapable of summoning all the energy to interact with them that I wanted.

(Standing in Mission Control, we watched the sun set over Atlantis, 175 miles above)

Prior to 301, I had worked a Mars Academy, a relatively banal time, but one that prepared me for the camp from hell later in the month. And before that I had worked the other two 201s, making me an expert on how to run the camp :P.

Some things did suffer from my business, especially bike riding. Early in the summer I bought a used LeMond Reno road bike I promptly christened Dasein. I enjoy the symbolism of riding a bike that literally means "being-there." She's a beauty and I was fortunate enough to get some long rides in with a co-worker, but I'm looking forward to more rides with more people when I return to school and get involved with the beginnings of the Westminster Cycling Club.

(A rather poor shot of my new love)

Other things I look forward to at school include taking the helm of Philosopher's Corner, the school's recently-deceased philosophy club, and invigorating it with some awesome ideas and awesome people. I'll be presenting at the first "What if...?" conference, a day-long expo of crazy ideas put on by one of my housemates and another one of his clubs, for which I'm treasurer, a fun time for sure. This will be the first time I begin looking at graduate schools in earnest, and deciding if the plans I've laid up for years are what I want to do (working at the Cosmosphere has planted a few seeds of doubt).

But until then, I've got time to kill, and the empty hours are both a luxury and a curse. It makes me a little disgruntled (sorry family!) as I'm not quite at school but definitely done at the Cosmosphere, which itself is a little hard to take. Counseling is probably the best job I've ever had the privilege of doing. It was exhausting and grueling, but made me proud of my work and conscious of the position I held; it was taxing, but rewarded me with a few great new friends and experiences that I can tuck away and save up for when I teach in earnest.

(The trainer used by the first commercial astronauts arrives on my last day of work)