Summertime

It's August 2nd and we have one week of camp left. It's weird how little things have been making me get teary eyed. Especially this past week. During week 5, I told my staff that I was going to loosen the reigns because I knew they could handle more responsibility. I was sitting in a guard chair down by our waterfront on Thursday afternoon watching campers and staff leave the water and as I looked out there, not only did I see smiles on all faces and sunshine shining on the green hills next to the blue water, but I felt at peace. It's bittersweet that the summer is ending because I feel like my staff and I and camp for that matter are just beginning to become normal. It felt amazing sitting there and watching everything going on around me. I could have sat there for hours. It's hard to believe that our last week is two days away.

This summer has been crazy. Amazing and crazy. I have had so many little moments that take me by surprise that I cannot remember them all. I was walking across camp and kind of had a flashback to me in my sophomore year of college, right after I had changed my major to Outdoor Rec. I have always worked hard for things that I have wanted and to get to where I am at now, I have worked for it. As I walked across my little camp, I felt a wave of emotion flood my thoughts. Starting that major wanting to be a Camp Director and then the route my life took to get me out in the middle of South Dakota... Woah. It's crazy.

So, as you all know, we have some rattlesnakes that live out around camp. I've killed two so far. woot woot. To help with the snakes, I figured we could get a couple cats out at camp to kill the mice (Rattlesnake food). I spoke with one of our board members and she said she had some cats she could give us. I specifically told her to give us some that she either wanted back at the end of camp or ones that she didn't mind me leaving them out there to fend for themselves because I wasn't adding any cats to my animal collection. Two Sunkas were enough! Then, we get the cat... Looks like I have a cat now... Meet Ninja our camp cat.

It wouldn't be a blog if I didn't speak about my kiddos. Being able to see these kids out at camp has been life changing. Working with kids from the further out communities has made me excited for the school year and to be able to go out to their communities and see them again. Watching as a younger girl who is scared of thunderstorms, stick it out in her own cabin instead of crying for her sister in another cabin is a great thing to experience. Watching as a camper starts the summer off in the shallowest part of the river (red zone) wearing a life jacket because he was scared and by the end of week 4, he's swimming in the deepest zone (green) is awesome. Not only can camp help show kids they can accomplish anything, but they are able to have fun and not worry about things they would if they were home. Watching campers learn songs and start singing them as they get dropped off to home... Not only have my campers changed, but my staff has changed as well. Colleen said it best to me last night- I am in a position where I am able to not only help myself understand and experience new things within this culture, but I am able to help show others the great things that we are surrounded by out here. Sure, there are bad things that happen and it's hard seeing some of those things, but the smiles on the kids faces when they see me back in Dupree after being gone for a week, or having a camper extremely pissed off at you because you had to discipline them and then receiving a huge at the end of the week and watching them return to camp the next week makes the bad things fall to the back and the smiles shine through. 

Now that the summer is almost over, many of you might be wondering "What now?" well funny you should think that. We had a visit from a lady who works for the American Camp Association (ACA) this past week. One of my goals before I leave here (I don't know when that will be), is to get camp accredited. By getting camp ACA accredited not only will we be holding ourselves to high safety standards, but it will also hopefully help when people/Y's/camps look to donating money to us. Becoming ACA accredited is a huge process, but happily I can say that we should be accredited by next summer (fingers crossed). Working on being accredited will take up time as well as going out into the communities to do afterschool programming as well as leadership programming for our LITs. I really wish we had a better program set up for this past summer, but there was no time. All of those things and more will keep me busy. 

August 26th-28th, I will be attending a conference in Minneapolis for YMCA Leadership training. On the 29th, I will be flying out of there to San Fran to start the first part of my John Muir Trail hike. Two years in the making and it's almost here. I'm super nervous because I haven't been training since camp started. Before that though, I was working out at the gym and also running 4 miles a day. gulp. I have two weeks before the trip after camp is done so we'll see what happens. I know I'll be fine once I'm out there, it's just the anticipation and the wanting to not disappoint myself that I'm worried about. 

I'm going to end this blog with a couple pictures of my Sunkas because I haven't spent much time talking about them. Atlas and Scout have become great camp dogs. Atlas has enough energy to hang with the middle age boys who love playing with him and Scout is kind enough to let the young girls pet him. They also know exactly what mood to be in when there are campers around. If there are campers who have cuts on the feet from the river, Scout is right there to let them pet him while they get them cleaned out. If there is a camper who is upset and wants to be alone, Atlas is sitting next to them on the deck. They may be a little crazy at times, but they are my sunkas and the kids love them and so do I. It's amazing to see how much Scout has grown since I got him in April. He's only about 8months old and he's HUGE! I think people tend to forget that he's still a puppy because of his size. Anyways, here are some pictures for you all.