Snow!

Late late Fall is over now that we have some decent snow on the ground.  Just in time for Christmas too. In the meantime I kept up my normal travels.  Although we'll see if I slow down a little over the next couple weeks.

Garrison Hills for Christmas Eve.

Christmas Eve I'm usually really busy jumping from church to church.  I like to go to First Wes with my Mom, then my church, and finally to Saint Philip Catholic Church for Midnight Mass.  This year I started at my church and ended up at St Phil once again. It's my traditional Midnight Mass only without Rob this year. We enjoy knowing that through the differences, they still believe in Jesus Christ as their savior.  The music is always enjoyable as well.

St Phil has a very beautiful building.

On Christmas day I opened a couple presents from Mom, then we rolled out to the airport in Kalamazoo.  After that I figured out my friends, Ethan and Liz weren't busy that night so I joined them for some games.  We started with Mario Kart, then played Creationary (a gift from Rob).  It's like Pictionary with Legos.

Can you see my bench?

The day after Christmas I was expecting Adela, Emily Calhoun, and Brad Smith to come out.  While they were on the way I met with Rob and Elizabeth for lunch at T-Bell.  I decided to ride my bike there. It was great... and awful... but also great.  Stinking cold, and the snow started up, beating me in the face.  So I didn't horse around much on the way home.

You can't see the snow in the air in this picture.  It was painful.

When they arrived we basically hit the town.  Around here that means checking out downtown and the Festival of Lights.  We missed some of the indoor stuff, but the ice sculptures were up.  It didn't take long before we were pretty cold though, so we headed back in fairly quickly.  At home we enjoyed watching Youtube and Hulu videos.  Some from Saturday Night Live, Olan Rogers, and a lot of Funniest Home Videos.

I think it's the Denso ice sculpture.  Brad, Adela, and Emily.

On Thursday we met with Hannah Ford to see the Hobbit for my first 3D experience.  It was all right.  I didn't like when they put stuff out of focus jumping out of the screen.  And the glasses are fairly uncomfortable.  I enjoyed going out though, and especially eating Red Robin afterwards.  I was very sad to see them leave, but it is nice to have the house to myself.  Just not for too long here.

The obnoxious curvy bench looks really cool with snow on it.

Here I am.  Living in Battle Creek.  No job quite yet.  I'm pretty antsy to get out of the house, but I'm not really worried about it.  Something will turn up.  I'm still hoping to work close to home, and if needed I'll check out substitute teaching.  There is a small chance that I might pursue full time teaching too, although I'm much more interested in engineering at this point.

Doh!

Here's the bad news.  The roads near my house don't get salted and are slick for days after it snows. So I was on the way home and slid into a curb.  Man!  I stay out of trouble with accidents for the most part, so it really bugs me when it happens.  But stuff happens and it's too late.  So far I'm trying to work on it with some friends that are more adept at working on cars than I am.

After taking the tire off we discovered the mount for the shock is broken right at the wheel hub.  It's something that I might be able to get some help on and figure out, but I still need to buy parts.  I budget well for  things usually, but I knew I'd be tight between working at Camp and getting a job.  This is the catastrophic cost on my budget.  But here I am, and I'm sure we'll be able to figure something out.

To get it parked my friend Jake (who helped me tremendously with all of this) pulled me on a sled.  His Grandpa lives near me and he welded a chain to a metal plate and we put some lumber on that, then dragged the whole deal about 80 yards down the road to my house.  Not too shabby.

I find myself thankful after something like this.  I'm sad because it could have been prevented so many ways, and I didn't even think I'd be making the trip with my car in the first place.  But with all the miles I've laid into this thing I don't feel like complaining about something that I was able to step out of safely.  Especially knowing other friends are having a much more difficult time after a car crash.

Boo.  Have a great Holiday Week!

A Return to Camp

The plan.  I like making plans.  Well this week the plan was to head up to camp with Adela for a couple of days of hanging out, catching up, and hopefully working some too.  And so I headed off to Midland for a night, then Camp Barakel on Wednesday afternoon.  It turns out the forecast was nasty. That sounded great to me though.  I thought it seemed like it would be fun to see some real snow. 

I started by visiting the Haines' new house.  Lots of progress there.  It really looks close to being able to move in.  There is still a lot of work to be done though.  I joined Mike Baker for some cleaning in Heritage Lodge and then for plowing as the snow storm came in.  

I wondered how the trim would turn out and I like it!  Simple, yet very well done.

I love the hardwood floor.  Fun to slide on!

Well the snow chased me away from too much work.  Instead I spent a lot of time catching up with Mike Baker and the Harris', watching Duck Dynasty, and sledding/snowball fighting with the Ford's.  I also enjoyed my first Camp Barakel Christmas party.  I missed the last couple I was around for so it somehow made sense to attend it this year.  I guess it made sense.  It happened anyways.

The snow was spectacular.  8-ish inches I'd guess.

The snow was great.  I had trouble getting around in my car one night, but Luke Harris simply pushed me around whenever I needed a hand.  It felt great to spend some time up there, but I'm hoping to go back about 3 more times this Winter, hopefully catching up with more people.

After camp, I was happy to stack a nice list of events for Sunday.

Tamales with Adela's family.

I joined in on a little bit of cookie frosting and tamale making at the Aguilera's.  I vaguely remember tamales from my Grandmas house I think.  But making them was a little different.  Too bad I don't get to try any!

Later in the afternoon I headed out to see Rob, Elizabeth, Aaron and Karen down near Flint.  We met at Red Robin and enjoyed a meal together.  It was my first Red Robin in years and I was really happy to have it.  Endless fries!  I made our waiter mad I think, but they're supposed to be endless!  Rob and Eliz gave me a gift too, as they usually do.  This year it was "Creationary".  A game like Pictionary only you make the subjects out of Legos.  Very difficult... but very fun here and there.

A gift from Rob.  Can you see my bench?

If this was a movie I'd "zoom and enhance".

Dunno if you can really see this but it's my car passing over 100,000 miles.  All the driving I have done adds up.  I'm thankful for thousands and thousands of safe miles.  There is a lot of fun represented there.

Thanks for following and Merry Christmas!

Ho Hum

These are the weeks where I'm not sure if I feel like blogging anymore.  I've been busy, but mostly with the same stuff I'm busy with every week.  Clubhouse, Youth Group, Swimming.  On top of that, I didn't take any pictures.  At camp I could walk around and take pictures of all our projects.  It's much harder to stop leading a game and take a quick picture at clubhouse.  And you don't want to see pictures of me watching Boy Meets World.

But here I am.  Blogging anyways.  I guess these are the not so exciting weeks.

There was another swim meet.  This week I didn't get the easy job of holding up the I-pad.  No no no. This week I marshalled the 8 and under kids.  That means that as their events approach I need to find all the 8 and under kids and make sure they are at the right lane at the right time.  It was rough for the first relay, but after that I remember some of the strategies.

You can probably imagine what it's like to get 6 girls and 5 boys into their proper lanes at the proper time.  Then there is the matter of keeping them there and reminding them what they are swimming, how to complete that swim legally, and then reminding them of when to actually go.  It's different to marshall the little ones because it's such a rush I have trouble actually cheering for them or noting how well they swam.

The part I really like is remembering the names.  I do all right with names, but it's a piece of cake when you have to round them up four times.  So now I remember Maddie, Maddie, Norgi, Addison, Caleigh, Asia, Aidan, Carson, Luke, Danny, and Adi.  I don't know how to spell them all for sure, but I remember faces and names.  That's a start.

We also had the Barakel Bash this weekend.  The yearly reunion of summer staff.  We get mostly folks from this Summer but there are usually new people and old people that also show up.  I enjoyed seeing everyone, playing frisbee and basketball, and reliving a little bit of those sweet summer moments.  We ate food, bounced bouncy balls, caught up with friends and generally enjoyed this honorary "Camp Zone".

Finally today.  Today I went out to visit Dad at his house near Springport.  It's been a while since I've been out there and it's neat to see some of the changes.  Since my last visit there are been some changes and it has become a sort of hub for the family to work on cars, tractors, combines and the like.  Dad walked me around and we took a look at some of the progress.  Kind of neat to see the family is sticking close to farming and getting into a little more of it here and there.

Ok.  I snagged some pictures really quick since writing in the afternoon.

The combine is new in the farm equipment.  As is the boat.

They keep busy in the barn.  The tractor is hiding back there.

So I guess the end of the week was a little more interesting.  We'll see what I get into next week. Thanks for following.  Not sure why you are, but you are.  So cool.

Adios.

Filling Up the Schedule

Not having a job leaves me with some time during the days, but it hasn't slowed down my schedule around here.  I mentioned last week that on Wednesday nights my church runs a small program at Verona Elementary.  We play a couple games and then our Youth Pastor, Tim, delivers a quick study on a short verse we ask them to memorize.  

Sometimes the nights are small (like this week when 5th grade camp lowered our numbers), but for the most part we fill the gym.  The kids are... rambunctious... to put it nicely.  But we enjoy showing some love and only time will tell how this impacts their lives.

Tim and Tammy playing Tug of War.

On Monday I joined in on the Harper Creek swim program.  I've been missing coaching swimming and now I'm hoping to join in with my old coach, Chad.  Looks like I'll be helping out there on pretty much any open day and even on some weekends.

This weekend I helped out at their first swim meet of this session.  I spent a lot of time running the team I-pad that allows the coaching staff to slow things down and show kids what they are doing right and wrong during their swims.  I was very impressed with the improvements of all the kids.  Many of them were just learning to swim when I left at the end of 2009 and now they are knocking on the door of middle school state times 3 years later.

The pool at Harper Creek has 8 lanes, which is lots of room for lots of kids.  And a whole other pool in the next school building over.  Lots of room for all levels of swimmers to learn and improve.

When I was a little one I didn't swim, I played floor hockey with Wattles Park Men's Club.  I still wear shirts from Wattles Park that no one understands outside of Battle Creek.  Well I joined in on watching one of the kids from church playing in that league.  The venue is much different, and some of the equipment has improved, but it's still simple floor hockey.

Yeni's team from church was undefeated.  They won this last game of their season.

Still rocking the $6 Starbury shoes here and there.

Finally, we enjoyed a Progressive Dinner with our church.  We journeyed to 3 locations and learned all kinds of things about different folks from church.  At the Penrod's house I decorated their daughters'  room with some toilet paper.  I did an ok job, and I was surprised at how clean the first room was.  Bed made.  Everything kind of put away.  Then the other room was a hot mess.  So for failing inspection I used another roll of toilet paper.

This is what happens when you prank the Penrod's.  

Hopefully that'll be the end of this streak of pranks.  I already lock my car all the time.  But I can't win a 1 on 4 pranking match with that family. I think their parents are just manipulating this anyways. They told me to do decorate the rooms, and I bet they influenced the retaliation.

Busy weeks, like usual.  I also attended Calvary Baptist Church's Christmas musical.  It was very well put together presentation.  I'm enjoying this busy time, but I'd like to fill my days up with some more action.  We'll see how that goes going forward.  Either way, I'm not too worried about it really.

Later.

Classic Weekend

The unpacking continues.  I have a huge mess of stuff to put away, but I'm chipping away at it.  It's funny how unmotivated and then motivated I can be.  Little things slow me down.  Dumb things.  Like I've been working at sorting clothes mostly, but then I have to clear out space for clothes and build grids.  It just seems like little distractions slow me down way more than they should.

It was pretty exciting making these grid shelves because I knew that I'd be able to put more clothes away.

This is what I'm working with.

 Life isn't just unpacking though.  We just got a DVR so I've been watching tv.  Just kidding.  But... seriously.  I have been watching a lot of Boy Meets World though.  But that isn't really all I'm up to.  It's been fun to join in with the church activities.

So on Wednesday I joined in on Clubhouse.  Our Youth Pastor, Tim, leads a group of 3rd through 6th graders (roughly) through games and a devotion.  They're rowdy, but we have fun playing and investing time in these young lives.

We also had a roller skating party this week.  I remember coming to Midway Roller Rink when I was in Junior High.  It was rough, but it's still neat to go and skate around.  The last time I roller skated was probably before my time on Seasonal Staff.  During that time I have played hours and hours of ice hockey.  Apparently I took it for granted that they're quite different.  So I never quite fell, but I was close to it several times.

A classic scene from my younger years.

Being blind doesn't stop Nosko from doing anything.  Hokie Pokie, Chicken Dance.  He's great.

For the weekend I made a run over to Holland and Grand Rapids.  I spent some time with Adela and watched an all night Ultimate Frisbee tournament.  I played a couple points and had a lot of fun.... but I'm still  surprised I stuck with the whole thing.  Watching frisbee is not as fun as playing.  Especially from 10pm to 6am.  Obnoxious.

Not the main team I followed.  My friend Evan's team was undefeated.

A classic weekend.  I drove to Holland late Thursday night, hung around til the tournament, then didn't get to sleep til 7am.  Slept til 12pm and then turned around to watch a girls basketball game at Hope.  We checked out Lake Michigan for a bit, which is always a bonus.  The most classic part was my early morning Sunday trip to church.  I don't know how many times I've set my alarm for 630 and rushed back to make it to music practice.

Now I'm back to unpacking.  Still finding room for clothes and getting distracted by football and Boy Meets world.

Have a good week!

Thanksgiving Shenanigans

It seems kind of hectic around here.  The day I dropped Adela off at Hope I ended up having Titus Brown over for a couple nights.  He was moving his sister into her new place in the Battle Creek Area.  I joined him on a tour of the new Battle Creek Skate Park.  It's not in service yet, but it looks like it's getting close and it was fun to see a ministry that will serve people that run in the same circles as I did as a teenager.

I also played disc golf on a kind of cold, kind of rainy but not too bad afternoon.  Shot a +2.  My best at Begg Park.

Every couple years my Thanksgiving day plans lead me to new and different places.  I've been in California, Florida, and Michigan.  Within Michigan I've been to family, friends, and friends of friends for Thanksgiving.  I've been thankful for the amount of hospitality that has been shown to me by such a variety of folks.

This year I enjoyed sharing the Thanksgiving holiday weekend in Midland with Adela's family.  It was a big change going from my normal 2 to 3 people family gatherings to a house full of about 13 people.  The food was good, but I really enjoyed the time to hang out with Adela's family.  It's a house full of fun and noise and activity.

So I enjoyed flying the kite in a corn field, jumping on a trampoline, playing Head of the Herd, shopping on black Friday, eating tons of food, playing Monopoly Deal, visiting old friends from camp and new friends from Adela's family.  Mostly it was fun to hang out with Adela for such a long time.  Once I'm working it will be much more hard to spend 6 days coming and going with her.

Sorry for the lack of pictures.  Life is speeding up a little, but hopefully I'll get in the habit back.

Gotta Do This One More Time!

This was a week of one more time kind of things.  Last week at camp.  I plan to return fairly often, but we'll see what happens.  In the meantime I was a little sad and sentimental.  I had a last trip to and from Gaylord in Camp Barakel buses.  I attended church at Praxis one last time.  Last pick up basketball in Fairview.  And then work of course.  Painting and driving the Skytrak around and splitting some wood too.

White paint hand.

My last day was Wednesday and the Bakers invited me to dinner at their place.  I was pleasantly surprised to find a big banner at the entrance to the house.  I think Mike wanted me to run through it like a football player.  

A heartwarming goodbye.

The maintenance crew all came out to play some games, watch tv and enjoy some yummy treats.  It was such a good wrap up for my time there.  I sure will miss the people at Camp Barakel.

Brad and Randy spending quality time together.

The beautiful morning sky greeted me as I headed South.  One last time.

So now it's Battle Creek.  I enjoyed doing some traditional things, as well as some new stuff.  I spent most of the weekend with Mom and Adela.  We all went to the state volleyball championships to watch St Phil win again, then Adela and I walked the Arboretum and went to the Kingman Museum to check out the planetarium.  It had been a long time since I'd been in there and I don't ever remember going to a planetarium before.

After that we headed over to the Battle Creek Holiday Parade, followed by a quick trip to Pizza Sam's.  It was really a banner day.  I also saw the new Bond movie with the fantastic Moody's.  The movie was all right, but I wouldn't call it my favorite bond.  Finally playing drums at church is always fun.  Leaving camp is sad, but it's definitely exciting to think about all the Battle Creek stuff that I've been looking forward to going to.  

It's a time of change, but I trust that everything will get sorted out well.  I'm having fun and enjoying the new stuff.  Now I just need motivation to get myself really settled in to the groove of hometown living.

Getting Out of the House

So I moved most of my stuff into my Dad's van on Saturday afternoon.  I showed him around some of the stuff we'd been doing and snagged some pictures.

This is actually a couple weeks ago.  But we resurrected the burn pit for a day.

Dan did a fine job with the cultured stone face of the new fireplace.

Over last weekend some folks came out and mudded the drywall and we've been priming now.

Another garage door installed.  It's mostly done, but a little more is left on the inside.

The toilet tower.

That is kind of the wrap on last week.  It was nice to get out of the house for a bit.  A little cold.... but still nice.  Now it's just a couple more days of work, and I'll be rolling out to Battle Creek.  So if you're in that area I'll be looking to settle into my house, but also up for getting out and about the town.

New shoes!

One of my quirks is that I really like shoes.  I like every shoe to have its own little purpose.  Well these shoes have spent the last year and a half (or more) chilling in my room.  Moving around with me.  And this morning I realized I'd sent my nice shoes away with my dad, so I decided to bust these out.  Felt great to wear them!

Pictures of Summer

We are done with drywall.  Pretty much so at least.  We made sure that it was ready for the guys to come and mud it this weekend.  I haven't even made it back to check that out yet.  I spent the weekend with friends in Battle Creek watching a Tim Hawkins concert and showing them around town a little bit.  It was a blast, and a reminder of what home will be like soon.

I diddn't get any pictures, so here are some randoms from Brad's camera.  

Chapel in the Woods during training week.  Good to see Rob on that guitar.

I don't think I'm pouting.  But it's my pouting face.  It's hard to cram into a little ball like this.

My shorts look super short with the zipline pulling them up a little.  Just having a refresher course with summer staff.  

Jumping over to HIS week.  I enjoy my coloring time along with the campers. 

At Mackinaw.  Not sure where this face came from.  Just tired from the day?  It was a lot of fun.... I promise!

All you need at a baseball game is a frisbee and a  glove.  Be careful playing in the stands with the usher watching.

One of my many moments I wanted to momentarily pass out in Brad's truck.

Classic moments with Randy Harris.  I'm going to have to come back up a lot to catch up with him.

One picture from this weekend.  Good ole Sojouner Truth.  Right in downtown Battle Creek.

That's it for the week.  Only two weeks left at camp.

Dark Leaves

The house is really taking shape.  Drywall is fun to work on because it's fairly simple to cut it out, and it's fast work to put it together.  We had 4 guys plowing away in 3 rooms and it's made things go really quickly.  We still have more to do though.

The extra bedroom that could be the main bedroom.  We'll see.

The living room.  It's hard to express how much brighter it is now.

 The wind and rain have been taking their toll on the woods.  There are leaves everywhere.  It's actually fantastic, especially knowing that I don't have to clean them up this Fall.  All part of the cycle of the seasons. I'm looking forward to Christmas already.  It's definitely my favorite season.  I guess each season has some great parts to it.  Definitely get lots of changes while in Michigan.

The woods are gorgeous right now.  A carpet of leaves covers most of the ground.

 This weekend was Jack and Jill weekend.  It was fun to see everyone that was able to make it back up to camp.  Especially Rob and Adela of course.  I felt like it was a really good overall group of workers.  The work that was done saves camp a lot of time and effort over these next couple weeks.  My group was in charge of washing the buses and then cleaning up for some tree cutters.  I enjoy this because we mix up our tasks throughout the day and washing the buses is a formidable task on a cold morning.

Dropping off some wood from trees that were being taken down to make room around the zipline.

Traditionally there is an Ultimate Tourney on this weekend, but I've missed it for the last 3 years.  I'm really looking forward to getting back in on it next year, or at least on other Ultimate Frisbee related activities.  For now we begin to transfer into our five days a week mode.  This will really help us accomplish a lot in the house we're working on.

Thanks for reading.

Who knew?

This week team seasonal staff had dinner at the Van Orman's.  It was a really good meal, and instead of playing cards or board games we tried out something a little different.  We rolled coins!

That jar/bottle thing was loaded with coins.  It was hard to even pick up.

I haven't rolled coins since I was a little kid.  It was actually really fun!  Who knew that simple stuff like counting and rolling coins would bring back fun memories from childhood.  All in all it was a haul of about 500 bucks in mostly dimes and nickles.

All finished!

As for the rest of the week, we're still in the old Cook's House making major renovations.  Right now we're working on the ceiling, but we're close to drywalling around the whole building.  In the meantime there has been a lot of electrical updates on the building.  Mainly taking out old wiring and reorganizing the junction boxes.

You can see the angle of the ceiling, and the annoying wires in the way.

So we keep plugging away at different parts of the building.  We need to do a little more cleaning, but the retreats are officially over.  We still have the Jack and Jill Retreat where we'll get lots of Winterizing activities finished up around camp.  I'm looking forward to seeing the Summer Staff returning up to help out.

The Fall colors are still looking great.

Camp will start settling into our 5 day work weeks.  I'm always sad when the people leave, but we do get a ton of work done with extended weeks minus the cleaning and other preparations for the weekends.  Plus 2 day weekends are fun too.

Until next time.