Blogging In a Hurry

A busy week!  We had our last ladies retreat this weekend, and a lot of progress was made on the house.  This week we insulated the ceiling and much of the walls, then we actually put drywall on the vaulted ceiling.  12 foot pieces of drywall.  I've never worked with such large pieces, but they make it go by super fast.  I failed to get pictures of the drywall up, but maybe next time.  Here are some snaps of the house:

This used to be a desk built into the wall by the fireplace.

We moved the door and opened up that hallway about a foot.

Cool temps are good for insulation.  Dan Haines whipped through this wall in short order.

On Sunday I was planning to visit Adela down near Midland, then it turned out the speaker from the weekend needed a ride to the airport in Freeland.  It turned out great.  About 5 minutes down the road from her house.  I really enjoyed talking to the speaker all the way down.  Then it was fun to hang out in Midland.

Now for men's retreats!

Outdoor Exploring

This week was kind of goofy at camp.  The staff men spent 3 days at Reed Ranch for a small retreat.  Reed Ranch is next door to us and they have about 20 times our acreage.  It's usually used for hunting and some family vacationers.  Most of our group explored, although I personally enjoyed the time to read in front of a warm fire.

I pulled out the old stunt kite.  It was very windy off the edge of Shamrock Lake.

The last night I snagged some nice pictures of the sunset.  Every night was a bit of a show over the lake. 

This weekend was the first Ladies Retreat.  Camp wasn't quite full on either side, which kind of makes for more of a relaxed atmosphere.  It also helped that we had 3 summer staff couples that came to help out.  The Coopers and Jerome's worked dishes and programing while Rob and Elizabeth McAdam's worked programing with Elizabeth taking a range for the weekend.

For the day off, Team Seasonal spent the day exploring around the area.  The plan was to check out the Au Sable at different points in our area.  Here are a couple pictures from the adventure.

Great view overlooking the Au Sable River.

The snake we found.  He seemed quite passive.

The view below the Fishermen's Chapel.  

Looking the other way.

We finished off the trip at the Fishermen's Chapel.  Every time I go there I just want to take a kayak or canoe to it.  It would be quite a trip though, involving someone not going along and coming to pick me up at the other end.  I'll get to it sometime I think.  At the 4 or 5 places we stopped the river is really beautiful and very wide.

One more women's retreat this weekend before the men come for a couple weekends.  I'm looking forward to more chances to serve so that the Gospel can be proclaimed.

Another Tiger Game!

So this week Jeremy Linsley and Mike Baker brought Team Seasonal down to a Tigers game.  It was a ton of fun!  My favorite part was the grand slam by Miguel Cabrera.  I've never seen one live, and I think a lot of people saw the loaded bases and assumed that it was going down.

Meeting with the Jerome's on the way to the game.

Right Field.  I enjoyed this angle better than any other seats I've had. 

Something about being in right field really made it a lot more fun for me.  The A's had about 6 lefties batting, and then I was hoping that Prince Fielder or Quintin Berry would put one over to us.  Hopefully curving right around the foul pole and to me.  I also liked being able to see the ball cross the plate, even though it was so far away.  I think it's because I'm in my natural position in the outfield, reading the ball, hoping to catch one if possible.

All the new rafters are up!

We also worked this week.  The picture shows the rafters are up, but we slowed down to work on some more demolition, and moving a wall over in one of the bedrooms.  It's kind of daunting to have so many parts of the house to work on, but it'll be a lot of fun to pound through it all this Fall.

This week was Father/Daughter and Women's Retreat.  It was a lot of fun, but a lot of work.  Next week we have a full Ladies retreat.  It'll be even more work, but it's worth it to provide the backdrop for the Gospel to be presented every week.

Peace out!

The View from Up Top

We're still plugging away in the old cook's house.  There are a couple of rafters we've been able to place, demolishing the old rafters as we go.  It's coming along, and pictures will come along next week maybe.  I get a little excited when we start building.  There is a little less insulation in the air too!

Well while the weather is nice out, there is some work to do outside too.  Me and Mike Baker spent some time on the roof of the Carpenter Shop, putting in a new chimney.  Kind of neat to see the view from up top. Here it is:

After adding the metal roof, we needed to put in a chimney for the propane heater.  This is what we started with.

This is what we finished with.  Not too shabby.  Just needed a quick run to the Amish country  for the red boot.

This is the new equipment shed they built this summer.  A big blessing to have a nice neat place to put everything away.

Here's the new wood shed, filled to the brim.  Maybe someday I'll show you the chainsaw room.

This is the new fire trailer.  Mike Alchin has been thoroughly organizing our fire fighting readiness.

There is brad down below.  Working on some woodworking project of some sort... his specialty.... haha.

Most of our time was still spent in the house though.  This weekend we saw a Mother/Son retreat and a Couples retreat go by.  Tom Harmon was here and I made sure to catch all his sermons.  A nice and cozy weekend, but still not full.  The next weekend is going to be closer to full, then we'll be rolling through some full camps.

After the campers left, we jumped into our Sunday Afternoon Kickball League.  It's a very competitive tournament that we all get involved with after the campers leave.

Sunday afternoon kickball league.

Just kidding.  But it was a fantastic afternoon.  We had several staff families represented and it's neat to see all the little ones learning how to play the sport, and the older ones getting better and better at it.  After that I swam across the lake and Brad dragged me back.  We also enjoyed a fantastic dinner at the Baker's and we watched Sgt Bilko.

Back in the Saddle

So the work is on.  There is always stuff to do in the maintenance department at Camp Barakel.  Cut wood, cleanup paths, fix all kinds of maintenance issues around camp.  But I think our best work is when we have a project.  And we definitely have a project on our hands here.  Here are some pics with some explanations.

Here's how it looked to begin with.  The ceiling was very uneven and apparently no one likes the wood paneling when they're living in the house instead of camping for a weekend.  Either way, it's all coming down except the windows.

Insulation.  It's a lot of fun to smash the wood paneling, but not so much fun because of the insulation.  Masks help a little, but they don't help my eyes.  Then with a mask glasses fog up.  Anyways, we make it work and keep tearing.

This appears to be an addition to the house because of the foil backed insulation.  Also found a paper from 1959 in the attic of this area.  Apparently Congress gave Ike a bunch of money and wanted him to slow down inflationary system.  And something about the highway system... who's ever going to use that?

Here's a comparison of old and new.  See the cobbled together framing under the window, the different types of insulation, and most interestingly... the spruce logs in the ceiling.

 So that's it so far.  Lots more demo, but soon we'll be raising the ceiling about 4 feet on the side that opens up to the rest of the building.  Looking for some more head room in a building with 6'3" doors and 7' roofs.  I'll be sure to add more photos as they come up.

This weekend I hit most the activity areas.  Thunder express, waterfront and zipline.  Here are a couple nice views of the lake from the blob towers:

Oh yeah.  Team Seasonal (me and the seasonal here at camp) met at the Harris' to have dinner and we ended up watching Gran Torino.  Brad learned a lot of new racial epitaphs and it was fun to watch.  While watching a deer hobbled its way into the yard and we noticed it only had 3 legs.  Here's my best picture of it with my phone:

He seemed to get around pretty good.  Who knows how his Winter will go, he is already pretty skinny.

Camp is good.  Peace out til next week.

What's Up North?

I understand many people like reading these just to see what's going on up here at Camp Barakel.  I give a good summary of what's changing and being constructed around camp.  Well there will be none of that in this post.  But I'm here to tell you that it will be happening soon.  Next week hopefully.

So I've only been back up for a week, and most of that has been moving in and then running around on the zipline all weekend.  So now we have a funky week.  Because of Family Camp stretching into Monday, we get Tuesday (today) off, and then we have a shortened week before the Grandparents Camp this coming week.

On Monday afternoon the Seasonal Staff (Angelee Webster, Brad Smith, and myself) joined the Baker's and a couple Ford kids at the waterfront.  It was a gorgeous day out, but the water was frigid.  Once we settled in with the skip disc, and the frisbee it started to feel warm.  I feel like it's important to enjoy the nice days while we can, before Winter blows in.

So I don't feel like I said much of anything here.  I'm happy to be at camp for what is probably my final season for now at least.  Dunno exactly what God will bring in the new year.  I'm living in the now though, and this is my announcement that I'll be updating this regularly for the Fall now.

And if that's not good enough... here are some pictures from the waterfront.

Pretty much the whole crew.

Epic water mat battles.

Emma offered me some goldfish.  That skip disc is one of the coolest things ever.

Matthew was cheesing it up for the camera.  Good campshot.

Classic king of the raft moment....

It's hard to stay on with Matthew pushing them around.

That's it.  Peace out til next week.  Happy to have the opportunity to be "where God has blessed" for another season.

It's Over! The summer is at least.

Summer camp is over at least.  We wrapped up the summer with what we call HIS-ability camp.  It's a life changing week for many of the Summer Staff.  You have to see it to really have any affect.  Just hearing some of the testimonies, including one man who's happy he has a brain injury from a car wreck because it brought him back to Jesus.  At the same time he is sick of that body and is super excited for the return of the Lord.  Really good stuff.  Made me teary eyed a couple times.  

I enjoyed seeing a lot of the regulars this year, including my two former campers.  This time I programed with Rob, so I didn't get to spend a lot of time with any individual campers.  But I did get to meet a lot of others.  After that slow week the summer staff takes a bus up to Mackinaw and back.  It's a full day for sure, but a lot of fun.

But now I'm home.  I have about 10 days here, and I mean to relax for the most part.  I try to contact my friends and spend some time checking out Battle Creek, but most my time will be spent playing disc golf and watching movies.  Here are some pictures of my first full day here.

After watching some movies and going for a run I ended up at Begg Park disc golfing.  I was surprised my phone could snag the disc in the air.  I only played 10 holes because I wanted to keep moving around town.  

Some kind of International, or National Balloon championship is going on this week.  They were all over in the sky for sure.  Very pretty in the sunset light.  I went to my old school, Southeastern, to watch them from the hill top.  Crazy to think I was a Hilltopper 15 years ago.  

So I went up on the parking garage I like to try and see the balloon's or the sunset.  Didn't get either very well.  But I did remember the awful squiggly lamp posts and then I noticed the sidewalk is swervy as well!  It's quite odd looking.

 

Then I found this bench.  It's not finished, but it's quite ridiculous.  Pretty much Willy Wonka here.  Just need those cones to taste like candy corn.

And here was the sunset.  Wasn't great on the rooftop but the clouds came in and added a lot of texture.  This is after I went to get ice cream with my mom and her aerobics friends.  Kinda random bonus fact right there.

Thanks for following!  Hopefully I'll be back to posting about camp consistently soon.