I Need My Country!!

So I'm going to try and get completely caught up in this update because I leave tomorrow for yet another camp and won't be back until Tuesday night sometime, and I'm coming back to a crazy busy week!!

I left off at going to dinner with people from Scum, and like I said it was INCREDIBLE!! I love that church and all the people associated with it, it has been such a blessing from God finding Scum. We got back home pretty late Sunday night so we didn't get a chance to meet our roommates for the week. However we got the chance at 6 am Monday morning when they started playing Chopsticks on the piano in the room next to mine and Jewell's, and we have ridiculously thin walls. We picked up some of the kids for VBS and then spent the morning inside talking with Angelina about this and that. The group had lots of teens and were super organized so we really didn't have to do anything, it was nice. Angelina gave us the day off, so we went to Friday's and had lunch and hung out. I took Jewell back home to work on stuff for her class and I went shopping for some clothes to wear to Matti and Luke's banquet. Funny story, earlier in the day I shipped all my nicer clothes, make-up, and jewelry back home because I wasn't wearing or using it and my space is super small, then I got a text saying the dinner was semi-formal, talk about a scrambling panic. I got back to the building with like 30 minutes to get ready, normally totally do able, not with 15 high school girls in the same bathroom though. The banquet was in an old spaghetti house, it reminded me alot of Spaghetti Warehouse, but not as delish! After the banquet and saying goodbye to Matti, Jewell and I made a much needed Target run, I left some of my toiletries at camp since I left in a rush. When we got back home, the bathroom was a mess. Like a complete and total mess, pretty sure there was at least 1/2 inch of water on the floor, all of the floor. The girls had tried to use our towels, and my bathrobe to clean it up, and the topper of it all was they used our shampoos and stuff. Needless to say we were livid but all we could really do was laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. After we slip slided around and got it all cleaned up we talked to their leaders and got it somewhat worked out. The next morning we didn't have to much disturbances, Angelina let us have the early morning off and we got to VBS around 11 and started making lunch for the kids, nothing like feeding tons of kids spaghetti that you threw together at the last minute. Angelina had a meeting with all of the teens after lunch so Jewell and I got to keep our eyes on 30 plus kids playing on the playground. This is when we learned that Jewell is totally not an authoritative person. I had to address an issue with two of the girls and sat them in time out, when tons of the kids went to the two separate areas I asked Jewell to clear one out while I did the other, when I looked at her area like 5 minutes later I'm sure there were double the kids she was originally clearing out. I think I was there for like 10-15 seconds and they were all away from the tree, it was a little funny in retrospect. After camp finally got over and we got all the kids home, Jewell and I headed back to the center for some downtime before Coffeehouse. When we got back I found the shower area of our bathroom a mess again and mine and Jewell's cabinet was open. This is the place that we keep the majority of our toiletries and our towels, it's behind a curtain in the back of the bathroom. When I went to close the cabinet and clean up the area I noticed that my toiletry bag had been dumped out, that's when my day went from long to crappy! I realized my make-up bag and make-up brush bag, my brand new face moisturizer, and the stuff I use when wearing my hair curly were all gone. I'm pretty sure I hit total freak out mode and started asking everybody if they had seen it, I've pretty much turned the entire building and my car upside down twice trying to find them. Needless to say that I have come to terms with the fact that it was all stolen and I won't being seeing it again, which kind of sucks because I keep realizing some of the things that were in the bag, like my favorite pair of earrings I got in Hawaii, or my favorite pair of tweezers, or the fact that my bag was super cute! After dealing with the wonderful trauma of having something so huge stolen from me, we decided to hit the streets to advertise Coffeehouse since no one was attending that night. Wednesday Angelina had the day off so Jewell and I were the leads for the VBS, we made like 80 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and once again I got to play the disciplinarian. It seemed like the never ending day. Luckily Vicki decided we could have the night off so we attempted to run errands, which took forever and we got nothing accomplished except for getting very frustrated. After getting back and grabbing a late dinner I decided I needed to go for a drive. I decided to head towards a Macy's and prayed to make it before closing in hopes of accomplishing one thing on my list, acquiring the basic make-up necessities. I made it and met an incredible woman who helped me after hours and was absolutely wonderful. From there I stopped for some late night comfort food and had a wonderful conversation with my favorite Sarah, love how talking to her can mellow me out. I resolved by the end of the night to have a great Thursday. Jewell and I spent Thursday at Food Bank of the Rockies as per our normal routine. It was a little weird not having Luke and Matti with us, but we managed. The morning was pretty slow and we got the agencies done pretty fast so Amanda put us in one of the freezers to clean it out and get it organized for her. And of course the day she does this is the only day I have ever worn shorts instead of jeans. All morning long we had been joking with Jarvis, one of the warehouse guys on fork lift duty and totally mine and Jewell's favorite, about him stealing out lunches. So Jewell and I go to get our lunches out of the fridge, and mine is gone. I'm pretty sure after I looked everywhere I had to have the most defeated look on my face and Jewell didn't know if she should laugh or be mad for me. I grabbed a bag of Cheetos, a water, and sat down half laughing half crying at the irony of everything. Some of the staffers at Food Bank had bought pizza and they graciously gave me some when they found out my lunch was stolen. When we got off we hit the grocery store, it was here where Jewell discovered the entire lining on the back passenger of my door had started to fall off. I sat in the rain, laughing, as I slowly pushed it all back into place. We got back to the center and were about to start eating dinner when Vicki asked me if I could go pick up one of the girls across town for Coffeehouse. I had to leave immediately not getting any real down time or dinner. Coffeehouse was incredible despite how hungry I was! After we got done with Coffeehouse and got everything cleaned up and people out of the building I crashed pretty much immediately, didn't even change. Friday we got to sleep in and were supposed to have training at noon, which got pushed back to 6. After we got done with our training Jewell and I decided to go grab a movie to watch while I got stuff ready in the kitchen for our 4th celebration. Instead we realized the fireworks hadn't gone off at the Rockies game yet so we headed downtown, got parked and started walking towards the stadium. The fireworks were INCREDIBLE!! It was hands down the most amazing show I have ever seen. We got back and I made a "firecracker cake" and a few other things for our cook-out for the 4th. Which brings me to today. Got to sleep in which made me pretty happy, Luke got here around noon and we loaded up and headed to the City Park of Denver, found a spot close to the water and attempted to grill, our grill however ran out of gas halfway through the burgers. I got elected to go ask the group across from us to cook our food which they graciously did as they proceeded to try and set me up with two different guys in their family, one getting ready to be the first to graduate from college in the family, the other a divorcee with a kid. But in other news, the random seasoning they put on our burgers was the most delicious seasoning I've ever had. We attempted to throw a Frisbee and not get attacked by the geese, I fell in the mud several times and quickly came to the terms that I was just going to be covered in mud. We packed up from the park around 3:30 and headed towards Commerce City, making a pit stop for more hamburger meat and gas for our grill at Target. We staked out a pretty good spot next to the soccer field and were getting settled as it started to pour down rain. Luckily Luke backed my car in to the spot right next to our area so we had a quick get away to the car. We hung out in the car for a while as the storm passed asking got to get to know ya type questions. When the storm finally cleared we played Frisbee for a while on the field trying to stay warm...it was freezing!!! We made so much food and spent some time giving it away to all the different workers and security detail at the festival, which was fun to get to do. The mechanical bull wasn't working, which made me severely sad. The firework show was decent, but stopped randomly half way through due to "technical difficulties" and is supposed to be rescheduled for a couple of weekends from now. Then the fun started, I realized in the moving of our blanket at the beginning of our show, I had lost my car keys. Did I mention we were on top of a hill with no real surrounding lights, Jewell luckily found them after looking for about 5 minutes. Overall the day was pretty successful, had good times with some new good friends, despite our arguing over listening to country. It seems very few people here like country, and the people who can stand to listen to it for even a song or two are few and far between, so needless to say I'm going a little crazy and missing it. However I made Jewell and Luke listen to Brooks & Dunn's "Only in America" on our way home tonight and Luke said it was a good song, to me it's just not the 4th without that song. And now that I'm caught up I'm going to check on my clothes so I can pack for camp and hit the hay, and try and get some rest before going to Adventure Camp with 10 of the younger kids.

Much love.