Wolf shirts, clinics and gold rush oh my

Wolf Shirt Wednesday arrived bright and early. Nothing like a good weekly tradition to help you pick out your clothes in the morning.

We watched the Body of Christ chapel this morning. It's the one I performed as a CILT so it holds a special place in my heart. We sang a bunch of older songs today and Anna kept saying, "I love all these new songs!" beside me. You know we haven't played them in awhile when kids think Faith, Faith, Faith and Shine Jesus Shine are new.

I love right at the end of chapel when everyone else dismisses and only the CILTs are left. We all stand on the benches and keep singing the last chapel song together. It's not really a significant time but still one of my favorites.

I'm working on taking pictures all the time, don't want to miss a second of documenting camp life you know. I love having Eliza around all the time. So many younger kids were wearing really cool wolf shirts today. Sophie and I were shorts twins today-- she is the cousin of one of my old CILTs. Maddie told us both that we'd be great friends and she was right.

Team CILT shadowed clinics for the first two periods of the day. I started in the CAC to watch camp crafts, friendship bracelets, clay and baskets. I hung out with these goobers for awhile and was more than entertained. I love these children and just being able to be weird and real with them. I think Braves often get underestimated, they're cooler than most people think.

Two girl counselors and two girl CILTs were playing Lacrosse with a whole clinic filled with boys.

I watched some of the hip hop routine to Toby Mac's "Me Without You" that Brad and Margaux are teaching.

At the pool I got to see so many counselors and CILTs doing great things with campers.

I found french braiding clinic at Fort Disco and got to hang out with Chrissy and her girls for a little while. I'm so thankful that she's here this summer and that we get to keep living this camp dream together.

At the beginning of the week this group made their Team goal for the week to come up with an original chapel for this weekend. We told them that they'd have to have it worked out before Saturday night in order to make it happen. I was pleasantly surprised when they brought it up today after we finished debriefing clinics together. They presented five different ideas for chapels all based off of scripture and then took a vote. I love that they're following through on this.

p.s. Trent, in the red shirt, is hilarious. We love him. So does Henry even if he doesn't like having Trent chew on his shirt.

Emily Peterson brought her ukelele to camp, talk about a rock star. I'm so glad that I get to have her as a camper this year and that I'm getting to know Anna so well.

This afternoon all of the CILTs went over to the pool, aka the weigh station for Gold Rush. All of River Village had been filled with gold painted rocks that the kids ran around collecting. Our area was a giant dance party of CILTs and counselors.

 It was the hottest we've had so far this summer. Everyone was sweating but still playing hard. When we ran out of cups we started lifting up the water jugs so kids could keep hydrating.

Once the winners of Gold Rush were announced the giant Gold bolder was brought out with great pomp and circumstance as "We Are the Champions" played in the background.

All the campers from the winning Brave and Blazer cabin get to sign their name on the bolder. This was a great new addition to this time-honored game. Don't you want to sign your name on a gold bolder?

We jumped into the pool to cool off really quick with the river kids. Back to turtling on beach balls and swinging kids through the water. The CILT counselors had to hop out after about five minutes to go talk to the DC staff about CILT shadow days.

We found the whole staff out in Trader Jims. Almost all of these kids have been my campers and I was so excited to see them all. They quickly made up songs about what they need to remember when working with CILTs. These kids are the cream of the crop and I love seeing what they come up with.

Tonight is my first night off of the week because tomorrow I'm heading off to Wyld Life camp. I'm so unbelievably excited to get to take all of our HSE Junior High kids to Michindoh for five days. At the same time I'm so sad that I've got to leave Tecumseh for that long. I've just gotten to know the Session 1 CILTs and I'm sad I'm missing out on the next few days with them. Thankfully I'll be able to jump back in right when I return for the majority of their second week.

Tonight I'm doing laundry, packing my suitcase and blogging all about this first week of campers. I stayed here to eat burritos with Eel River and see some sweet Pathfinders like Marie, Hannah and Ellie up at Lake. Soon I'll go back down to do devotions with the CILTs. These are the days.

"If you blink your eyes really fast it looks like a strobe light."

Today was Jock Jams Day. Our kids dressed up with their new hats and every article of sporty clothing we could find. We looked like one giant sports team ready for anything.

This was also our first day of all camp chapel in the Green Cathedral. We walked out their with the Warrior girls before they found their adopted cabins to sit with.

I was excited to get to see LV girls Kate Flynn and Ellie Fitz.

Directors Hayden and Jordan and coords Will, Claire, Erin, Irene and Joey were all dressed up in their newly screen printed shirts and ready for the rest of the DC staff to arrive today.

We watched a remake of the Potter's skit that used different types of cell phones. They had just received new shipments of flip phones, the iPhone 6 and a Droid. I love the creativity and getting to hear Grace's wrap up at the end. p.s. Did you notice Mohican's tie-dye tucked in Tuesday in the back row?

Jock Jams wouldn't be complete without some pump up music so we found batteries for our speakers and took the party with us everywhere we went.

All the way through the Oak Forest and past Lake Village we jammed out to Space Jam and other great pump up songs.

We spent our morning at The Leadership Center. I love getting to have the CILTs try several team building activities and get to know each other in a different way. We started with the tennis ball transfer and the group I was with did a phenomenal job. They led each other well, listened to everyone and worked as a team.

Next the group got larger as we added more people and tried to solve Keypad 2.

While these activities were going on, new DC counselors kept arriving. They'd jump out of their cars and Jamie Z and I would run across the parking lot to greet our old campers. We love these kids and are so proud of them. I can't wait to see them work with their campers this summer.

Our last big activity was the 12 ft wall. The goal is to get everyone up and over. Each person can only directly lift three times and the bottom and assist three times at the top of the wall.

Smooney and I stayed at the top the whole time to encourage and coach the kids up there about how to best lift up the other CILTs. Some kids come over kind of freaking out but others like Sophie just smile the whole time.

It's empowering to watch kid after kid get lifted up the wall as they work as a team. They did a great job of supporting one another. No matter who it was going up they had confidence that they could make it happen.

Sure, there were moments of stress and yelling but overall they did a phenomenal job.

We headed over to the LV for lunch and brought the Jock Jams party with us. Soon enough we had LV counselors and campers joining in with us.

I loved getting to see Finney Baby, Margaret and Mags. After spending all day every day with them at staff training last week it's weird to be separated between villages.

We got to have flies put on us at lunch and only retaliated with "Thanks for having us at lunch Lake Village." I loved Mohican's new cheer to the cup song and getting to be surrounded for the Whitetail Dudes Prance!

I headed up to the Richard G. March Lake in the afternoon with the Blazers and Braves. I was partners with a little girl named Jessie that's so full of spunk and excitement. We tried out the brand new paddle boards that you can stand up on and only fell off on "accident" four times. Then we got to go off the rope swing, my favorite lake activity. Sophie, Paige, Saaya and the other CILTs are doing an excellent job of playing with their girls and stepping up to take initiative. It's so fun to get to coach kids that are this excited about being here.

We hurried back down to River for pop stop where I discovered the Catawba girls hanging out on the Longhouse porch. I'd eaten dinner at their table the night before so we were already pretty good friends.

Jaclyn got me to play this game with her where you swish a mouthful of pop, gurgle it then spit it onto the porch and try to get it all to go between the boards. Only at camp with an eight-year-old would this game be so fun and acceptable.

During Trading Post Alex, Smooney and I looked for CILTs doing awesome things with their campers. We saw Ashley playing in the sand with her campers, even doing splits with them.

Elinda and Sophie were just hanging out with their kids and having fun.

Dezzy and her girls figured out that they could use the water bottles as squirt bottles and had a sprinkler fight going on.

Alex, Smooney and I headed up to the top of the Lookout to plan out stuff for tomorrow morning and go over the details of when I'll be gone so that they feel prepared. I'm so thankful that these two have joined Team CILT this year. They bring so much positivity and personality.

When the girls got back to the Longhouse they started a food party in Choctaw. They come prepared to camp, you wouldn't believe the amount of food they bring. These four crazies set up a platter of pretzel chips and graham crackers that they then covered with chocolate syrup. Amazing.

We did the rock devotion tonight, a CILT girl favorite. There was more great conversation, a prayer by the River and heart to hearts in small groups. I love camp. I love devotions. I love how God is so present here. I love that there is more to come.