A Long Era Comes to and End

I just finished my last 2 weeks as an employee of Lutheran Island Camp. Yesterday I left the island with a feeling of contentment, accomplishment, and satisfaction that the blood, sweat, and tears I poured into that place over the last 10 years made a difference in the lives of the people I worked with and worked for.

Camp is such an amazing place. For many of my friends, its wonderful because that's where they met their current spouse. But for me it holds something different. In the past decade I've been able to watch and work with former JC's and campers of mine as the grow into young adults and become staff members at camp. It was a cherished memory to be part of the reason they wanted to work at camp, and it is a joy to see how much they have come to love the place. Watching camp become as important to them as its been to me for 25 years is an experience I wouldn't trade for anything.

As always, there are so many fond memories of camp, but I will share just one here from the past two weeks. It came from the mouth of Sarah Swanson, long time July Family Week camper. She and I are at the square dance one night during evening program and she turns to me and goes: "What kind of people do this - like farm people?" Rendered speechless at the voice of Sarah Swanson. To say this to me of all people - I don't even think she knows I live on a farm, but it was completely hilarious. :)

Checklist

Find a place to live. CHECK!

Apartment found, deposit made, lease signed, its real!

3,2,1,FLY!!!!

I flew on Thursday! Brant and I got strapped, harnessed, and hooked up to a whole bunch of cables, lifted up hundreds and hundreds of feet, and dropped from the ripcord on Thursday at Valleyfair. It was awesome! This is normally never something I would have spent the money to do, but when a former student of mine (who used to have anxiety attacks on the morning of a volleyball practice) asked me to go with her, no amount of money in the world was going to stop me from helping her conquer a fear. Turned out in the end that she went with another girl from her class and brant and I swapped to go together. But to watch those two girls have the guts to do that was purely AMAZING - especially knowing how far they have come in the past three years. Brant and I just stood on that sidewalk and beamed with pride. And of course Jenny's laugh/scream/cry mix of noises was absolutely hilarious!


I went to see my new school last Tuesday. It was, in short, awesome. I get to teach in a small building called the "Eagles Nest" and my students will switch classes on a bell system like a real school! And the best part was that instead of my teaching middle school math and lang. arts, I get to teach middle school math and social studies. I love social studies/geography/history so I am so happy about that. There is a nice mix of young and old teachers, married and single teachers, and the school is growing - yes growing!

Payton is now 13 pounds and so big! She almost completely folded her hands (not on purpose obviously) when I was holding her. Yes, its cliche', but they really do change so fast!