This week was great!

This week has been so much fun, I finally feel like I am connecting with people. I have met some pretty great people since being here. On tuesday night I was invited by my supervisor to go to a free local concert at a wildlife reserve thing. It was a blast! The band played Jazz, and all of the people there were son nice! We went and got some dinner to eat there and enjoyed ourselves! This week I have also gotten to know some of my kids pretty well. It's kind of amazing some of the stories that kids tell me about their home lives. Some stories I've heard and witnessed some things that just break your heart! For our field trip on thursday we went to the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago. It is a pretty cool zoo and it's free to the public, they have cool brick buildings that have large exhibits in them. Being with about 30 kids in our group it was hard to move through the zoo so we only got to see a few exhibits. It rained a little while we were there so we brought trash bags for the kids to use as ponchos, I have pictures of my kids with trash bags on, it's pretty funny! And after all the work to get the garbage bags on, it didn't even rain for 5 minutes. Awesome. And let me tell you, it was HOT oh man it was pretty miserable. I was hot, the kids were hot, and it was 98% humidity! The bus ride home may have been the worst part. I was in the back of the bus and it was hot, sitting in traffic, and hitting bumps started to make me sick. I don't usually get car sick but I totally did while I was on that bus!

This weekend has been pretty low key. Friday night we hung out with some sailors and BBQed. Saturday we went to Gurnee Mills and went and watched Inception. I highly recommend that move! It was amazing! then we did a little shopping, I bought a case for my phone! Ha surprise surprise! I think today we are going to go to the beach with some sailors and play some volleyball.

This should be an interesting week, my friend Jessica and I were in charge of planning all of this weeks activities. I'm kind of nervous, and I hope that this week goes well!

(Morgan me and Jessica)

(Concert Venue)

(sunset reflection on the lake)

What a weekend!

I must say this has been one of the most fun weekends I have had in a long time! Saturday Jessica and I took the train into Chicago to do a little touring on our own. It's quite convenient, the station is just out themain entrance of the base. And the train is amazingly cheap here, Portland could learn athing or two! For a twoday, round trip pass, it was only sevendollars! It's five in Portland for a one day pass! The train was really nice, it had two levels and wonderful airconditioning! The train takes a little over an hour from base which isn't too bad and it's cheaper than paying for a cab! Once we got into the city we decided we wanted to go to Navy Pier, it was gorgeous. There was mix of eclectic shops, lots of touristy type things.It was extremely hot, and extremely humidso we took a break for a bit. After wandering around there for an hour or two we met upwith our director Morgan and headed to the Hancock building to meet a few other girls for dinner. We only got a little lost! We found the building and we also saw the filming for Transformers 3. No, I didn't see Shia. There was an insane crowd and I lost patience quickly and moved on. We at dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. It was FANTASTIC ohhh it was nice to not have a microwavable meal let me tell you! After dinner we shopped a little, I got a new top. Mom, I may be sending stuff home before I leave... A lot of stuff..But I have only bought my self one thing since I've been here that isn't food! Unfortunately we wandered a little too long and almost missed our train. We ran, people made fun of us, andI rolled my ankle! But we made the 9:30 train so that's all that matters!

This morning started bright and early, well like 8 so not that early.. Myself and five other girls caught a cab and were off to six flags. I love amusement parks! And this one has a water park too! BONUS! The downside to amusement parks is lines, I don't wait in line well, I get wayyy too bored! And one ridewe tired to go on we were the next to board and then it broke! Not even fair! I did all of that waiting for nothing! We spent a good amount of time in the water park and it's pretty amazing some of the swim suits that some people were wearing1! I can't even begin to describe some of the outfits I saw today!

(My 16 dollar lunch)

Tonight at our meeting my supervisor Morgan showed us a pretty amazing video to help remind us why we are doing this program. It's for these kids, they are amazing. I have only been here a week and amfalling more and more in love with them. They have such big hearts. I am so thankful that I am able to be apart of this program. Please watch!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ervaMPt4Ha0

My kids are amazing!

I was so excited when I was told I'd be working with a girl named Jessica! She is from Chico and we connected instantly, she is also known as Ms. Snickers at camp. Our kids are a mix of the Power packs (2-4 graders) and the Hill toppers (4-5 grade) they like to call themselves the Power Toppers. basically I got all of the kids that the other counselors didn't want or couldn't handle anymore. Thanks guys. But I love them all the same, they all have their own challenges. I have kids that are almost perfect, kid that cry if someone looks at them the wrong way, kids that throw a fit when they don't get their way, the kids who wont listen no matter how many times you tell them to. But all in all they just want attention, and I am trying my hardest to give them all the special attention that they deserve. I have a group of about 8 most days which is a nice number, not overwhelming. I had days this week when my kids would be fantastic, perfect kids. And others where they were the children of the corn!

On thursdays the kids get to go on a field trip, and this week we went to the Natural History Museum in Chicago. My kids LOVED it, there was so much to see and do, and they were pretty well behaved. Much better than they were the day before! I wish that we could have had more time in the museum though, there were so many more exhibits that the kids wanted to see. One thing that I am having to get used to is the humidity here! We lined the kids up outside, loaded them in the bus and then sat there. It was uncomfortably hot on the bus, there was no air circulation. It's amazing that a kid didn't pass out. We hit traffic pretty hard on the way back so it never got better, I was so sticky and sweaty by the end of that bus ride! It was gross!

I am trying to get used to my new long hours but these kids wear me out! I get in the van at 7:30 and am with the kids most days until 5:30! That makes for one exhausted Kelsey! Every night this week I have gotten off work, fallen asleep for about a half an hour, got up and made dinner, and then went to bed again! I am so tired at the end of the day! It has also taken me four trips to the visitors center to get my pass to get on and off base! so four hours of sitting there for them to tell me that I can't get the pass because I don't have some paper, or they didn't have my name on "the list" it's a little frustrating. But Friday they finally just let me have it even though i didn't have my Social security card. FINALLY I can work out! Woooo!

Today I am off to Chicago with Ms. Snickers, we are going to go to the sears tower, and do some shopping and meet some girls for dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. And tomorrow we are going to six flags! One of the other girls and I are considering going skydiving next weekend too! Ohhhhh that would be a blast! I can't wait!

First trip to Chicago!

Last weekend it was one of the girls birthdays, so a whole big group of girls went into the city to celebrate her birthday. We had a motel room for the night, a couple of navy guys drove us there, but they had their own room! I have never been to Chicago and it was gorgeous! We didn't get there until about 930 and then headed to dinner as soon as we got there. We went to this restaurant called Dicks Last Resort, basically the waiters are extremely rude to you on purpose! It was pretty entertaining! Most of the girls are over 21 so they all went out to the local clubs near our motel. While the rest of us went to and 18+ club. I have never been so uncomfortable dancing! First, we were on the south side, bad idea. And second I was the only blonde white girl there! Needless to say I stood out in the crowd like a sore thumb! We stayed for a while but not too long.

Once we got back to our motel we wandered the streets for a while and went into the largest McDonalds I have ever seen in my life! IT HAD AN ESCALATOR! How cool is that?! It also had comfy leather chairs, I took this opportunity to do some fantastic people watching :) My favorite! I ended up sleeping on the floor which I was not all too happy about! But all in all it was a good weekend, full of excitement, a bit too much drama! But I live with 12 other girls, it's to be expected! Now I was ready to start my first week with my own group of kids!

First Day of Camp

My morning started bright and early at 6:45 am I had to be downstairs by 7:30 to go to the children's center, once everyone was there we were off to what would be an extremely hectic day. Here at camp we come up with different names, our theme is candyland, I am now known as Miss Dots. Other peoples names are Miss Twisler, my Jolly rancher, Miss Whatchamacallit. At our base there are only girl counselors, which isn't really too surprising seeing as more girls participate in camp than boys. (Yeah I don't know why this is underlined, or blue...)

I had the pleasure of meeting some pretty interesting children today. Since it was my first day I just shadowed some of the other groups. There are about 100 kids all together in this program but not everyone was theretoday I think we had about 85 today. The group I was with was apparently the most out of control group, and yes, they were. I found out that Silly Bands are the thing to have here. They are these little rubber bands that are in different shapes. Most of the kids have them all the way up their arm. They trade them like Pokemon cards! Some kids were nice enough to give me some so I didn't feel left out. I even traded some today. I have a yellow crown and a pink high healed shoe. When mom and I were at Walmart the other day I totally saw them there and thought "Hmm... maybe I should get some of those, nah, I bet theywont like them" HA boy was I wrong!

A girl name Annya (not sure if I spelled that right, it pronounced On-Ya) She made me a very lovely picture today.It says "You are cool you are hot boy will love you I love you" Well then thank you Annya I now know that I am hot and cool! Whew and I was worried I wouldn't get their approval!

My lovely poster

Needleas a very long day, some of the kids are quite disobedient, I only got to know a few of them. But all in all it was a fun day and this is going to be a great summer. I have my own room, it's a motel actually. I have walk in closet, mini fridge, full bed, tv, wireless internet, anddddd housekeeping everyday! Prettyyyyy sweet! I think we are heading to the beach tomorrow, which is on base, it's not even four blocksaway. I think grandpa would like this base, it looks like a college campus, for some reason i think he would think "It's just great!" ha!

My room

Packing

Do these peoples really expect me to able to fit my entire life into two bags!? They obviously don't know me and my excessive overpacking. Typically I am only going for a week or a weekend if I go somewhere. But not this time, I'm going for almost two months! And do you know what that means? Excessive overpacking! Nevertheless I have waited until less than 24 hours before I leave to start packing! Who me? Never? I wouldn't do such a thing! Well wish me luck while I try and pack my life away! I leave at 6:22 am tomorrow morning! This should be interesting..