Headed Home for the Holidays

So, it has been a really long time since I blogged. Not only have we gotten into a pretty mundane routine, but it has also been crazy busy. A lot has happened since I last blogged. We had All Clean last Monday which went well. After work, we all met with Craig Ingelsby to plan Entertainment Night for the Work Crew and Summer Staff Reunion this weekend. It is always the interns' jobs to put on Entertainment Night, which is super fun. More on that later.

I went to bed really early and slept really late. I spent a lazy day Tuesday hanging out and watching movies and the West Wing with Darren. It was definitely needed. It had been such a long week, though full of fun stuff.

Wednesday was a rough day for us. We got some bad news. I woke up in the morning to Kristen saying we needed to go over to the boys' condo and found out that my friend and fellow intern, Shea, was going to be leaving that afternoon for good. It has been really hard on us to have him leave. We are definitely a little family and it is a definite loss to have him gone.

We spent the whole day dealing with that news, and then we had the auction that evening. It was hard to get excited, but the auction is really a cool event. Everything that was left in Lost and Found and not claimed gets auctioned off and all the proceeds go to camp scholarships. Rich used to do livestock auctions, so he's got the for real auctioneer stuff going on and it's really fun. It was my job to log all the purchases into the computer. It was fun watching people get into bidding wars over random things like crocs or swim goggles. Most of the staff was there and it was fun.

We went back to work in Housekeeping the next day. Everyone was definitely emotionally heightened with everything that had happened the day before, so it was kind of a rough day. We had small group that night, followed by staff worship and then dance practice. We had decided to do the final number from Hairspray as the opening skit for Entertainment Night, so we had to learn it Thursday night. I was really tired, but it was really fun learning the dance with everyone. We may have looked like idiots, but we had a great time doing it. The boys were hilarious. It was definitely unifying to put together stuff for Entertainment Night, which is exactly what we needed. However, the my roomies and I were all on edge with each other for a few days which was making things difficult.

I passed out after dance practice and then was in HK all day Friday. People started arriving early Friday afternoon. It was kind of a weird weekend because everyone who was here had worked here for some length of time. All the old interns were back which was weird because you kind of like to think you're the only one who has ever lived here and had this job. Also, it meant all the old Work Crew and Summer Staff felt like the owned the place which meant we had to lock everything. But it was also really fun. They are all part of the extended Wildhorse family and many will be back this summer.

Saturday was a Sassy day. I got to sleep in and worked the afternoon shift. Then was Entertainment Night. First, we did the dance. Next, I came out by myself as Rosanna Suzanna Millingham and made a complete fool of myself telling the story of when I was on Work Crew and fell in love with an intern. And I wrote poems about it that just happened to be the lyrics of pop songs. Classic. I came out 3 times in my ridiculous outfit. It was a lot fun. Somehow, I'm the skit girl out here which is funny because I completely wasn't in Missouri. But I had a ton of fun doing it. We ended the night with "Hey There Reunion," which is our made up and recorded in the boys' house version of "Hey There Delilah." It was pretty impressive if I do say so myself. The whole night was seriously fun and followed by a late night in the Sassy.

(Also, there is video. I will attempt to find a way to show it to you all.... Craig.)

Sunday was HK all day. We did all the perifs in the afternoon because there is a camp in the day we get back. So we wanted to get as much done as possible. But we couldn't do the Iron Kettle or the Sports Center because people will be using them, so Jen has to do them by herself next week. I can't even imagine how much that will suck, but she seems excited.

After work, we went to a goodbye party for Kacie, who is leaving to go work at an orphanage in Northern Thailand. Yeah, I'm jealous. Then we played some poker. We've gotten really into Texas Hold'em the last week or so. I won 948 million fake dollars. It was pretty sweet.

The Iveys, Kristen and Drew all left last night, so we were short a few people for All Clean today. However, when we got in this morning, Jen told us as soon as we finished the list of things we had to do today, we could go home. Which was great because a lot of people were driving tonight. So, we kicked major booty and had everything done by 1:30! It was awesome. And also a really good thing because I'm still doing laundry and it's 9:00. I'm just about to start packing and I leave at 8:00 in the morning. So, I'm really glad we got off early.

It's down to Lacey, Dan, Darren and I here. Lacey leaves tomorrow morning and Darren's driving me to the airport on his way down to his hometown. Dan's staying for a couple more days before going home. It's weird to think I'm headed home tomorrow. It hasn't really sunk in. I'm pumped to see everybody. I feel like it's going to be a whirlwind.

Give me call; I'll have my cell phone! Love you all and see you in a couple of days!

Winter Wonderland

As I write this, I am curled up under my blanket with my heater going. It's literally freezing outside and I just got back from watching Elf with a bunch of the staff in the club room. Christmas in the Canyon is proving to be similar to Christmas everywhere, a time of cozy busyness. A time where your thoughts turn to friends and family, where the days are short and the nights are long. I love Christmas time.

I'm coming home in 8 days! And I am very excited about it. Although, I have a certain amount of anxiousness as well, which is surprising. I have just realized that Christmas at home will never again be the relaxing month-long break from real life that it has always been. When in college, Christmas was the time I got to come home and not worry about seeing any of my friends because I saw them all the time. Oh yeah, and I got a month worth of it. Now I have a week and, not only do I want to spend time with my family, but this is also the only time I get to see all my friends back home as well. It's just a little stressful to think about how much I want to cram into my time at home. And I'm wondering if I'll find it changed at all. Weird. But I miss Missouri a lot and really can't wait to see everyone. I'll just have to budget my time well.

The Christmas festivities have definitely continued since I last blogged. Tuesday was Craft Day at the Milstens which was very fun and relaxing. I learned to knit and have made a decent amount of a pretty awesome scarf for myself. We watched 5 movies including Elf, Little Women, Polar Express, Muppets Christmas Carol and Miracle on 34th Street. It was really cozy and informal and everyone just came and went all day long.

We met the boys at 8:00 that night to practice our skit for the Christmas party the next night. We got it pulled together, although it is definitely a trial to get 14 people to focus on something, especially when there's no clear leader. We got it done though and the went back to the condos and hung out. I got Darren addicted to the West Wing, which is fun for me. We've been watching episodes here and there for the past couple weeks, so that's what we did after rehearsal.

I got up around 10:00 on Wednesday and headed into town with Lacey and Shea to go grocery shopping. It was a fun trip with Shea in the car blaring LL Cool J and Boyz II Men. We went to Thriftway and all Shea bought was an onion, gizzards, cow tongue and Shake n' Bake. He then cooked them and brought them to the Christmas party. It was hilarious.

We got back in the afternoon and spent some time cooking and then got ready for the Christmas party. The party was in the Orchard Inn and it was fun to see everyone all dressed up. They had set everything up really pretty and fancy. The kitchen had made rack of lamb and some pork and everyone had brought sides and stuff. It was really yummy.

After dinner was the kids program which was one of the cutest things I've seen in my entire life. The kids out here are so sweet and fun. And ridiculously cute. After the kids program came the white elephant exchange which I did not do well in even though I brought an awesome football phone.

And next came our ridiculous skit. My parts included singing the German version of Silent Night and singing Oh, Holy Night in my church lady voice, all while wearing a shirt that has cats on it and says Meowy Christmas. I was pretty sure we were bombing but we had a lot of people tell us they thought it was awesome. It was a lot of fun to do together and I feel like people got to see more of our goofy personalities. Rich told us that no other intern group would have ever gotten up in front of the staff this early in the year and that he was really impressed with us, which was really to hear. So it was definitely fun.

Thursday was back to work, although it didn't really feel like I had a weekend. We did perif buildings and then spent the rest of the day continuing the deep clean on the quads and laundry. Friday morning was much of the same. I did make it to Morning Mudd, but just barely. The Sassy was open Friday night, so I only had to work in HK in the morning. We did the Sports Center and the Sassy and then continued deep clean.

After lunch, I trained Kristen and Drew in the Sassy because they were working there this weekend. They were the first group I've trained, so they were my guinea pigs. I'm excited to train and to plant some of the vision I have for the place in others, but it's hard to train other interns. I have kind of a weird role because I am running the Sassy but I'm not their boss, so it's a little weird. But we got it done and the group rolled in that afternoon.

We had an Assemblies of God youth group camp here this weekend. They were a first time group and most of the people had never seen the place. They were fun, but there's definitely a learning curve with first time groups. We opened the Sassy from 11:30 to 1:00 Friday night which is the latest we've stayed open since I've been here. It was also really slow. So that kind of sucked.

I slept in Saturday because I wasn't scheduled for morning espresso. We went in at 1:00 and did devos and set-up. The afternoon open was better than the night before. Our kid this weekend was Brandon. There's always at least one kid that spends all weekend in the snack bar and this weekend, it was Brandon. I really feel like that's the point of what we do in the snack bar. There are some kids that aren't going to be comfortable in the Sports Center or out by the pool, so the snack bar is a place where they can hang out and feel comfortable and welcome. I pray a lot that it's a place where that can happen. It's cool to see those kids and remember their names and get to see little glimpses of their time here.

We had late open again Saturday night, but we were packed all night. It was pretty crazy and people bought pretzels like they were going out of style. I was exhausted by 2:00 when we got home and passed out, only to awaken 5 hours later to be in HK this morning at 8:00. Late night, early morning is killer.

I ended up spending most of the day today in the Sassy, doing vending and ordering. It was fun to work by myself and probably better because their was a good chance I would have been cranky.

After work, we made some taco pie and then went to watch Elf, which was hilarious as always. That movie does not get old.

Also, we got our personality tests back and mine is almost exactly the same as the last time I took it. I'm still an otter, still talk a lot and still really love people. I work at a relational level and tend to be emotional. It's freakish how right most of the stuff they put was. It's been fun reading everybodys.

All Clean tomorrow and then the weekend! I'm so excited.

See you all very soon!

Christmas Time in the Canyon

Christmas is fast approaching and, just like everywhere else in the world, that means a crazy amount of fun stuff to do in the canyon.

I got over being sick last week and headed back to work on Friday. Friday and Saturday were the same kind of routine. Me being exhausted from being sick and working my butt off deep cleaning in the quads. Deep cleaning the quads has seriously been an undertaking. We have had to move bunks, scrub walls, scrub down every bunk, take down light fixtures and generally clean anything and everything. It has been a long and arduous process broken up only by random shifts in the Washboard. The whole time we were deep cleaning the quads we were taking hour shifts of two of us in the Washboard. The Washboard became our safe place where we all wanted to be all the time. Seriously though, it's been hard and made harder by the fact I was sick but also enjoyable. We did a lot of stuff that put us all in the same room, so that's always fun.

Friday night was our first intern once-a-monther which is the monthly dinner and hang out time that we decided to commit to at the beginning of the year. It was also Kristen's birthday. So we had a lot of fun hanging out and eating dinner together. We then met for a while to plan the Christmas skit that we will be putting on at the All-Property Christmas Party on Wednesday. We're pretty excited about it. After we were done with that, we borrowed Korey's lazer tag set and headed to the Sports Center. That's right, we spent the next 2 hours playing lazer tag in the dark in the skate park which was super awesome. Seriously, you can be jealous. It was a lot of fun. Although I got out everytime because I go on ultimate offense every time I play lazer tag. Tis the price to pay.

Saturday was another day of deep clean followed by the most depressing football game I've ever watched. And I had to watch it in the company of OU fans. I will say no more. I believe you all understand my pain.

I woke up Sunday feeling much better and also excited because Jen had announced to us the day before that we were going to get a surprise special project to work on the next couple of days since we had finished the deep clean on one of the quads. I was very excited to find out that Becca, Lacey, Mandi and I were going to spend all of Sunday and Monday organizing and cleaning the Prop Room! It was amazingly fun to sort through the ridiculous amount of random costume stuff that we have here at Wildhorse. We, of course, dressed up in the most ridiculous outfits we could find and wore them around camp the entire day. It was also a great job because you could really see a huge difference at the end of the project which is always satisfying. And we weren't deep cleaning! It was all around awesome.

The other girls spent the past couple of days organizing stuff for the auction which is a once-a-year canyon event where they auction off everything that has been left in lost and found over the past year and all the profits go to campership. It's a fun event and I've already staked out some sweet stuff like a shirt that say Czech Me Out- Prague on it and some Mexican Train Dominoes. It's going to be sweet.

Tomorrow is Craft Day, which I'm stoked about. I'm going to learn how to knit. Other than being excited about that, we've basically just been hanging out and watching movies and playingn board games... Winter in the canyon personified.

I love you all and hope you're developing some festive cheer as you get ready to see ME at Christmas!