Creek Walk

Today we all took teen camp on a creek walk. Now normally this is a huge success and something i think they love alot!

However, because we've had no rain, the creek (which joins onto the lake) is all dried up. But that didn't stop our creek walk! We still took the journey to the bridge and back. But because of the lack of water, it didn't last long and the majority of people walked uber fast!

But picture this for a moment. Me, a grown lady, not petite or small, battling over rocks and stones, almost tripping on numerous occasions on mossy boulders! Me, wearing old school sandals - the ones we used to wear in Kindergarten. Wearing them as water sandals, my jeans rolled up past my knees. Yea....i know your having nightmares just trying to picture it!

But in the end i made it to the bridge and back hahaha....

The end.

Alisha xoxo

Rain and Lookalikes

IT RAINED TODAY!!!!.....well for about 2 minutes at least anyway?!

There is a kid here at camp this week who looks like Jarrod Briggs!!!!!

Alisha xoxo

Camp Del Oro Music Camp

My week has FINALLY come to an end, ha! 10 straight days at Music Camp in the Del Oro Division, which they call 'the west'. Why do i get the feeling i'm in the Greater West??? Ha! It honestly felt like a divisional music camp!

But i have to say that it was the most testing camp in terms of how long i can go without a break but that it was also the biggest highlight of my time over here thusfar!

I co-counselled with Latisa for the camp which meant we had 7 girls between us to watch out for over the ten days. All extremely beautiful girls on the inside and out!

However Letti's cabin is the top most point at Camp Del Oro which meant trekking up there at least 3 times a day, if not more! It was until camp was half over that we realised we didn't need to go up there all the time and we just got the girls to drop their stuff in the lockers near the pool, still a bit of a trek, but sooooo much better than getting to our cabin.

Seriously, this camp puts Collaroy steps to shame! But as hectic as it is, i am no more fitter! Gahh....

Anyway, our girls were amazing! A bit of whining and complaining particularly when we went up hills but overall and on a whole they were so wonderful!

My week consisted of mostly hanging out with them but during ministry major i had the opportunity to help out with intermediate band and the kid i sat with grew so much in his playing as the camp progressed, such an exciting thing to watch!

In the afternoons i had lake watch in their freetime which just meant me looking out for the kids as they swam, it was a great time to hang out and get to know one of my other co-counsellors, Chelsea - she's amazing!

After dinner every night i had the privilege of joining in the staff band which was fun! We even played El Es Senor - a piece of music I've played in SYB.

Then we had the evening activities which were a lot of fun. One of them was where counsellors were given a piece of music and had to sing it while the cabin were back-up dancers! We had a paramore song that i didn't know but i still dressed the part and danced like a mad-woman when it came down to it! Some others were Ghostbusters and Mission Impossible, scavenger type games - not my favourite but i'm sure the campers had fun - i hope

Then we also had our Counsellor campfire where we put the night together, again alot of fun! Amy and i, because we were foreign teen counsellors, hosted the evening as crazy as we were! And the theme of the campfire was Reality TV so each cabin hosted their own shows ie. Deal or no deal, camp idol, are you smarter than a program staff, cabin feud, Don't forget the lyrics, who's line is it anyway - etc.....lots of fun, lots of 'techinal difficulties' ha!!

The last activity we held was Academy Awards where all the counsellors were presented goofy awards. Letti and i were presented last with 'counsellor of the week'! And to top it off, during the week the cabins all competed to win cabin points for various tasks. Our cabin won that as well!!! Wow, so therefore we were officially the best cabin of the week/at camp! WOOOOT!!!!

And as if the week couldn't get any better, on our last night, one of our girls shared what God had done in her life over the week and the Holy Spirit moved in the most powerful way amongst our girls! Being able to pray with them and love and hold them when they cried was so amazing, it was that night that i realised why i had come to camp, what God was going to do, how he could use me - i couldn't have had a better week!

So it's ended now and i'm happy to have had a break (sunsplash/waterslide park today! was TUBULAR haha literally!) but we're back at it tomorrow for just 3 more weeks - time has flown by so fast and soon i'll be back home again, not sure that's where i want to be either! Leaving that in God's hands!

See y'all soon!
Alisha xoxo

Midsummer Break

My 5-day break has come and gone and the 16 hour travelling time by car is now over - thank goodness for that!

So we travelled to LA for 8 hours and checked in to our hotel at 3am on Sunday morning! On Sunday, i was up a tad early, something about not being able to sleep past daylight or something and so i got up, did washing and swam in the pool that was empty - it was really nice.

When everyone got up, we all headed to the OC Beach - i was too hot to do anything so i stayed in the car and read my book (thanks Bek - still haven't finished it though!). After a couple of the girls got back, we headed to a salon and had a spa pedicure to relax and heal our beaten about feet from a few weeks worth of camps! It felt really good, Letti got hot pink toes and i got hot green - woot! Looks hot!

That night we had a pizza/pool party which was really nice just to relax by the pool! It wasn't exactly an early night but we had fun - that's the main thing, eh Kendall?!

On the Monday we headed off to Disneyland and had a pretty cool day there. It hasn't changed all that much but being with friends is VERY different to being with family! It was fun because all the Disneyland workers were attracted to big groups and i have to say we stole the limelight everytime! We even won ourselves 'honourary citizens of Disneyland badges'! We all felt hecka special i suppose! We all had a lot of fun! Although that was when i realised i'd left my camera back at camp! So over the 5 days i was back to old-school cameras that i'll have to get printed when i go home or maybe here, not sure yet!

We also crossed between theme parks to California Adventureland - hecka fun! Hecka is a new word i've picked up over here! Sorry!

I went into one shop in Adventureland with my badge on and the man at the door asked me what my badge said and i told him, he was like, 'i honour you' hahaha.....weird! On Monday we had a lot of fun with the 'Aussie, Aussie, Aussie' chant although it's kinda been a theme of camp at one point we even heard a neighbouring camp scream it across the lake - proud to be Australian that day! Anyway, back at Disneyland Kelly (the other Aussie) and i spotted a coupla Aussie blokes in the line in front of us - i guess that was comforting!

Tuesday everyone just did their own thing pretty much, we all headed off in different directions. Some people went back to Disneyland, some stayed at the hotel, Megan and Letti went to Megan's grandparents house (i would liked to have gone!) and me and amy went to Six Flags!

BEST THEME PARK EVER - if you like rollercoasters!

It's an extreme theme park, with intensely extreme rollercoasters! Unbelievable! i loved it! Every ride scarier than the next! Oh man the new X2 ride pretty much blew us out of our seats and i've never been on scarier rides in my whole life! Ask me about that when i get home - just ridiculous! We got capes and met batman and robin, one highlight of our day!

Due to our indeciveness we couldn't decide whether we wanted to go or not so we ended up getting there at 5pm but we got on pretty much all the rides and left at 10pm. It was such a good day to go because there were no lines and we just got straight on the rides - sweet as!

Wednesday we drove home but we all stopped in Hollywood on the way. We saw the stars on the footpath and the hand and footprints near the Asian temple thing, it was pretty cool to see Marilyn Monroe and Judy Garlands prints!

Then we trekked back to camp ready to start our 10 day music camp! More about that when it's finished, so far, we're half way through and we finish up on Saturday - gosh i can't believe how much time has gone by just for music camp - it's like two whole weeks - maaaan!

Anyway, we had a lot of fun on the 5-day!!! Good company and good times! Can't wait to develop the photos!

Alisha xoxo

Kiss My Sickness!

We've just finished our extremely sacred weekend break yet again and believe me, it's not long enough, although it's longer than the hour break i'm trying to cram this blog into! ha!

This weekend some of us went to Sacramento, our closest 'everything' city. I mean, it has lots of entertainment.

We started out Saturday by going shopping at the mall. I love how everything here is so cheap so i went into the body shop and bought 2 perfumes for the price of one - at least i smell good in this heat! Ick!

A couple of shops that we went to some of the salesmen were very intersted in mine and Kelly's accents and seemed fascinated by them - wow!

After we did some shopping, we went to a drive-in - the first one i've ever been to, it was alot of fun but we saw 'the love guru' which had too many sexual references for my liking. We were supposed to also see 'the happening' but it was late by the time we got home so we couldn't stick around, most of us were very tired anyway! It was a shame coz it was two movies for $7 all up! Again wow!

Sunday was washing clothes and dying hair day. Fun. On Sunday night, i threw up 4 times during the night - i know, it's something you've always wanted to know! But it was just horrible being alone in the woods not making it to the bathroom and rushing around the corner from your cabin - i felt so alone! ha! Evidently, yesterday, monday, i was completely out of it and spent the day in the nurses cabin but i received a postcard from Fiji from Mum and Dad so that was pretty timely!

Today i am fully recovered, just sweltering in 40 degree heat! That's 102 degrees farenheit! It's supposed to get hotter too! Ick! All you Aussies who wish you were here, i wish we could swap weather, trust me! Everything here just sticks to you! We're all keeping very hydrated!

Anyway, gotta keep plodding along in the heat and let others use this!

Alisha xoxo

Camp 3

AGAIN, JUST FOUND THIS!

NO IDEA WHY I NEVER PUBLISHED IT!!

So this past week has been and gone and boy am i glad it's over! Not that I didn't love any of the teens that came to camp this week because i truly did but just that it was really hard dealing with some of the attitudes and then on top of that trying to be the best counsellor i could be.

Btw, i'm sorry to those people who have been missing my blogs but we don't really get much time to blog as our breaks during the day aren't long enough to sit down and email/blog so i do it on the weekend when i have more time and last weekend we were all in San Francisco!

So my cabin were tops - just really hard! lol....i think you can pretty much determine what your week is going to be like judging by the first day where i had to sit one of my campers down and chat to her about her attitude.

I think being at teen camp is as close as i wanna get to having my own teenage daughters. NO THANKS!

We had object skits everynight where the cabins would put together skits based on a sentence and an object given to them by the program staff. That was alot of fun and one of the cabins even did theirs at the talent night which was a really encouraging thing for them!

Then one night we had kebabs and my cabin was on meal prep for this and it just turned ugly resulting in Lizz (fellow aussie, and program staff) sitting down with my cabin and having to sternly talk to them!

There are always one or two really well-behaved girls and then there are ALWAYS some girls who don't 'like you' and will do everything humanly possibly to make your week miserable! hahaha......

What sustained me was fully relying on God for eveyrthing i needed and i have never known such faithfulness. In fact i have never been in a situation where i've had to rely on God as much as this week! One night i went to bed absolutely smiling - couldn't wipe it! Because the day had been a real battle and it ended with absolute resolution, everyone went to bed loving eachother and saying good things about eachother and i couldn't stop thanking God for being faithful, for loving us, for holding us in his hands, for having his hand upon our week.

Something else that astounded me was how open the campers were in my cabin - where they lacked politeness, they made up for it by being open and honest with me, something that i value extremely importantly in any relationship as being a form of communication! There were times where each of them bared their souls to me and i had a glimpse of who each girl was and where they were coming from!

In some cases it broke my heart to have to say goodbye to them knowing the situations they'd be facing when they returned home! But it made it that much more urgent for me to declare the good news to them and to teach them ways to make it last and stick, letting them know of a God they can hold onto when everything else is so unstable around them! I'm loving the opportunities God is presenting to me to grow and learn new things, to be stretched like i never imagined!

Thursday night i broke down and pretty much crumbled under the pressure - embarressing! But the enemy is really good at filling your head with questions like, 'what are you doing here?' 'you're not a counsellor' 'you're crap at this job' 'you should go home' blah blah blah.....and i guess i started listening to it. But when you think things like that and crumble, all you want to do is ring someone you know and just cry and at the time it was something i couldn't do. But the staff here is so amazing that i was able to pull through and keep going.

Now i'm looking back at the end of the week and am seeing it was no-one but God that pulled me through and he just used people to touch my heart and he embraced me through them. He keeps me here under his wing stretching me. He is awesome!

This week has passed and God has once again been faithful and i praise him for all the times with my cabin that i had to share his love with them!

Alisha xoxo

Weekend in San Francisco

Two weeks ago, camp got cancelled due to the air being too toxic to breathe which i've already blogged about in a previous blog! So the staff was given a 4/5 day break to basically stay indoors or leave the campsite.

For a couple of these days we stuck around. One of those days being Kelly's 21st. Kelly is one of my fellow Aussies here and she is just the bomb! So some of the girls threw her a surprise party and invited anyone from camp to come along. It was alot of fun although watching Kelly get mail day after day made me want my own mail haha....but it was fun to eat chocolate and candy from home because she shared with us. It really was a tonne of fun though, there was candy and drinks galore and lots of 'bonding'. Yay!

The rest of the break we all decided to go to San Francisco.

It was such an amazing time and even though I've been to San Fran before, the experience was different because i was with friends!

So me, amy, neil, pam, kelly, megan, latisa and jeremiah all headed to SF. One of the guys, justin, joined us for the weekend too because he lives in Antioch which is closer to San Fran, so we just met up with him! It was a really good time of getting to know them all better too and as a result we're all that much closer which is so cool!

We stayed in a dodge motel and the van that we took had a window that didn't do up so any valuables had to be taken in with us because there was no point locking the doors haha...

We had lunch at Pier 39 and also visited the Golden Gate Bridge. I saw it more the first time i went. Too much fog and smoke clouded our view. It was great to be back at a place i'd come to 11 years ago!

We had a lot of camp fun too. There were a whole group of people waiting for a show to come on in a public stage area. So we all walked on the stage, held a pose for a minute or so and then walked off - a good laugh! But then we started getting braver and so true to camp form, Megan took the stage and did one of our camp songs. We all hid in the audience and when she got up, we helped her out by repeating the chant. Some people loved, some people hated it but the moral of the story is we had a good laugh and alot of fun!

Before we left for the afternoon we participated in a few freezes, actually ALOT of freezes. Btw, Sydney, i'm disappointed that you did a freeze without me and i watched YOU ALL SUCKED! haha....annnnnyway.....It was so much fun because we'd time it so that we all froze for 2 minutes. There was one point where we actually had a huge crowd watching us! Another time when someone joined in with us - he thought he was a hero! lol....we seriously just had so much fun!

Before we went home i went to my first baseball game and let me tell you it was HUGE!!!!! It put our footy to shame, seriously?! The place was massive! And the game was amazing! We only had standing room only but it was good just to be there and scream our lungs out! They played that baseball music you hear in all the movies too which was really cool. On the screens they even had 'we celebrate 125 years with the salvation army', we all cheered hahaha....The game was between the San Fran Giants and the Oakland A's. Apparently Oakland (which is where i'm stopping over to go to Seattle) is a rough part of California, very ghetto. Can you imagine how we felt to have to leave our van and go and watch the game IN Oakland!!! lol....we were blessed to still have everything in tact when we got back to the game!

We stayed at a previous staff's house on the way home and on our way we visited world market which is a store that sells international products so it was good to feel like home in the Aussie aisle! I bought a packet of Tim Tams which didn't last let me tell you! Everyone LOVED 'em!!!

I love all the people that we went with so much, they are SUCH good value!

Alisha xoxo