Adventure Camp - Day 2

Hello everyone! If you read my post from yesterday, you'll know that Olivia and I are collaborating together to tell you the tales of Adventure Camp 2016! ;)

Day 2 of camp is going to be posted on Olivia's blog today, so if you want to read more about camp (and I really hope you do! :D) hop on over to Liv's blog! You can click HERE for the post :)

Helens // Goodbye // Candy Haul

Okay, I'm FINALLY getting this post out. I am SO sorry for how long it took to publish this. And, Tiger Lily won't be here this time round; though a lot of her pictures will be! :) 

Alright, let's get this started. 

Sunday afternoon, first week campers who were staying another week prepared to greet new campers. Remember from that first post, we told you about how we were nearly scared to death by the loud welcome we received? Well, this time, Tiger Lily and I got to be in this loud welcome ;) Lots of clapping and shouting and greetings :D 

 And GUESS WHAT?! I got to meet my Literary Analysis teacher. Which was positively amaaazzziinnnggg!!!! It was SO exciting to finally get to meet her in person :)

 We also met this very special person, Amy, whom we quickly became friends with 

 The second week of camp, Tiger Lily took a cosmetology intensive (cosmetology as in make-up and hair and all that. NOT cosmology (stars) as many people believed :P), and I took a filmmaking intensive. Going to tell you now, you are going to see WAY more pictures from the cosmetology than filmmaking ;)

And, as Tiger Lily isn't here, I'm going to attempt to tell you everything she did at camp. Bear with me ;)

Okay, so I THINK the first thing they had to do was cut the mannikin's hair. There were only 6 Helens (yes, the heads had names) and 12 students, so it was 2 girls to 1 head. Soooo....half a head each. Tiger Lily said the end result usually looked a little strange since one half was always different from the other.

 They also got to curl the hair after cutting it.

 After the first day, Tiger Lily came up to me with a 'dangerous' glint and asked "Can I cut your hair?" I immediately said "NO!" xD Duh

She consoled herself with doing my hair instead in some complicated braid-y thing.

Interruption from the cosmetology stuff. Here's a quick picture from the filmmaking class. Cool cameras and set up; the whole schibang ;) Very interesting to be around.

 There was also field night again. I managed to snap a photo of the waterfall really quick while walking across the bridge.

 Ultimate Frisbee was being played on the field too, but as it looked a little rough-and-tumble, Tiger Lily, a few other girls, and I decided to skip out on it.

We played General Knowledge instead :)

 Back to cosmetology now ;) Tiger Lily had to do a perm. Which apparently is NOT a very easy thing to do. It took a very long time and at the end, the students were saying "If you ever have a perm done on yourself, please apologize to your hairdresser." xD

All that hair in them curlers ;) 

And the end result of the perm! 

 I think the next pictures were of bleaching the Helens hair.

 And this one was of them dying the hair. See how much stuff you can do on one single head? ;)

Random picture of Tiger Lily and Amy eating ice cream :D 

 And another picture from my filmmaking camp.

 The last day of camp was funny and sad all at the same time. Lots of giggles and tears and hugs that night, let me tell you!

Oh yes, and the Helen's were everywhere in the girls' dorm. Some in the foyer, some in girls' bedrooms, you get the point. It was a little creepy at first, but you got used to the sight after awhile :P

On the last night, we had a mini girl get-together :D Eating junk food, dancing the macarena, telling silly stories, and just having a fun time together.

The girls there, they were amazing, may I just say. We made some very good friends, and it was very sad having to leave. But I'm glad we got the chance to meet them and make new friends :)

And looking back now, (I know, it's only been around 3 months, but it seems like forever since camp ended ;) Tiger Lily and I both agree that Landry Camp really helped us more socially than educationally. We're both introverts, and we still kind of are, but we're not as painfully shy as we used to be. All those amazing people at camp really helped us to feel more secure and confident, and yes, even a little more extroverted too. Even the dancing helped us break out from our shell. So thank you SO very much, Landry and all you peoples. Love you guys so much!   

Okay, enough of the rambling ;) In the morning, we had a quick presentation before people with flights had to leave. It was bittersweet leaving. And yes, there were tears :) 

We drove 2.5 hours to the airport, and then ate lunch with some of the other students before their flights came in and they had to leave. Tiger Lily and I had to wait the longest, so we hung around and walked the airport for quite awhile. 

We were supposed to wait around 6 hours before our flight came in. But there were a few maintenance problems with the plane, so we waited for another 2 hours and a bit.

I'll admit, I kinda drank a lot of Starbucks while we were waiting for the plane.

 Tiger Lily had to take Gravol so she wouldn't get airsick in the plane. However, since the plane was delayed, the medicine ended up taking effect while we were still at the airport. My poor sister got very drowsy and fell asleep right there in her seat.

 On the other hand, I was all wide-awake and active after all that coffee. Hey, someone had to look after the luggage ;)

 By the time we got on the plane, we were tired, but happy.

We ended up arriving at our destination before Mom and Dad got there, so we had a bit more of a wait. I think we ended up hearing them before we saw them. It looked like a big crowd rushing at us, but it was really only Dad and Mom and Spiderman and Ironman and Snow White and Dare Devil and Toblerone and our grandfather. Lots of hugs exchanged there. Then we drove home and AHHH....I was greeted by an ecstatic Maple. My puppy missed me!! xD 

She literally bowled me over and then after I sat up, squirmed herself into my lap. Yes, my over 80 pound puppy tried to sit on me. I think I had pins and needles afterwards ;) 

The day after we got back home, Tiger Lily and I emptied our bags of all the candy and it was distributed between the younger children. They really enjoyed that ;P 

The end! It was a great experience and we both loved it so very much! Lord willing, we'll get to do it again next year! :) 

Our counsellor groups :) 

Thank you all for reading these (very delayed) posts and I hope you enjoyed them! :) 

Dissections // Fighting the Vending Machine

Okay, huge apologies for taking so long to post the next part of our trip to North Carolina! Life’s been - busy ;) 

Anyway, onto the post! This time you’ll get a peek into our classes :D 

By the middle of the week, everyone was pretty much exhausted :P But that didn’t stop class one bit. 

For music camp, Mr. Cockman, my music teacher, wanted us to write two songs, record an original song, film a music video, then have a final performance of it later. So on the very first day, we wrote a song. It wasn’t good - but it wasn’t terrible either. We also performed it for the rest of the class, but it went a little off because neither of us were used to the microphones and the sound was coming back delayed, which messed everybody up. BUT, that was just practice for the other song we had to write, so yeah. We worked on our second song on Tuesday and half of Wednesday, recorded on the second half of Wednesday, filmed on Thursday, and did our final performance on Friday in front of the whole camp (over 160 people). Okay, let me slow it down a bit more ;) 

Mr. Cockman’s oldest daughter, Arwen Cockman, was in our band, and is she one talented person! You should hear her play the guitar - it’s AWESOME!! (There are videos of her performing on Youtube, and guys, she can play the fiddle behind her back!!!!) 

She helped us a lot in finding chords for a song, as well as fine-tuning the melody for the song. Writing the lyrics was SO much fun! We had oh, about 8 people in our band, so we got lots of ideas. (The inspiration for the song came from the walls of the back hall . . . but that’s another story ;)) 

After the melody was set for both instruments and vocals, we worked on harmonies. It was quite funny actually that I, who sing harmony about 5% of the time, should be assigned the high harmony part. But that’s how it went. Arwen took harmonies, and the rest of the girls took lead. 

Once that was settled, we got to record. 

But after that was done, we got a ton of free time while the other three bands were recording. So we jammed and sang… Veggie Tales. *sings* If you like to talk to tomatoes; if a squash can make you smile, if you like to waltz with potatoes, up and down the grocery aiiiiiisssle! *crickets chirping* Ahem. Don't judge XD 

Friday was final performance day. We rehearsed getting on and setting up on stage in less than a minute, performing, and then immediately getting off. (we were on a time crunch). 

When performance time rolled around, I’ll admit to feeling very nervous. It was the biggest crowd I had ever sung in front of, and I was so afraid of messing up the harmony, and - yeah, lots of butterflies. But before camp performances started, the entire music camp gathered together and prayed. I found it SO helpful. Peace instantly entered me, and then we got on stage and performed, and - it was GREAT! I enjoyed every minute of it, and I do believe the rest of my band did too! Praise the Lord!!! :D 

Ok, I guess it’s my turn now. Apologies for the lack of pictures, I did take some, but I didn’t really fancy getting guts and blood all over the ipod :D. 

So…...I can’t exactly remember what we did each day, but I will attempt to at least put it in somewhat of an order. 

First, the teacher talked a while about what she did, what her different clients were like, and how different people reacted differently to different things. Oh, so every day that week, we got to watch like an hour long episode about different vets. Like Doctor Pol (The teacher said she didn’t like him very much :P), Something called Rescue Vets, and something else called Zoo vets. And I’m pretty sure there was something else, but I can’t remember what it was called :P I think watching the episodes was one of my favorite parts because I didn’t have to do anything but sit and watch :D

We were also given a project (that we could take as long as we wanted to do it as long as it was finished by the end of the week) which was to cut out like a gazillion parts of a pig(outside and inside) and glue them all together to make a model of a pig, to use kind of as a reference when we dissected the real pig.  It was actually pretty cool when it was finished. I’ll ask Blessing to take a picture of it. :) 

(I tried to take only one picture, but seriously, there are so many layers to this thing, it's impossible to fit it into one shot :P) 

Then…...dissections. We dissected a chicken foot, a pig foot(btw, pig skin is really really really tough. In an hour and a half, my lab partner and I were only able to peel about ¾ of the skin back :P), a baby pig - let me stop right here and say that I thought it was going to be a fetal pig. And there were some. But unlucky me just happened to get a full grown baby pig that had died after birth. It was SOOOOO cute. Only on the outside though………..

Anyway, we also had to dissect a big white rat. And then after we had taken out all of its guts and cut open it’s rib cage(none too neatly I might add).........They told us we had to sew it back together. With all it’s parts somewhat in the right place again. So we very technically scooped it’s insides back in, and then made an attempt to sew it back up again. It actually looked pretty normal other than the fact that it was rather flattened - probably due to having a broken rib cage, and guts that weren’t exactly in tact. I think that was all the dissections that we had to do….

Let’s see, what else did we do…...oh! We gave oranges gatorade injections, but the poor orange had so many injections with 20 people in the class that when the last person injected it, the juice came pouring out one of the holes that had already been made :P We also learned how to suture. The picture is the first stitch I did…..I’m so glad it wasn’t a real person because the fake skin kind of sort of ripped when I tied the knot :/ 

I believe that was all we had to do - for the final performance, about a third of the class (we voted for skits) had to present skits that they had written - there were 2 groups that did it. I’m so glad my group’s skit wasn’t picked because I do NOT like acting. At all. Especially in front of 160 people. 

So! I believe that’s all for Pre-Veterinary Medicince week! Overall, I really did enjoy the class, but I could have done with a little less dissecting :P 

Oh, one more thing - that picture on the chalkboard was the teacher showing us how pigs’ ears were notched :D

And here are a few pics from the week. Not exactly random, just part of the free time or activities that we did :D 

We tie-dyed for the first time ever. It was such a nice vibrant colour when it was dyed - 

And then they washed it and the color kind of bled everywhere and turned a pastel color instead :D It was still pretty though. :) 

But the colour also stayed on our hands, don’t forget that. For a couple days, there were quite a few people with pink, bluish, greenish hands. 

No, it washed out by the end of the day - unless you didn’t wash your hands at all that day…...

Ahem! I did too wash my hands! Maybe my hands soaked in the dye then, cause the colour was there for at least another day :P 

AND, the whole camp was brought out to this awesome ice cream shop. (Don’t you just love the smell of an ice cream store? It’s so - good! :D) 

At the ice cream shop!

Previous campers that I had met had already warned me that one scoop was gi-nourmous, so when it was my turn to order, I asked for “one scoop please” 

Actually, they asked if you wanted 1 dip or 2 dips. :D

Well, I know, but I didn’t know what a dip was and was scared it was something gigantic, so I just wanted to clarify that I wanted a small scoop. A small single scoop. The waiter nodded and proceeded to scoop out a small bit of ice cream. I smiled, thinking eveything was going just right and I would get my small scoop of ice cream. (Seriously, who ever really wants a small scoop of ice cream?????) I reached for my cup - but then he  bent down and got another scoop. I opened my mouth to protest -

And he got another, third, scoop, before finally handing me the cup. So much for one small scoop XD

When I got mine, he just put an enormous scoop in the cup. And then another one on top of it. And I was very happy and ate it and didn’t complain about how huge it was :P 

I’m not complaining! I’m just - er - elaborating on what happened so that the readers will be prepared if they ever go to that ice cream shop. (unless all American ice cream shops are like that?!) 

I never said you were complaining. :P 

DANCE NIGHT!! (yes, I’m changing the subject XD) 

Dance night was the same night as ice cream night :D So everyone was hyper. Just kidding. Sort of. 

We’ve never danced before. I mean like, actually dancing. Not hopping up and down in crazy circles(Cause that’s how we normally dance XD), if you know what I mean :P 

There were quite a few dances taught, like the Virginia Reel, and SWING DANCE, and the wagon wheel, and the electric slide, and the macarena, and the cupid shuffle, and others that I don’t remember the names of. 

There was footloose. Which I couldn’t do, by the way. Oh, and that dance that we did to Undefeated. 

Oh right! I really liked that one! We were able to master the hand things only after we left camp. 

And the other one where I accidentally kicked a lot of people in the back of the legs. 

Dancing mishaps. Like forgetting which way to turn and finding out that you’re facing everyone else when you’re not supposed to, and so you quickly hop back into the right direction. Or losing your shoe and watching it fly across the room. *blushes* 

I  lost one of my shoes(well crocs :D) while doing the Virginia Reel - it went into the line next to us. So I grabbed it and took of my other one and chucked it really hard at a wall. Corner. Actually, I think it was just a place where there was no people. And then I found out that for some really weird reason, when you’re not wearing shoes, people tend to step on your feet more. I also learned that I didn’t know my left from my right. Not when I needed to anyway. 

I think my favourite dance was swing. It’s so much fun! Tiger Lily and I partnered up and she did the boy’s part. ‘Cause I didn’t know how to. (But after we got home, I learned the boy’s part, so we can now change places while dancing if we have to ;)) (By the ‘have to’, she means when I try to dip her and drop her because I think I’m stronger than I am. :P)

Yeah, we learned to have pillows on the floor while practicing. It hurts when you don’t. . . 

Random photo I took during pizza lunch

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Oh, vending machines. Okay, I didn’t know I was such a country mouse until I found a vending machine, wanted to get something, and realized I didn’t know how to use it at all. It was SO embarrassing just standing in front of it and trying to figure out how to use it. 

But seriously! Vending machines are so much fun!!! You beep the button, it eats your money and then it spits out something delicious. And I knew how to use it cause I’m smart :D 

Hey, well, I figured it out later. And the way you described it is slightly disturbing. . . 

But yeah. We snacked on M&M’s a lot. And Starbucks coffee!!!! SO GOOD! Ahhh….

I didn’t drink the starbucks coffee by the way. You should have seen the collection of bottles on the top of our dresser. And they were ALL from Blessing. I was a good girl and only drank an occasional pop :P Which, believe it or not, was less sweet than whatever kind of coffee was in that bottle. 

Hehe. . . 

Oh, and on Sunday morning, my counsellor went to a cafe nearby and brought Blessing and I muffins THAT WERE STILL WARM. and they were CHOCOLATE too!!!!  

And I think that about wraps up this post! What interested you the most? Classes, dance nights, or all that sugar? ;P