Day 8. About a boat, birthday, and bloody toe. (not necessarily in that order)

I almost didn't sneak this in tonight but I'll type fast to get an update in and then m'off to bed.

First of all today was lake day... a day infamous for being super stressful for staff and the site of a great many disaster stories. For instance one of our directors lost his wedding ring in the lake 2 summers ago, I lost my glasses last summer and so on and so forth.

Anyway,the boat is our pontoon boat. ACK has gone all out and built an aluminum frame on the boat and attached 2 playground slides to the sides of it, so we have ourselves a little portable waterpark. Well one of the many things that I do during the week is to make sure that portable waterpark gets to the lake, runs, and is securely anchored offshore by the time the campers show up... Inevitably there is always some sort of problem that causes delays but today really took the cake. Launching the boat went fairly smooth but about 5 seconds out on the water the engine died, the wind being fairly stiff and the physics of a mini waterpark being about the same as a sail we quickly drifted toward shore.... eventually we got the boat started and managed not to hit anything. Anyway to jump ahead (because i'm tired and want to go to bed) we got everything set up, but our floaty trampoline (in the shape of a turtle) had so many holes in it we were forced to pack it back up, in the process of trying to anchor the boat I severely damaged two of my toenails (hence the blood in the title) and one of my comerades was fairly sick from too much effort shortly after breakfast... so on and so forth. To top it all off by the time the kids showed up we were subjected to some cloud cover, a few rain drizzles, and a cold wind. The good news is we stuck it out until lunch and God blessed us with an incredible afternoon. The skies were clear (or mostly so) the sun was warm and most of the kids happily frolicked in the chilly waters. Now the real reason I wanted to tell you this was to set the mood for my story. At the end of the day on the lake we naturally had to take the boat to the launch and attempt to load it on the trailer. Now I say attempt because that's all we were really capable of doing, by this time the wind had really picked up and getting the boat near the trailer was difficult, getting it on it was near impossible. I tried time and again to get the thing loaded and got to the point where I really and truly had no idea what we should do. About this time a few random strangers showed up and helped us muscle the boat on the trailer, perfect proof that God gives you what you need when you need it but sometimes getting to that point looks fairly hopeless.

and on to the birthday, today is the birthday of one of the coolest gal's I've ever met. Camp tends to attract an incredible breed of female and I am constantly amazed by the quality that keeps showing up every year. Well even though I've only known her for (checks header) 8 days, She's one of the most incredible gals I know. I know it's a bit cowardly to say that in this context because she might never see this... but it's true. And if she does ever read this, happy birthday! You're amazing and it's an honor to work alongside you this summer.

Last but not least, as me and my good buddy adam were walking the camp grounds in search of lost of mischievous campers I happened to glance up and was literally stopped in my tracks by the incredible sight of a beautiful panorama of stars. We only had a few minutes to spend looking up but it was absolutely incredible.

and with that (and 18 minutes to spare) I'm off to bed.

-Nick