Inflamed and Untamed

Yep. That’s a sand toilet. My cabin was awesome and made it during the sand castle building contest. 

So, hey world! I’m back online and have so much to share with you all.  Thanks for being patient while I’ve been away and keeping an eye out for each other on my blogs facebook page . 

So what can I tell you about the past 2 weeks? That I am so lucky, that’s what. I titled this blog “soooo lucky” because my co-counselor at Camp Oasis this year was my friend Blake, and as we were preparing for our campers to arrive and making our cabin signs and cabin promises we kept joking that our campers were “soooo lucky” to have us as camp counselors.  It was just a silly joke, but it became a saying in my cabin over the week between me and Blake and between our campers whenever something silly would happen we would say something like “you guys are soooo lucky”.

What started as a joke turned out to be something that sat in the back of my head the entire week.  Not that my campers were lucky to have us, but that we were lucky to have them.  Not only that, but that I am so lucky to have a place like Camp Oasis. This past year has been really hard.  My co-counselor last year passed away last fall and she was a really good friend of Blake and myself. Blake and I have been side by side through this whole thing as we went to visit Katie in the hospital together the last time we saw her alive, as we went through losing her, and then going through our first year without her at camp together this year.  I feel like fate paired the two of us up as co-counselors this year and I honestly would not have wanted to do this week with anyone else.  With the loss of Katie, my close friendships with my fellow Oasis counselors, and just the overall amazingness of camp I was constantly reminded of how lucky I am to be there. 

I can’t really explain the way camp changes lives, but it just does. It’s something that you have to go through and experience yourself to understand. There are some people that are not lucky enough to get to come to camp and this year I made sure to remind myself how blessed I am to be able to come back each year. As I spent my 4th summer as a counselor there last week I enjoyed stepping back and watching other lives change the way mine did.  I saw new counselors come to camp and grow in huge ways in only a week.  I know that they will go home forever changed and it made my heart smile because I remember what that was like my first year.  I saw new campers and return campers of all ages connect, learn, and grow in different ways and I just love that.  I left knowing that I gave all that I could as a camp counselor to the girls in my cabin which made me feel proud, and in turn those girls taught me a lot too.  

I am back to give you guys all the resources, support, and help that I can, feeling more confident that what I do is what I was meant to do. This blog and all the work that I get to do online and in the real world to make a difference overwhelms me in so many good ways.  

I am sooooo lucky. 

The theme at camp this year was super heroes. I was “Gut Girl” and Blake was “Super Pooper”

Me holding the python.