August 15, 2011

Today was the first day of our last week. WOW I can't believe how incredibly and sadly fast time has gone. It is so weird thinking back to 10 weeks ago when we were first getting our instiliation passes on that first monday. Wow. It was an ok day. There were a lot of new kids, which as you know isn't my favorite. I like the kids that I know and love. Oh well. We just did normal stuff. One of the fun things we did was work on super hero costumes for tuesday. SOOOo excited for superhero day. Its going to be awesome! There were tons of kids, and like no staff. Idk where Corrie was all day. It was so lame. Good day overall though. Aiden started making me a friendship bracelet. He kept telling me all day how much he was going to miss me. He came up to me, and was like..."ms. Caryssa, I'm a little nervous." What I asked. "What if you forget about me?" I started tearing up. "I'm never ever going to forget about you, Aiden. Ever." then he said, "and I'm worried about something else too. What if I forget about you? My memory is usually only good for about a year." I was crying by this point. Also during snack, we were having a mix of fruit. And i was like, awesome! Ms. Corrie put everything amazing in it. he was like, "even you?" That kid man. I would do anything to be with him always. I love him to death.

August 14, 2011

Today....I took a personal day. I woke up pretty early, surprisingly, but I just ended up staying in the hotel room all day, and so did Rebecca. It was nice. We just packed and took rests. About ten minutes of packing per 30 minutes of resting and watching movies. I felt like it was quite a nice combo. And then...I went to bed at like eight pm. I am sooooo glad because for once in my life since being here I actually got some sleep. That was much much needed yay.

August 13, 2011

Today is Saturday! After getting back at 6am, I slept in until like eleven thirty pm, which was nice to sleep in, but it was still not me getting a lot of sleep. Then a bunch of us got ready to go downtown and go shopping. Downtown was really nice, and the weather was awesome. We only went a couple of places, but it was just right. We ate doner kebob's too, which was good because I think that's the last time I'll be able to do so before leaving the country. We went to the new yorker and h & m for shopping. H &M basically has the exact same stuff that they have had for the entire summer, so not that exciting. But....The New yorker was amazing! They had soooo many shirts on sale. I got nine shirts, a dress, and heels for about 40 euro. Not bad, even with the exchange rate I will say :) Good day. That night we got ready and went downtown at around ten. We went to the tequila bar first, just because it was the only place everyone knew how to find since it was right near the train station. We didn't stay there long, and then we headed out on the town. Only stayed out til like five this time, but really really fun night !

August 12, 2011

today was the second to last friday of camp.... so sad. The day went pretty smoothly. This was Kiara's actual last day. It was extremely sad. I did pretty good all day with this, and so did she. We had a heart to heart near the end of the day, and I told her about the plusses and minuses about going home and stuff. I think it helped her. At closing I almost had a breakdown and teared up a lot, but kept it pretty together. Mostly because Ms. Anna was being a jerk and was like really ragging on all of the people who were crying, which was quite a few of the kids. Sooooo sad. I don't know why she was being a jerk. As soon as we got back inside after going out for closing though, I had to step out of the room. I was crying really hard for a little bit and then a lot of the other kids who were crying got sent to the bathroom by Anna to clean up, and I saw them on their way. Kiara and I hugged and I told her that God was going to be with her on her journey in life. Then I was off work, and I got picked up by the Roys to go to dinner and then Planet of the Apes. It was a really really good movie, and I really enjoyed it for sure! Then came back, talked to mom for a bit and got ready to GO OUT! We had so much fun downtown. The girls from patch brought a dude from their work, Mr. Jacob, and Mr. Mike met up with us at like midnight. I guess he tried to find us at 11 when we said we would be at La'Oasis, the first place we went, but he didn't see us for some reason even though we were the only people there. Weird. But at least he met up with us. I didn't drink that much, but we all ended up staying out til like six or so dancing and stuff. It was for sure just awesome! The second place we went after La'Oasis was sooooo hot that I was literally completely drenched in sweat and I couldn't handle it so we left that place. The next place was called like Proton or something, and we ended up like dancing downstairs where the floor like lit up. It was pretty cool. Good good night

August 11, 2011

Today was our last real field trip day since next week will be opening ceremonies. It was to the zoo in Stuttgart, which was pretty cool. I was in a group with Mr. Eric again, which was really fun, and it was just awesome! We had a lot of the good kids. My favorite things were like the Elephants and stuff, but it sucked because a lot of the good cats weren't out. Oh well. Good day. Although it was weird not having Corrie there. She was on vacation. Ms. Margaret was not the same.

August 10, 2011

Today was a pretty good day, and I enjoyed it immensely. The kids were still nuts, but we had a lot of fun. It was crazy hair day and pajama day. Michael (the kids) showed up in like full on pajamas with a robe. Kiara had like intense ratted hair, and Devin. Omg… Devin. He like shaved his hair so that it was in an arrow like in avatar the last air bender. It was absolutely amazing. It was kind of nice to just wake up and change only a little so that I could go. And wearing sweatpants all day was absolutely the best. There weren’t very many of us today because Anna and Wesley had training, and so did Mike for part of the day. I had a good time though. After work Emily and I made the most likely awards for the kids. It was really good. But very sad at the same time. Now watching movies. Imma miss Germany for sure.

August 9, 2011

Today was kind of a rough day. The kids were nuts, and I was just having issues. I don’t exactly remember everything, but cooking club for example was a wreck. We made like pizza on tortillas, and it was like, the kids were going insane and crazy and I couldn’t even handle it. Kyiah at one point like knocked Z’kyiah’s pizza over even because they were so insane. I was really angry. Oh well. Things happen. Mike was kind of annoying too. I don’t know. The way he talks to the kids sometimes, he isn’t like mean but I just don’t like his tone. Even though I guess I can understand that the kids were nuts. Whatever. Day over. At the end of the day, some of us went to dinner at an Italian restaurant, and it was like really really good. Chris paid for drinks, and Cody bought most of the meals, which was really nice. Ok, night!

August 8, 2011

Today was the first day back after Berlin. I for sure missed it a lot, and I was so incredibly tired. It was a great day though. The beginning of the day was just kind of normal, but then the rest of the day was great. Surprisingly, after my nap everything was the best. I had to walk to the gym, which sucked cuz it is like a twenty minute walk and then right when I got there we had to walk back. The kids used this portable radio to sing to on the way there. I did that with them in the front and was like jamming with them. It is so much fun. The only thing that really really sucked was that Aidan isn’t there for the whole week. I am like so so sad. I went and hung out with Mike after work, and we just talked and stuff, and his parents made me dinner. But when we started talking about the kids I for sure teared up because I’m going to miss the kids so much, especially Aidan. I don’t know what I’m going to do without him. For dinner we had this like pasta and the sauce was made out of duck and they like got it in Venice or something. That’s just crazy. Bu5t it was soooooo good. I wasn’t expecting that at all. And I actually ate tomatoes with mozzarella. Still don’t like tomatoes, but I was being nice. Great night. Ok, bye!

Berlin! Aka August 6-7

Berlin, berlin, berlin…..the weekend that may never really be completely spoken of. I will say though that it was possibly one of the most epic and fun weekends of my entire life and I wish like crazy that I would have had like another week or two there. It is by far my favorite German city. We left on Friday night and had to take a taxi into downtown. There were like strikes on all of the regional trains for some reason, and so there were major issues getting downtown. And although those issues were resolved midday, there were still no U bahn trains running until the next morning. LAME! How can train people go on strike? That seems like wrong. Soooo many people here depend on the trains. Its like the metro is in new York. Just not able to get by without it. I’m wondering how many people had to like miss work and stuff because of it. Insane. I guess the issue was resolved by giving the train workers like a raise and 30 more vacation days. 30 more days????? What the heck. That seems so incredibly wrong. I mean that is an entire month extra. Germans already have all sorts of crazy holidays all of the time. Like sooo many. At least like four or five a month. I have no idea how this country is so productive. Although I guess I too might be more motivated in life if I had more days off to look forward to lol. Ok. So anyways, we took a taxi downtown with my group of five and then one of the new girls that camp had brought in. Oddly enough, she was telling us about how in Interlaken, Sam had gotten one of her best friends sent home. I can’t believe that the story he told us was true. He told us all about how he had saved some girl in Interlaken who had been like stalked by some guy. We had all thought that he just made it up to scare us, but it was real. Except completely exaggerated. Nothing was actually wrong, the girl wasn’t even really drunk, Sam just thought the guy she was dancing with was creepy and approached her about it. He then called her PC and our project director Kacey. So lame. I guess it was her mistake though for introducing herself as camp adventure to the PC she recognized from Iowa. Dumb dumb. Always deny deny deny…. Lol. Ok so we get downtown and find out our 11:05 train should still be working fine since it was a fast train. RJ66. Like rail jet or something like that. And anyways, We get this together and go shopping in a market for some stuff to take with us on the train. At like 9:55, we go up to the station and look for our gate. Oh awesome, the train is delayed by thirty minutes. How is that possible! We are going to miss our connection in Mannheim and not be on the night train to berlin! We were so upset, because we were at the station in time to catch the 9:50 train that had just left, we just didn’t know that we had needed to take it! So we run down to the office that is about to close, and we find out that there is not another train that could get us there leaving from Mannheim until three that morning and there would be three changes instead of a direct train that we could sleep on. BOO! So we were so pissed. Then we find out that Molly and Briggette, two people from our group, had taken the earlier train and not told anyone else! They had our reservations for the night train, what were we supposed to do! Why wouldn’t they tell us. Not happy at all, and we were like freaking out. So We each drank a mini bottle of champagne and started praying that the train was going to be on time or that our connecting train would also be delayed. We finally make it to Mannheim like half an hour after our train was supposed to have left, and there it was just sitting there! Joy af all joys! They had waited because so many people on the connection had reservations for that train! Hallelujiah! We were able to make it to our seats after running across the platform and sit down just as it was about to leave. Sigh of relief and I actually got a pretty good night sleep. Except for these two stupid boys who were just like making tons of noise and not caring about anyone else. They were so annoying and all of the like German people were telling them to shut up. So finally, peace and sleep. The next morning, we made it to Berlin at like 8am about, and we changed into clothes for the day and ate breakfast at the McDonalds. (and what we had packed). Then we headed off to see some of the sites in Berlin before checking into the hostel to get ready for beerfest and the night. Molly Briggette, and Rebecca had already been to berlin, so they didn’t want to see the same stuff as some of us. Mary Beth, Bre, Leah, and I ended up traveling together that day and it was for sure a complete blast. I can’t even say how much fun I had. We walked to all of the important buildings, like the bridge, this arch thing, and other great buildings. We saw the memorial of people who died in the war, and went to a german history museum. The german history museum was absolutely amazing. It had the history of Germany from like 100 ad to like present. By far the coolest stuff was the stuff about knights and castles with all of the armor displays, and all of the WWII stuff. SO much stuff, it was incredible. One of my favorite museums I’ve ever been to. Then we went and saw checkpoint Charlie, which is the point at which my camera died. We were going to try and go see the wall at this point, but we decided to do it the next day when there would be more time, and then we could go drop all of our stuff off at the hostel so that we could change and feel not so sweaty and gross. It was SOOOO much hotter that weekend than we all thought it was going to be. I like can’t belive how hot it was. We were all dripping sweat and in jeans and stuff. Bleh. When we got to the hostel and checked in, we all took off most of our clothes, opened the windows, and napped for like an hour. It was much needed. Then when we woke up we got ready to go out for the day. I dressed in my new shorts and a black shirt. Leah and Bre wore awesome dresses. And so did Mary beth! She doesn’t usually dress up, but we convinced her to wear a dress and do her hair. It was so great! She looked amazing. Then we met up with Briggette, Molly, and Rebecca to go to beerfest! The train ride there was ridiculous. It was so hot on the trains. I was like, if we don’t get off, I’m going to break these windows open! We were literally dripping sweat. It was insane. But when we finally got there, it was absolutely amazing! There was an entire alley called karl Marx Alley that was like massive, and the entire thing was one huge long outdoor beer thing. There were hundreds of breweries who set up outdoor beer booths and stuff. There were hundreds of thousands of people. So crazy. Hundreds of tables. We were like, wow. That’s amazing. Then…. Fricken Molly and Briggette started trying to find two of their friends who I had met at directors training. Their names were like Trevor and Jamie or something like that. I thought he was gay and she was a lesbian, but turns out that they are dating. Huh. I guess there is someone out there for everyone. Except for me yet. But someday! But when Molly and Briggette were trying to find them, they were being soooo horrible. They like were dragging us along with them when we just wanted to stop and get to know people and have fun. They were like, “and…we’re walking.” “one two three eyes on me.” Really? Are we children? I was sooo upset. Everyone was. The worst was that when we met up with their stupid friends, they were like apologizing for our behavior, and we weren’t even being crazy! Molly was like, “ I’m sorry. They aren’t usually like this….” What the hell. Absolutely ridiculous. So we left them. Finally! And then we just had a blast. Everything was great! We met tons of awesome people, took pictures with guys in lederhosen, drank a little, walked around a lot and talked. Then after hours had passed by, we went to an absinthe bar and tried that. Probably not the best idea. I had a drink of one that was like 80 % and it was bad news bears. It smelled like black licorice, but it was soooo incredibly strong, it literally burned the entire way down. Ah! I had to call it a night after that, even though I was sad I didn’t get to go dancing. Mary Beth and I took back the trains, and got there around like midnight. Full eight hours of sleep for me, yay! Woot woot! It was great. I woke up the next morning feeling amazing! Sadly, for the others, they didn’t get in until like six in the morning and they only got like two hours of sleep. We got up the next morning to go see the berlin wall before we went to beerfest to be part of the longest beer table. The Berlin wall was absolutely amazing. We went to the East Side Gallery. It had like different murals by different people and stuff. I thought it was great that it was painted like this, and a lot of them had like great messages. After that, we went to beerfest and got our stuff together for our table at beerfest! They were going for the world record of like the longest beergarden in the world. We reserved a spot a while ago, and so did another group. For some reason, Noheley was the only person who did not end up on the reservation. So we were like, don’t tell Molly and Briggette, but you five take that reservation, and then the four of us will take the other reservation. We didn’t even want to deal with meeting up with them and stuff. So lame. Ok. So we found our brewery and showed them our reservation, and then we were able to get our free beer, with the free mug, and then a free gift from the brewery. We got these like little tea light candle things. Pretty awesome. I wore my drindle, which is like the traditional german dress. It was awesome. I took a picture with these old guys who were dressed in like what I would think of as colonial wear, but it couldn’t be because Germany didn’t have colonies. Lol. All was a great success, I loved berlin, and will definitely always remember it. For forever and ever and ever.

August 5, 2011

So today was kind of a rough day. An absolutely great day, but for sure really really rough. I had to say goodbye to some of my amazing children. Franci was the one that was hardest to say goodbye to. For as creepy and odd he has been about being in love with me and stuff, I had an absolutely amazing summer with him, and I will miss him so much. He drew me this goodbye card and it was adorable. He said he loves and likes me at the same time. Asia, whose first week was this week, and I had to part also. She was adorable and we bonded this week. And then little Tom, who was such a jerk the first week he was here, and then he was one of my besties this week. I'm really going to miss him too. The kids during the day had a really rough day. We were playing steal the bacon and had to quit because three or four of the kids had like emotional breakdowns. So weird. But by the end of the day none of that mattered. I started to tear up when it came time to closing because I knew I was going to have to say goodbye. And then Franci started bawling, so I started bawling. And then a lot of the other kids did. Mike had to step away because he started to tear up too lol. Guys are so funny about showing their emotions lol. Well, i gotta go pack for berlin now. Peace.

August 4, 2011

Today was an absolutely amazing day with the kids <3 We went on a field trip to Schwaben park, which was like an amusement park that also had some like zoo animal cages. It was pretty cool, and I really liked it. I had an amazing group as well. Eric and I were the ones who led the group. Fricken Mike. He for sure slept in too late and missed the bus there. How lame! But oh well. Eric and I had a great time. We had a lot of the older kids who wanted to go on all of the rides. The four "main guys" as I am going to call them, Wesley, Tyrece, Tom, and Brandon. They are like the guys that are too cool for school and are too "guy" to want to really do much of anything, especially listen. But today for some reason, they really turned a corner. Especially with Tom, cuz he and I didn't really get along. But today he was like all talking to me, so much so that he like wouldn't shut up. And all the four boys were fighting over holding my hand and all were hanging on me and stuff. It even got to where they were all four sharing holding my hands at once. it was so adorable. I want to have a little boy so bad...Anyways, they were awesome. We had Destiny and Aaron in our group and were like....eh. that won't be so much fun. But Aaron was amazing. Usually he is the one who flails his arms and stuff, but he went on every single ride and didn't wine or anything at all. It was amazing. Destiny was awful for most of it, but that's only one out of like twleve! It was heavenly. I am going to miss my kids so much. Aidan is amazing and I love him with my whole heart.... more and more every day. Who knows. Maybe I'm meant to have an amazing curley haired little child like Nikolas or Aiden. Or at least adopt one. lol.

August 3, 2011

Today was a hard day I will say. I just kind of woke up on the wrong side of the bed after I had a dream about Dillon and during this dream I fell and effed up my mouth, and therefore had to go to the hospital to fix my mouth. Yes. Not a fun dream. My subconscious just doesn't leave me alone sometimes. Anyways, that was hard. My mustache and high class outfit for the high class mustache bash I will say was quite awesome. I had slacks and a nice shirt, and had my hair curled. I also popped out the lenses from my 3D glasses and drew on an amazing mustache with my mascara. It looked pretty real too. The best part was walking to the bus and then from the bus to the SAC center. The people were all for sure doing double takes and like what the heck looks. The best was probably when the CDC bus drove by since they were going on a field trip, and all of these little kids were like pointing out of the windows of the bus and staring. It was fun judging all of the kids and their mustaches and stuff. There were paper ones, and ones drawn on. So awesome. The rest of the day kind of went downhill from there. 17 of the kids went on a field trip to some ice caves or something. Hiking plus me = no fun, so Emily went on that one. And there were only like 13 kids left, and there were like five of us staff there. So Ms. B (and we still know what that stands for) and then Ms. Anna were working on rinsing out all of the tie die shirts. We all assumed they finished them. Def not. We find out like at the end of the day when Ms. B was leaving that they didn't finish them. So Mike and I took some of the kids over to finish rinsing and rerinsing the shirts. The ones they had done weren't really done well anyways sigh. They had set all the shirts they had done in a huge bin. Like the worst idea ever. the die got all crazy and mixed and stuff grrr..... and there were still SOOOO many shirts that they had not done at all. I ended up staying for two hours with Mary beth and Cody washing out all these shirts and placing them in separate bags so that they could not be mixed anymore before they were washed in the washing machine. Ms. Anna like chided me for using so many bags because they are so expensive and blah blah blah. Sorry I took so long of my day to do this. Geez. And its like what the heck. You could have finished this like we all thought you did or said something when there was enough staff and few enough kids that we could FINISH IT! I was soooo mad. And better, no one saved me a cookie from snack. So i ate snack at the Youth center, which i'm not really supposed to do. Corrie walked in on it, but at least she didn't say anything. Then afterwards Anna took all of the no name extra shirts I had put in separate bags and mixed them all together again. Not cool. SO MAD! At least after work Gaby and Juan's mom took Emily and I to Tobingen, which is a little town near Stuttgart. It looked like what I would picture an oldtime, old fashioned town in germany looking like. It was amazing. I wish my camera battery would have lasted longer. And she also took us to get dinner. We ended up having Doner Kebab, which is like shaved lamb in bread with sauce and cucumbers and stuff. It is like Turkish or something. We ended up being late coming back to our Manditory fun night thing. We did the thing like last year where all the directors contacted that families and tried to get packages sent for a secret christmas thing. Unfortunately Emily's family never got back, so I spent the last couple of days putting together a package for her. I got he kids to secretly sign a card for her and had a group photo. We did white elephant gifts too, and I got this like head massager. We are also now playing assassain with socks like we did last year at camp. Yes, most of these were my ideas. I feel like though I wasn't completely let in on all of the planning for this night, and that also pisses me off. Ok.....attitude check. I will get my person for sure. Ok. I am going to go to bed now since it is really really late and i have to be up so early for my field trip tomorrow!

August 2, 2011

Today was a pretty great day. It was just pretty basic stuff that happened, but I really enjoyed it. Aiden has been really really cuddley again, but again. i absolutely love it. One really fun thing we did that was different but took up a lot of time was tie dying. We have been waiting the entire summer to tie dye our completely white field trip tee shirts. Thank goodness we finally get to do it. It will look a lot lot lot better with the colors on it. Most the kids did really good with putting the die on and stuff, but some kids like Franci just kept pouring and pouring on the die lol. We'll see how that one turns out. Tomorrow is the high class mustache bash where everyone will dress up and have a mustache. It is going to be amazing.

August 1, 2011

Can you even believe it is August. What in the world. I have less than three full weeks left now, which is crazy. I dont' want to leave anymore like I did a few weeks ago. It makes me really sad to think about. I do miss my family though, but now I really really don't want to go back to school. But today was just a great day. Probably one of the best since I've been here. Morning PT and stuff was hard, since the kids really wouldn't listen, but in all everything was amazing. We had like 28, so more than last week, but not insane, which was good. We also had Mike Wesley, Eric, and even Anna (who has been on Vacation) back since the majority of them finished last week's training. It was great to have them back, and the kids were so excited. We did just normal camp stuff with them. The gym was really fun. I ran around and played tag and stuff with the children. It was awesome. I don't run around with them all the time like that and stuff, so it was great. We had Izzy back this week, which is AWESOME because she is such a great dancer. Some of the time was spent trying to figure out the dance she was teaching everyone. I wish I could pick up some of her dancing skills. During the whole day, Kyhia and Sebastian were like whispering and they flirted and stuff. Apparently they started dating during gym and they were so happy and doing great. But by closing, Kyiah was sad and stuff. They had broken up for sure by closing. Oh child relationships. So cute. and Sad. And odd. After work Mr. Mike and I talked and had milkshakes at the PX and hung out. Then we took a walk and just talked and stuff. That was nice. Our meeting tonight with Sam was all about like end of summer evals and stuff. it is so very sad. I am going to miss my kids so so so much...

Camping in Frankfurt and Mainz! aka July 29-31

Ok, so this weekend for sure was amazing!!!!!!! So thursday night after everything, I called my mommy, cried for a couple of hours, fell asleep and had no dreams for once... and then I woke up strangely at peace. I think I knew being with Dillon deep down wasn't right. Because I'm oddly fine for everything that has happened. Which could also have something to do with the fact that I have still not returned to America, but regardless. Even last summer in Japan with the month prior to leaving and like the first month or so I was there, I was a complete emotional wreck and so incredibly hurt. But this time it was like two days, and I was doing ok. Or maybe I just was so used to him hurting me that I kind of became a little more hard hearted. Whatever the reason. I was fine, and I had SUCH an amazing day at the SAS with my kids. We watched All Dogs go to Heaven with them, which was a little bit sad and I was kind of depressed lol. But because the movie was sad. Emily and I and Ms. Mary Beth for sure teared up. Aiden comes up to me sometime during the day, and pointed his fingers like two guns, nodded his head at me and said, touche. Omg, it was one of the cutest things ever. I like died a little bit inside because it was so cute. So all day long, all of us were doing that. And I feel like in general I was just more grateful for my kids than I have been during this trip. I'm not going to like blame dillon for this, but he sure dictated a lot of my moods like when he wouldn't call or get on skype or answer his phone for days....maybe that should have been a sign. hmm. Anyways. After work, Mike took Emily and I to the Kelly hotel, and we changed and packed and got ready for Frankfurt. In Frankfurt, we went to this like techno club to dance and stuff. Before like a certain time it was free, so we did that and got a beer and danced for a long time. Germans dance really differently than Americans, which isn't exactly a bad thing. In America, everyone is like all up on eachother and it can get kind of awk and stuff, and Everyone dances with anyone. At this techno club, everyone was juts in their own little bubble bopping around. Like no one was touching unless there was like two people actually dancing together. It was kind of cool. Another different thing was that because all the music was techno, there was like no words to sing to. I guess I never really noticed that a lot of what I enjoy about going out and dancing with friends is that I get to sing along with it. But it was pretty easy to get used to and Emily Mike and I had a blast. That night we slept in the car in the parking lot right next to the club. It is probably one of the most questionable things I have ever done, but we had Mr. Mike, so it wasn't like super dangerous or anything. We woke up the next morning at like nine or so. Then we got ready for the day at a bathroom in a McDonalds in Downtown Frankfurt and explored Frankfurt. It is a pretty cool city. We found this odd little discount store, and then there was like this shop that had traditional German Dresses. SOOOO cool. Emily and I tried them on and fell in love so much that we couldn't help but buy them even though they were way expensive. We also ran into another Gay or Lesbian fest like what we saw in Munich. It was pretty funny, and a little awk. After all of this, we ended up driving to Mainz and finding where we were going that night. We were going to a foam party, which Emily and Mike surprised me with. So we found where that was going to be, and then sat in the car and played cars and watch Across the Universe. Just doing nothing like that was a lot of fun. Its the first time I've done that really since being in Germany. Then we changed into comfy clothes and got ready to go the party. OK. So Emily and I both put swimming suits under like comfortable clothes, Mike... and every other German there wore really nice clothes and the girls wore dresses and heels. Emily and I were like Eff that... we are going to get all nasty. Why would we want to be in really nice clothes! At the party, it was absolutely sik. Like the cooolest thing I've ever seen or done probably ever. The party was like in this ice rink where there was no ice, and then on the ceiling there was this like machine that let out foam , and it was like bubbles everywhere up to my shoulders most places, and in the middle up above my head. Its just crazy. We all danced for EVER in all the bubbles and everything. And at this party there was popular music that I was familiar with, so we were all singing along with it and like dancing. It was sooo so so so much fun. When we were done that night we like changed into dry clothes and were so tired we passed right out. Unfortunately, I had trouble sleeping. My arthritic hands can only go for so long with sleeping in the back of the car. Oh yes, we slept in the back of a car again that night right outside the building the party was in. But we ended up sleeping in until like noon, so it was all good. The next day we woke up, packed up, and headed back to Stuttgart. When we got there we went to Mike's house and went on a bike ride. I haven't ridden a bike for like years and years and years, so I was a little bit scared! but it was really fun. It was nice not to have to wear a helmet like I would in Washington. I don't enjoy hat hair. We brought Mike's dog Lucky along with us, and he is this like huge golden retriever. He got into the mud and ended up rubbing mud all over the back of my shirt bleh!!!! Then Mike, Emily, and I watched 2012 while we ate dinner and stuff. i love Mike's mom. She is so sweet. She is like Polish, so she has the coolest accent, and she kept offering us like water, tea, cake, etc. So so sweet. Well, that was the end of the trip. It was like exactly what I needed, and I had SUCH a blast.

July 28, 2011

Wow. So.Today started out with me getting up an hour late accidentally. And then I get on Skype to talk to my wonderful boyfriend. Who's laptop conveniently doesn't have video that particular morning. Come to find out...oh yes, I am being dumped while I am in an effing different country by the boy I thought I was going to marry. I sure know how to pick winners. The rest of the day consisted of me trying to hold it together while I was watching the kids at this random fun park place, and it was like super hard. I had to go off to the bathroom a couple of times to cry. I also cried literally the entire bus ride there. Mostly, I think I was in shock. I mean seriously who does the exact same thing to someone three times like that. But then again, who lets someone do that to them three times. Fail for sure on my part. I don't think I can ever give a second chance again, because I figure the guy I'm supposed to end up with won't need one. If you love someone you don't leave them for any reason (except like cheating or abuse) period. There is no....when its convenient for me crap. You fight for what you love, not push them away. And I deserve better than that. I think more than anything this time, I am just angry. So angry that he thinks he has the right to lead anyone on like this three times, angry that I let him lead me on, angry for not seeking what I deserved instead of what I wanted, and angry for how much time I have wasted on someone who was not even worth my time to begin with. And Not only did I lose the person I loved more than anyone I ever have before, I lost my best friend, and the potential future I had with him. And I know I'll find someone for me. Someone who would rather die than leave me, and someone who can say, "You are perfect for me" and "I won't live without you." That's what I want. I don't need all the cheesy fairy tale bull. I just want something real, and something that will last, and something that is blessed by God. My own version of a fairy tale. And I will, and I am going to wait for that. It is sad it took me three times with the same person to realize, but I loved him. And I loved who I knew he could be perhaps more than who he actually was. I took all the good times and made excuses for the bad things and the things that irked me. Because when you love someone, you love all of them, not just the pieces you want to. So I guess you could say I have been blinded by love for almost two years. But this time is already different, and that makes me hopeful. I'm not feeling the urge to be friends, and desperately seeking his approval. I'm not hoping one day he will change his mind and want me back. I'm not looking to my future as hopeless and not thinking I will ever love anyone the way I love him like I did last time. I know for sure, that what God has in store for me is going to be so much better. And if I loved Dillon that much, I can't even wait to feel what I will for the man I end up falling in love with and marrying, and starting a family with. And this time, he will feel that and more back for me too. Because that's what I deserve. Someone who will put in as much effort into a relationship as I did. Being in a relationship means you always give 100% of what you have. Of course sometimes you don't have that much to give due to hardships or whatever, but you still give 100% of what you do have. Its about give and take, not pushing away and hiding when things get hard. I really did love him more than I can even say, and each time he looked at me I thought how lucky I was to love someone as handsome as him. But i'd rather be able to say "how lucky am I to be able to love someone as handsome, selfless, and loving as he is." and someday I will.

Before we left for the field trip, when we first got to the center, I dazily walked up to the center and saw Aiden running towards me to cuddle with me and give me a hug. At that moment, i started to tear up, and all I could think is, Thank God for kids. Two summers in a row they have helped me deal with a breakup by just being there. I gave Aiden the biggest bear hug and thanked him for being so excited to see me. At the field trip, we were at another indoor fun park thing called Jump Inn. There was this huge blow up slide and trampolines, and everything else was basically like Fun Park. After lunch Emily and I sat at the top of the huge slide and watched kids go down it, and sometimes went ourselves. Juan kept stealing our walkie talkies. he is like a pick pocket in the making, it was soooo impressive.

July 27, 2011

So, today was an ok day. Just meh altogether. Another average day. I guess it has kind of been an average week. Maybe I need to do an attitude check tonight. So again we had like kids in the low twenties, so there weren't so many. But again, they were nuts. It wasn't that bad though I guess. I was just kind of exhausted. But I don't know why the kids wouldn't listen. It was really rainy, so the kids didn't get to go outside that much. This was disappointing because the kids needed to go outside and run out their energy and they couldn't. It caused a lot of problems. Ok. So today Franci, he made me this card during the day. It was a very creepy card. He made a maze on the outside of it, and then he drew a heart in the middle. He said, this is my heart, and this is the maze you have to go through to get to it. Then he drew stick figures of us in the middle. He said it was his kingdom, and he was the king and I was the queen. Then he said that the little thing that I saw in my hand of the stick figure was a little baby. Oh joy of all joys, Franci drew our baby. I was like...oh.....thanks franci.....thats just awesome. soooooo creepy. Another kid, Aaron, came up to Ms. Emily, and he said.... "Ms. Emily, look at my eyes, now look at my feet. You just checked me out." Ms. Emily was like. wtf. That is so weird. Our kids have such odd personalities. The rest of the day was pretty blah. I am really tired. We had the bbq for the new camp A people. they seem really nice, and it was good to get grilled food. woo.

July 26, 2011

So, there were only about 20 kids again, but they were monsters! I have no idea what has been going on with them this week, but it has been crazy. lol. We only got 1/2 hour lunch breaks today, which kind of sucked because I am way behind on reading my book. My reading has slowed down a lot in the last two weeks because I have been a lot busier. But regardless, it was a pretty good day. The highlight was probably taking a mini field trip to the PX. We walked there and they gave us pizza while we listened to a presentation on theft. Who knew that would be a problem on a military base. I guess alot of it is like the teens and stuff though. The kids thought it was the coolest thing ever that there were cameras all over the PX. lol. it was cute. I thought it was soo cool that I got a free slice of pizza. woo! Especially since it was pizza hut and that is my favorite. The low point of the day was probably doing cooking club. Which sounds fun in itself, but it in reality was certainly not. It was like.....not cooking. It was a lesson about fad diets. What kind of child care worker thought that this was a good idea. The children were whining, why aren't we done yet...this is so boring...and Ms. Emily and I were like, we know, lets just get through it fast so that we can do something else! Gr. Of course it was Ms. B who came up with this lesson. I don't know why we can't just do more of our own. Oh well. After work, Emily and I went to the PX to buy food for the welcome dinner for the camp A people that are coming tomorrow. It was a lot of food. I hope that everyone pays me back because I put a lot of my own money into this. If not, I'm sure that Sam will. Then Mr. Mike picked us up and took us to his house to hang out. We made pasta and rice crispy treats and ate outside. Then we watched a movie called Red Baron and just talked. it was a movie about planes. i'm not quite sure what went on because we were talking and I fell asleep lol. But it seemed like it would be good. Overall, pretty good day.

July 25, 2011

So today is the first day of the seventh week. Wow. I can't believe I have been here for this long. The day was ok. The kids were medium good, and there were only 22 of them. Which is way lower in numbers than there were last week. Mike, Eric and Wesley are in training this entire week, so the center brought in staff from elsewhere. Cody from the teen center and Clay from sports Camp A are helping out. They are great, but it kind of threw off Emily and my groove and I'm just not fond of change in general. I want our boys back! Well....not much more to say for today. average day, good times

AMSTERDAM AND BRUSSELS aka: July 23-24, 2011

This weekend was amazing to say the least. I had such a blast the entire way through. I will say that Amsterdam did beat Brussels, but I enjoyed both of them immensely. So after getting to bed Friday night around 12:30 am, I went to sleep for three hours and then got up to get ready for Amsterdam. I had to get up so early because we had to leave for the train station at 4:40, and I had to run to the ATM to get money first as well sigh. To say the least, I was extremely tired lol. But everything got off without a hitch, and it was all great. We got to the train station, and then ended up finding two of the only open seats we could see on the train going to Koln, which was where we were supposed to transfer. It was nice sitting in an awesome seat. The ICE trains are way nicer than most of the other ones. They have like head pillows attached to the seats. How amazing is that. I slept the whole way to our transfer. We ended up having to run to our next train, but we made it in good time. The trains when we were actually in Holland were way better. Like so incredibly nice. And all the people were WAY nicer too. German people in general seem more cold, while Dutch people were way friendly and awesome. We got there, and we started walking around town. I love Amsterdam. It was so....quaint. I think that is a perfect word to describe it. I loved seeing everything there. The houses were really tall and thin or different colors. Then there were canals everywhere. It kind of reminded me of venice, except that the canals are far less winding, and they make more sense. There are tons of floating houses on the canals that look like motor homes that float. it is quite hilarious and adorable. A lot of them have like gardens and/or tables and chairs on top. Some of the houses were odd because it looked like they were leaning into the house next to them. Like they were falling over and got caught by the other houses. The first thing Mary Beth and I did (we were the only two) was make our way to the Anne Frank House. While we made our way there, we stopped at little shops and just looked around the town. I loved all the blue and white china that they sold everywhere. In the first shop we were in, I of course knocked down a stupid glass thing and broke it. So lame. This is the first time I've had to pay for something I broke though, so I guess I had it coming. I bought lots of stuff though. The Anne Frank house line only took us like an hour or so to get through, so it wasn't that bad. It was like really sad, and emotional to go through that house. I was kind of disappointed that it wasn't furnished, but her father in the 60's didn't want it to be furnished. I think it may have something to do with that it wouldn't be the authentic furniture since that was taken. But it had models of the rooms and what they would have looked like. In each of the rooms of the house, they had quotes from Anne Frank's diary and what each of the rooms was used for. It was really sad. I read Anne Frank's diary when I was very very young, but I had forgotten like that she wanted to be a famous journalist and that she was rewriting pages in her diary with the purpose of future publication. I think it is crazy. I guess her sister Margo wrote a diary too, and they just never found it. i think it would have been interesting if at the end of it all both of their diaries would have been found. it would have been interesting to see the two different perspectives. The coolest part of the Anne Frank house was probably the bookcase that kept the entrance to their annex secret. The bookcase was like not completely covering the entrance of the door, and so the wallpaper was put over the front of the door. It was so cool. I cried at the end, when it showed pictures of them and then what concentration camp they were taken to. I was so sad when I looked at the pictures of Otto Frank and Edith Frank. They were in love, and they were separated at the end of her life. Can you imagine what that would be like? It would be so hopeless and alone. No wonder so many of them died, not just the horrible conditions, but being so completely alone. It would be hard to find something to live for. After the Anne Frank house, we needed something lighter, so we walked along one of the canals and went to the IAmsterdam sign. You know the tourism places are always marked with an i for the information. Well, IAmsterdam is amsterdam's like special slogan for their tourism stuff.The sign is pretty cool. On the way there we saw lots of Coffee shops. Coffee shops in Amsterdam are a lot different than they are in America. Coffee shops in Amsterdam are the only place where weed can be sold really. It is very interesting. They are all decked out in this like hippie stuff, and walking by them, all you could smell was weed. bleh. We even peaked our heads inside of one, and then saw that on the tables they have paper to roll joints with. So interesting that it is allowed like that. The final big thing we did in Amsterdam was go to the Red Light District. Yes, this is kind of weird, but Amsterdam is famous for it so we had to check it out. It wasn't quite dark yet, so it wasn't as gross I guess as it could be, although the street didn't look quite as cool without it being as lit up. There were so many sex shops on the street. Along with this, there were tons of buildings that had women dancing in the windows. If they were occupied, a curtain was pulled over the windows. If not, then the women were dancing with not a lot of clothing so they could attract a male. I can't believe something like that is legal anywhere. Goodness. By the end of this, we were super tired, so we went on our three hour train to Brussels. I slept a lot on the train, although when we got there I figured out that our check in date on our reservation for the hostel wasn't correct. Um.....we were like. wtf. I really hope this print out is wrong. We walked to the hostel when we got there, and right away we walked into the middle of this like huge fair with rides and everything. It took us a while, but we finally got there. It was true sadly. We did book the hostel for the wrong day. Thank goodness they had room, but we had to pay like 10 more euro than we would have, and we lost our 6 euro deposit. I guess all things considering it could have been a lot worse. like not having a place to stay. And this place was really nice. It was called Hotel Van Belle. And best of all.....it included BREAKFAST! And not just any breakfast, this was like the motherload of breakfasts. There was cereal, juice, coffee, bread, cheese, fruit, etc. So many things. I was so excited. I ate quite a bit. Then it was time to explore Brussels! I loved brussels a lot, but Amsterdam was better. Brussels didn't have people that were as nice, and they spoke French which was interesting. We went around the main square, which had all these really old buildings that had gold on them. It was really cool. We also went to like the gardens and the king's living place. Also, the parliament building. The best part of Belgium though by far.....was the Waffles! Omg. I can't even describe how absolutely amazing the waffles were. I had a waffle with strawberries adn chocolate drizzled on top. Amazing. I wasn't aware though that Belgium was such a large place for fine chocolate. But there were basically as many chocolate shops as there were places to get waffles. Which, trust me. I was not complaining. Amsterdam was also more unique than Brussels. A lot of the buildings reminded me of lots of other places in Europe. But still cool. We didn't stay in Brussels long, and then we took a trip back to our lovely home in Stuttgart. It was really nice to get home finally (yes, i have started referring to this as home). We got here in Stuttgart around 8pm, and then we were able to relax for a while before our manditory meeting. At this meeting, we found out that we are getting four new camp adventure staff from somewhere in Germany. They are going to be working at the CDC. They are going to find out withing 48 hours of leaving their site that they are coming. I would be so pissed if I had done camp the first year and been moved so close to the end especially. I don't see why they are moving people who will only be here for three and a half weeks. It seems utterly pointless. But whatever. Had an amazing weekend, got to know Ms. Mary Beth better, and had an amazing time.