the broken key

so hey...i'm on a quick lunch break.  and i thought i'd tell ya about my day off wednesday.  because it's slightly crazy.  me, ashley, corie, and diana had our day off together, so we were like "hey let's go to ocracoke!"  so that morning we ate breakfast at the atlantic coast cafe which is AMAZING and non-expensive and the BOMB place to eat.  it was pretty cold and rainy.  so we drive down to the ferry, and get on the ferry to ocracoke!  woohoo!!

anyways, ashley wants to get her camera out of the car, so i give her the keys and she goes down, and she is SUPER strong and she just breaks the key off the door!  it was incredible!  i've never seen such a massive exhibition of strength and power.  so she came up and showed us the key, and i could not help but just cracking up.  here we are, on a ferry, my car is smack dab in the middle of the ferry going to ocracoke island, where there is no locksmith.  we couldn't get inside the car, and even if we could, we didn't have a key to start it!   my spare key broke about a month ago in SC.  so here we are parked in the middle of the ferry.

after the ferry people moved all the cars from around me, we just stay on the ferry and head back to the hatteras side.  we have pictures documenting this by the way, they should be on facebook soon!  after spending about an hour on the phone, we had a wrecker meet us on the hatteras side to get my car off the boat.  then he pulled it into a parking lot....75 bucks.  we had a locksmith come and just open the door for 20 bucks, so we could get cameras and wallets out.  it's still cold and raining!  ryan came to our rescue, and put down his weedeater and came to pick us up at the ferry.  what a guy.  then, ashley spends about an hour on the phone talking to AAA (she's cool like that) and they tell us they are gonna send a wrecker down there to take my car back to the campground.  so we start heading back, the wrecker called and said we didn't need to be there when we pick it up.  we ate at bubba's b-b-q.  never eat there, ok?  just don't.  they served "new mexican food" and "b-b-q" and it was just weird.  just never eat there.  

a few hours later, my car arrives back at the campground.  this guy used dawn soap detergent to slide my car off of the ramp.  quite humorous.  it was cold and rainy.  that was completely free of charge thanks to AAA!!!!  then, AAA sends a locksmith down to make a totally new key for my car, and so he comes, takes the lock out of my trunk, decodes it, gives me a brand new key plus 2 spares, and AAA covered $170 of the $260 dollar charge.  then we had chapel practice, and then i went to bed.  

at the end of the day i had 1) grown a lot closer to some of the staff, they are absolutely...incredible.  2) i had 2 spare keys for my car, 3) i know never to eat at bubbas, 4) i have about 200 dollars less than i had before my day off, 5) the next day i learned i had direct deposit and God totally took care of finances, 6) i kinda craved a hug from jenny and some ice cream, and 7) it was God that orchestrated my day off.  from beginning to end.  how cool!

we now have 13 summershiners here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

hallelujah for days off!  this weekend was absolutely non-stop!  and when i mean nonstop, i don't mean like just kinda nonstop.  i mean literally, i would get out of bed at however early in the morning, and i would go, and go, and go, and i think my longest break for food (lunch or supper) was 20 minutes on saturday night in which i had to call some people and couldn't even eat, and then i would get in at however late at night at go straight to bed, because i had to sleep or else i couldn't get up and start it all over again!  this was my first experience of having an entire weekend in which every actual minute i had to be somewhere, and some minutes, two or three places at once.  i know numbers don't mean anything when it comes to church, but this is activities at a campground we're talking about, so i'll throw some numbers out at ya!

friday night - campfire with s'mores - 225+

saturday - pancake breakfast - served over 300 something pancakes

- free ice cream - went through 200 cones in around 25 minutes

-tie-dye - around 100 people, which is nothing compared to cherokee's 400!  good grief!

-skit show - around 70!  it was the best skit show i've ever been a part of.  these kids are seriously talented, and hilarious.  they are just...funny.  and all the crowd loved them!

sunday - chapel!  we had around 60 or 70 out for chapel too!  

-giant slip - and -slide!  -over 150 people!

-water balloon volleyball!  we had like 30 or 40 people show up to watch or play, and it was actually pretty fun.  i'd only seen it in pictures before, so wasn't real sure about how it was going to work out.

-movie night - TOY STORY!  i stopped counting at 100 people hanging out watching the movie.  i mean how can you NOT show up to watch a free movie on a 70 something foot tall movie screen?!

monday - just as busy, but not as many people at activites because most everyone checked out.  the campground is now pretty much a ghost town.  but we still have people going to activities, and courtney, the assistant AD, is doing great!  she had several people show up for the planned activities today, even though it was a ghost town!  

we will have 13 summershiners here by thursday!  wow.  and what a bunch of crazy kids they are.  i wish i could work with this group for the rest of my life.  we could do construction, or maybe start a mall, or work at belks, or start a summershine fishing business, or make play-doh!  

so...today!  day off.  i was awakened by a phone call from my manager about some paper work that he needed, so i got up and gave him that, then cleaned my house, put the broken A/C unit back together, then me/tiffany/diana/ryan went to see indiana jones, and then we came back and diana made me and tiffany TOASTED PB&J and it was DELICIOUS!   then we all went to lisa's pizzaria with some of the work campers, and then we came back and watched the sunset, and then played catch phrase, and just hung out!  mandi introduced me and ryan to coloring again, and we all sat there and colored.  diana will probably upload some pictures to facebook soon of me and ryan doing backflips with the sunset...they turned out pretttty sweeeet!  and then i talked to jenny for a while, which was lovely!  i really do like that girl.   i think God's got something up His sleeve for us this summer.  as she says..."He's got a pretty big sleeve!"  

AAAH ! TIME!

man!!!  what a week!  so many things to blog about...yet so little time.  Bible study in 20 minutes. what to say, what to say!  i got an a/c unit!  it's not installed yet.  but after this weekend it might get put in somewhere!

the "lead me to the cross" is going really well!  i had ryan tell me tonight that after it's done, this is a song he would listen to.  not because i was his friend, but because "it's really that cool."  that was a pretty amazing moment in my musical career...if there is one that i have.  but yeah, there are now some drum parts in the 2nd chorus.  and i'm doing everything with garageband and the built-in mic on the laptop.  and by the end of the summer, i'm really aiming for perfection.  no parts left where i say "well i probably could have done it better, but i'm tired of trying."  i mean, this is that can be done with garageband and a built in microphone.  i might upload a sneak peek to facebook sometime.  but it's pretty exciting!

the campground however, is super exciting.  starting tomorrow...it's activites everyday for the rest of the summer.  we have around 12 events happening this weekend alone, starting tomorrow night, and we'll have around 25 on a weekly basis.  FUN stuff too...movie nights and tournaments of all sorts and tie-dye and water balloon volleyball and pirate days and super soaker weekends and christmas in july and water balloon EVERYTHING and man, it's started, and it's happening, and it's super cool.  we have 8 summershiners here now....with 2 more coming this weekend...and 3 next week!  WAAAHOOO!  

 i also got national treasure 2 today...i splurged a little and bought a dvd.  also...i bought yellow cheapy crocs.  pretty fanatical about all this yellow stuff!  there is a fly on top of my foot.  and i've tried kicking it off 50 thousand times.  but it keeps coming back.  and i'm too lazy to get up and get a fly swatter, because i'm typing this blog.  and i'm tired of kicking.  i think i'll just let it crawl around.  this is too weird.  ok i just kicked.  and it's back.  ARRGGGGG!!!!    by the way, do you know a pirate's favorite place to eat?  ARRRRRBY'S!   tell you what!

the staff here is full of energy and ideas and surprises!  but i do miss my family.  i get to talk to jenny pretty much everyday for about 5 or 10 minutes, but i don't get that much time to talk with my family a lot.  but GUESS WHAT?!?!?  THEY HAVE A BLOG NOW!!!!!  so now that you're done reading this...go check it out!

brankfamily.blogspot.com

LUUUNNCCHH TIMEEE!!!!

howdyyy folks!    things are going GREAT here!  of course...there are like...20 campers right now.  but let me tell you, business here runs amazing without many campers.  ok so things really are going great, we've got a lot more people rolling in this weekend, with a super cool line up of activities including more bonfires and s'mores, mini-golf tournament, the NEW super huge inflatable slip-and-slide which we'll have up and running for a bit, we're showing the Jungle Book (old school) on the massive screen, and chapel sunday morning.  and tomorrow...3 more summershiners come in!  WOOHOOO!!!  this is the LAST day that the guy summershiners will outnumber the girl summershiners.  for the rest of the summer.  (gasp.)

don't you just love the jobs where you get a ton of stuff done, your days are packed, and you feel like you're actually accomplishing something?  yeah, i love this.  tonight's Bible study is on Ephesians 4, and how we imitate what God does, and how mostly what God does is love us.  

also...no more two hand tag football!  we got FLAGS!!!!  booyah!  and towels to play water balloon volleyball, and a new volleyball net!!!!  yellow!!!  the last volleyball net lasted through 4 or 5 hurricanes and 3 years worth of major storms and nor'easters!  i've really got high hopes for this one, i mean, i've never even put up a volleyball net before, so we'll see how the knots hold, but this one looks good.  i've glanced over at it several times today and thought "man, if i was bored, seeing that good looking net would could turn me into a volleyball player.  like my sister."  these mosquitos are really getting me.  only ONE MORE WEEK until it's activities everyday for the rest of the summer, and it's gonna be ridiculously cool.  i mean, you should come.  seriously.  right now.  just come.  or, you could seriously, right now, pray for us.  because as cool as this summer's gonna be, one can only handle so much coolness before a partial burnout, so we need prayers for constant strength, energy, and encouragement straight from the Source and the Creator of strength, energy, and encouragement.  you guys are the bomb, thanks for reading!

how awesome would it be to have a moped.

i mean seriously!  a moped!  i mean i've got a car and everything for serious highway driving, but a moped would be incredible!  who really needs to go faster than 45 anyway?  it's either a moped or a super nice acoustic guitar.  but if i had a moped, an acoustic guitar probably wouldn't fit on it.  but a guitar doesn't drive you anywhere, and a moped gets better gas mileage anyway.  you put gasoline in a guitar and light it on fire and it MIGHT blow you a few feet.  but with a moped, you're talkin MILES.  

in other news, winds up to really fast mph today, and we took a trip to ocracoke island which is about 45 minutes plus a ferry ride away.  last year it was rated the #1 beach in america!  today...not so much #1.  but there's this place called howards where you can get really good burgers and fries, and we walked on a road called Back Rd.  for a really long time.  my car is SO dirty from all the sandy grossness that is the beach...i absolutely HAVE to wash my car AND my clothes tomorrow.  i wish they had one big washing machine that washed everything.  clothes, cars, your hands, dishes, you name it.  just throw it in with some Tide (the kind with Febreeze of course) and out it pops, sparkling clean!  it would have to POP out too.  maybe like a toaster.  

also...have you ever thought about how strawberry twizzlers taste NOTHING like strawberries?  i paid $3.89 for gas today!  YEEEAAAAHHH!!!  5 gallons for 20 bucks baby!   i saw the mopeds soon after i put the gas in...that probably has something to do with the first paragraph.  also...HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!

wahoooo!!!

heeey folks!!! well, it is officially my first day off. you know what my biggest accomplishment is? we stood about 10 feet away from a couch and started throwing golf balls at it trying to get them to stick in the cracks. i got mine stuck like 15 times! it was AWESOME!!!! but we got through yesterday....sold like 300+ pancakes! and chapel was great too. what we learned from this weekend...God is with us, right alongside us, helping us out through every twist and turn.

today has been AMAZAZING. i'm recording the rest of "lead me to the cross"! i didn't really plan on it...i just started playing around with it this morning and it sounds pretty cool. i've got a rough cut all the way through the 2nd chorus...not really sure what i'm gonna do in the bridge. THE WIND HERE IS INSANE. and it's freezing. gusts up to 58 mph tonight! what in the WORLD! i'm going to get blown into the ocean!

jenny is now offically in myrtle beach, through some very crazy happenings and sequences of events! but God is with her, and she knows it, and it's cool. JACOB IS HERE! that's two summershiners now...with 4 more coming in this week. Jacob is a super cool guy, and he's 6'6". he puts his computer on top of the fridge to surf the web, and all of his cabinet space is ABOVE the cabinets. have i told you that the summershine house has a mind of it's own? yeah, certain parts of the house will completely lose power for absolutely no reason for hours upon hours. and then it'll all switch. and none of the electrician workers in the campground can figure out what's up. pretty fun...but slightly irritating when you have to throw all the food back and forth between refrigerators! i don't even know how to spell refdrigeratrs. fridge. so how you guys doin?

whew!!!

man, what a day!!!  what a past couple of days!  ryan has arrived, and it's been a blast.  we ate pizza and went out to nags head thursday night (including jockey's ridge...pictures will come later, when we have a few seconds to breathe!)  yesterday started the fun!  ryan got to learn a ton of stuff, and we followed joe and michelle around on housekeeping!  then...the fun train.  mike re-did the exhaust, so it's really nice and fun to drive that thing!   we also opened the slide for the first time friday, i can't wait to go down those slides.  then last night we had a bonfire in the new fire pit with s'mores and free marshmellows!  this was the first time building a fire in the new fire pit, and the first time selling smores for 25 cents.  we had around 120 people come from 7-830.  it was absolutely, positively wonderful meeting all sorts of kids and campers and just PEOPLE!  me and ryan.  first summershine activity.  120 people.  awesome.

so time for TODAY!!!   got up this morning around 7, and started cleaning pools at 8!  scrubbed some tiles, vacuumed some dirt.  then around 915 ryan drove the fun train for a bit while i got all the beads and string and markers and crayons and paper together and organized for the craft hour, then craft hour happened.  we had about 20 kids making mother's day cards and beads, and the weather was beautiful!  we then did some water slide / fun zone duties for a few hours and proceeded to the beach at 2 for sandcastle building!  we probably had about 20 people participate, gave out some free banana bikes and some free tie-dye shirts, because everyone was making INCREDIBLE sand castles.  again, the weather was awesome!  note to self - give about 15 full minutes to yourself for rinsing off all those sand castle toys.  that takes a while!  

then we rushed over to get the tie-dye stuff ready before 4, filling up tubs and getting out shirts and getting money and rubber bands and clothes-pins prepared, and then they started piling in.  and i realized i really only know ONE DESIGN to show everybody...and that's the spiral thing.  the easiest one ever.  but, other campers knew other ones and we had a blast!  we sold probably around 40 or 50 shirts but around 60 showed up.  all this time, by the way, we've gotten to actually know a lot of the kids and families!!!  

after tie dye it got REALLY windy and cold, we had to move the movie and raffle inside, and we gave away a TON of stuff at the raffle.  60 or 70 showed up to hang out with us for a while. 

backing up a bit, directly after the tie dye i rushed to the store to rent the incredibles, the movie for tonight, and there was a sign on the door "be back in 5 minutes."  i waited like FOREVER!!!  it was God's way of saying "hey, pray.  in the middle of the day."  so i was like, "ok!"  raffle at 6 went great, then we got ready for the movie at 830...and got to know this one family that is awesome.  jonathan is 5 and jennifer is 2.5, and she broke her leg last night on the jumping pillow!!!  her and her dad were jumping and she just landed wrong!  she's the cutest thing too.  but they won 7 prizes at the raffle!  so they really loved that.  we made popcorn in the middle of the movie and handed it out, and the movie just ended and we packed up 40 something chairs and the sound systems and you name it and ran through the cold putting everything and it's brother in storage places, and ran to our houses where i am now sitting writing this blog.  

tomorrow, we are getting into the cafe at 715 to start getting ready for pancake breakfast from 8-10.  then chapel at 1030...we're gonna have like 30 minutes to do what normally takes 4 or 5 people 45 minutes.  how bout them apples?  but you know what?  looking back, God has really been on our side this weekend.  it's been amazing.  i hope God shows up and does something huge tomorrow.  it's probably gonna be cold and windy, and we might have to move the chapel service to the cafe deck...but this is SO excited!

just to think....this is what it's really all about, this whole summershine thing.  i love it.  i've done it for 2 summers...but this 3rd one seems brand new!  i just wanted to give you guys a taste of what an average day will look like as a summershiner.  packed full of meeting people, making friends, seeing God work, and smiling.  

the days are just packed!

i absolutely LOVE calvin and hobbes.  those two are my favorite cartoons of all time.  it just always reminds me of playing outside when i was a kid, and reminds me that i should be playing outside NOW.  

needless to say...i'm anxious for some Summershiners to get here.  Ryan couldn't get here today, he was having some side-effects from a tetanus shot.  I know it's gotta be a huge bummer for him to wait another day, and it's definitely given me some extra time that i have no idea what to do with.  i'm thinking about taking an adventure down to Avon and go eat somewhere just to keep me from sitting around here being unproductive.  I could say i'm "scouting the area."  None of the local ice cream shops are open yet!  But oh man...when they do, i should probably just go ahead and move there.  The Village Conery.  As Shayne calls it...the Sean Connery.  No clue why...it's just funny!

I'm slightly nervous about speaking Sunday morning.  I had one of my neighbors (a permanent camper here) tell me just a few minutes ago that she was excited about hearing me speak this summer.  I think I'm gonna do a quick 10 or so minute talk on forgiveness, and the parable Jesus tells in Matthew 18.  Forgiving is NOT natural, forgetting is NOT forgiving, and in order to forgive I can't forget the forgiveness that God has shown me.  I promise I won't present it like that, because that could get CRAZY confusing!  somebody might forget to forgive or forgive themselves of forgetting without ever remembering what they forgot...you know?!  dangerous.  

Jenny is almost done with the scrapbook for her dad!  She is absolutely AMAZING at scrapbooking.  Same with photography.  and you know what?  my sister is amazing at photography too!  they're straight up professional. As in like...they both are paid to go places and take pictures.  I don't like seeing myself in pictures.  I better get used to it QUICK.  

that's all!  keep this campground in your prayers!

i'm here.

hey!  i'm here!  i am on the outer banks, sitting in the camper, typing this.  it's an absolutely gorgeous day.  i drove all day sunday, got here sunday night, unloaded all the stuff, unpacked all the stuff, and SLEPT!!

Monday:  got up.  early.  couldn't go back to sleep, i was rather excited.  had a meeting with mo, i asked him a ton of questions, he answered them all, and then i hit the ground running.  i started organizing all the closets full of STUFF!!  inventory of tie-dye shirts, skit show props, sound systems, karokee, crafts, the Taj, i mean 4 storage sheds full of stuff.  The work campers are super cool.  After organizing all day and getting things sorted out, i went out to eat at applebees and then went to walmart and stayed for like 2 hours!  The camper already had a ton of things i needed, so i just bought mainly food and cool things like a car wash brush and a big calender and just cool stuff.  On the way back me and jenny talked, which was quite refreshing.  Then, just like the night before, I slept.  Also- I watched the weather channel.

Today:  got up.  early.  the shower here in the camper is wonderful.  there IS hot water.  i've spent the majority of the day re-doing Taj procedures, getting activities planned for this weekend, and getting to know work campers.  I cleaned bathhouses with Sam and Audrey and dug a ditch with Ray and .... I just forgot his name.  I'm still trying to learn all these names, it's hard .  i'm quite name-challenged.  then MIKE who is over maintenance and who is awesome told me all the cool stuff he worked on at the summershine house...like new ceilings and bathrooms and duct work and he's just a cool guy.  I found out 3 MORE SUMMERSHINERS are coming this summer!  two for the whole summer and one for the month of July!  we're gonna need all the help we can get, the more the merrier!  i'm getting ready to work on Sunday's lesson.  Ryan's gonna do the testimony, which is cool.  Here's the plans for this weekends activities:

Friday - 830 - Movie night.  Huge inflatable screen.  IF YOU CAN THINK OF A GOOD MOTHER'S DAY MOVIE TO SHOW LET ME KNOOOOWWWW!!!!!!!  leave a comment!!!!  pleeease!

Saturday - 10 - craft hour with beading and making mother's day cards!  then at 2, sandcastle contest.  then at 4, tie-dying shirts!  then at 6,  bon-fire with the big KOA raffle thing.  we're raffling like 2000 dollars worth of stuff...pretty cool!

Sunday - 8-10, pancake breakfast!  i am super stoked about that.  i love doing pancake breakfasts.  11- Chapel.  with me and ryan.  WOOHOO!!

in between we'll be running the Taj and the water slides and driving the fun train and getting ready for activites...and overall just a pretty crazy weekend!  so that's all for now.  i'm gonna work on chapel stuff.  if you have any ideas for movie night...let me know!    you guys rock.

PS check on facebook for pictures and such.

packunpackinging

yep.  packunpackinging.  i'm trying to do unpacking right in the middle of packing.  you might get that later.  it's the only word i could come up with to describe the craziness of trying to unpack from college life and at the same time pack for 3 months on an island.  school is DONE, i'm spending the last few days with family and jenny, and then i'm outta here!

Things i'm not taking:

- my TV

- my super nice chair

- procrastination

- remote controlled helicopter (it's sad...but i'm afraid it'll break)

Things i AM taking:

-snow globe

-calvin and hobbes comic books

- every charger imaginable

- every Bible i've ever owned! (the more the merrier)

the last night at mt. lebanon was great.  we spent most of practice learning a new song called "Sing" by Sanctus Real and we could have watered it down but we didn't and it was incredibly tough on every aspect of the praise band to learn all these intricate parts in an hour, but we pulled it together and it was amazing.  Those kids are amazing.  Then they all suprised me with cookies and a cookie cake, and julian gave me a little DOPEY from the seven dwarfs stuffed guy that i will keep with me ALL summer.  

other random things to note:  

-my hair is the shortest it's been since 8th grade.  

-i can't wait to get down there and buy a croquet set and a badminton set.  

-i can't wait to get to the OBX and be a part of what God's doing out there.  

-i can't wait to get back to be a part of the Stone Bridge Travelers Rest church start!

- i can't wait till tomorrow to go kayaking with my dad.  

-i can't wait to see jenny on saturday.  

-waiting and anticipation is half the fun of anything!  like Christmas!