I miss you

camp nostalgia, man.

In the grown-up world of paying the bills, saving for tuition, and buying my own toothpaste, I feel a sense of pride in my growing up - some of the time. But more often than not I miss not having to worry about money. I miss CAMP. And not just the place - I miss family camp as an institution, and being on staff as a way of life. I miss:

-greeting everyone at the terminal at the beginning of the summer and marveling at how pasty we have all become over the year
-sitting and planning for hours at a time during orientation, then spending the evenings drinking hot chocolate concoctions & watching fashion shows and waterfront skits and the like
-Saturday afternoons: playing on the pier, eating strawberry popsicles, laying on the beach, and taking a "real shower" in the bath pavilion
-the first week of family camp, where everything is dicey and plans are frantically revised
-afternoons/evenings in the lounge, with someone always playing a guitar, someone always sleeping, and someone always eating the ever-present communal junk food
-Saturday evenings: Christmas parties, coffee houses, bunco, scavenger hunts, and watching "adult movies" like Princess Bride and Man from Snowy River
-writing letters
-Tuesday-afternoon babysitting
-dance nights
-wacky cake
-endless hikes to the cross with children of all ages, after which I am always winded and the children don't even break a sweat
-singing (sometimes endless) rounds of "I'm in the Lord's army"
-saying the memory verse at every meal
-birthday skits, mostly planned at the VERY last second
-hiking scar, jumping in the ocean, taking a beach shower, then rushing up canyon to get dressed and serve dinner
-Sunday morning church - everyone in staff shirts and in various states of exhaustion
-never wearing makeup & never needing it
-wearing makeup on banquet night and being surprisingly insecure about your appearance, then having all the boys notice how pretty we all look :)
-ABALONE
-watching the same movie for 6 consecutive friday nights but never seeing the whole thing straight through
-sleeping on the beach
-stashing away a cinnamon roll for after the hike but eating oatmeal before the hike
-grugs
-sneaking in to watch "Sex Has a Price Tag" with the high schoolers
-freeze dance
-blowing all the campers away when the staff demonstrates the rain dance
-Paul Friesen cookies
-hanging out with kids in the afternoon
-the bear hunts growing more and more elaborate as the summer goes on
-the dreaded mid-summer cold epidemic, characterized by all staffers pumping airborne
-ponytails, cutoffs, rainbows, t-shirts, and hoodies
-singing "the Butterfly Song" about a thousand times and still loving every fuzzy-wuzzy bear and bird in the sky
-the din of various musical acts practicing for the talent show on Wednesday afternoons
-brown bread day
-making several banners and several of each of your kids' crafts for the summer
-staff small groups, always featuring candy
-eating large quantities of tater tots during the kids' banquet
-jamming to Disney music while mopping the main deck
-getting more and more creative with s'mores
-Paul Friesen-isms
-the excitement of Sunday evenings
-being completely exhausted & marveling at God's faithfulness
-under-dogs: just as terrifying to you as they are to the kid
-learning to love having dirty feet
-the inner quietness that comes after a month with no internet or TV
-the glory of Big Olaf's on Wednesdays
-the anxiety and stress of packing up a summer's worth of possessions that have accumulated over the summer and finally paying one's snack shop bill
-consuming large quantities of the glorious kids' banquet appetizer mix
-looking forward to doing laundry
-the inevitable game of limbo and/or freeze dance during the kids' banquet
-taking your kids to the bathroom at the outhouse and worrying that they'll fall in
-worship at the cross with the high schoolers on Friday nights
-cheering your kids on during the swim test
-finding the rocks on the beach surprisingly comfortable after a few weeks
-having your clothes always smell like campfire
-the increasingly-um...creative - kid's skits during the morning session
-leftover desserts in the staff fridge
-finally mastering "I know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly"
-owning every piece of camp merchandise in the store
-the variety of books that are in the staff lounge library
-making bracelets
-pushing a kid on the swings until your arms go numb
-swinging until your legs go numb
-not missing your cell phone
-knowing that once you're a CBS staffer, you'll always be a CBS staffer