Going to the Grand Canyon

By randombrad

yep its true leaving soon and getting back sunday

Prayer Letter Finished!

By randombrad

Click Here to View Prayer Letter

First Day of teching kids without Dan my boss.

By randombrad

So there is a camp here called Royal Family Kids camp. It was our job in the afternoon to teach them the basics of canoeing so we could get them out there and have fun. In the morning though Deanna and I worked on setting up the Teepee that the campers will have the opprotunity to camp out in during the weeks of camp in July. The instructions are vague. Also we were dealing with 12-15 foot poles. We used a pipe trailer to get the poles up to the top of the hill using the fire road. I decided to pull ahead of the site some and pull back through so I wouldn’t have to back up the trailer when I was done. Well, I didn’t realize that when I went off roading that there were some 1 to 2 foot dips in the ground that I couldn’t see. I kept my momentum and made it work. We put up 3 poles and tied them togeather. Then put 4 poles in between the space of the 3 poles. One of the last poles we put up was the lifting pole that we tied the teepee canvas to. Then we lifted it up and wraped the canvas around the poles. I think it went pretty well for both of us never putting up a teepee.

So after lunch, Deanna and I went to canoeing. The first group was about 16 boys and counselors. Deanna was teaching them the strokes and what to do. My roles was to be in the rescue kayak and in the water. So they are out there having a great time. When it was time to come in 2 counselors decided to rock the canoe that had their 2 campers in. Those kids were little and they became scared. The counselors ended up tipping the canoe. So I paddle over and let the 2 boys know that everything is going to be alright. As I got close to their canoe one of the boys jumped on the kayak and the other one was frightened. So I decided my main focus was to lessen the dramatic experience the boys were feeling. So I had them both get on the front of my canoe and I paddled them to shore. I made the 2 counselors swim to shore since they weren’t too far and because they swamped the canoe. Then I emptied the canoe of water while out on the water by fliping it over the kayak then shoving the canoe back into the water. It was great training for me. The next group of kids that camp were girls. I taught them and they were well behaved.

We’re back

By randombrad

We got back from fresno saftly. It was amazing week. We had a sports camp for kids at two locations. We offered soccer, dance, crafts, basketball and many other things. I even learned hop-scotch. We followed the time of sports with worship, snack, and bible story. In the evenings we continued group training back at the Fresno World Impact building. We also got to spend some time with the world impact missionaries. One night we eat dinner with them. Another night we all went to PHO which is an asian resterrant and it was amazing food. Below is me after I ate a hot pepper

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Gone!

By randombrad

Left for Fresno, CA and will be back at the Oaks This Sat. after Yosemite National Park

What color is the water?

By randombrad

There is nothing left on the other side of the river, but I just have a sick, sad, feeling in my stomach. I have been trying to listen to the lord but nothing yet. Please take away this pain, and confusion.

Tommorrow we leave for fresno, CA.

Cold Stone Brain Freeze!

By randombrad

Friday consisted of Summer Staff training. Everyone as far as counselors, summer staff, and leadership staff is here now. We will be having a great summer. Then in the evening we went to palmdale to get somethings, and celebrate Elizabeth’s birthday at cold stone. It was pretty fun. We went to Target. There I found some skin lotion. CA has become hot enough and dry enough that I have been back into a corner and have to get skin lotion to keep from cracking. I asked some of the girls to help me find one that wasn’t fragent, and then I got some spray on sun screen. After we stoped at Target we went to Ross Dress for Less.
I was able to get some cool shirts. This one yellow one that has some simple jets, and a shirt that says ocean pacific, surf, love, live. The final purchsase there was a nike underarmour type thing to help keep me cool while rock climbing. When I left Ross I put on all three shirts with the tags still on them. When we pulled up to Cold Stone another one of our cars had some sweet music with some beats, so I busted some moves in the parking lot. Then we has some very intense Ice cream. Then I started us all singing Happy Birthday for the birthday girl. When I was eating my ice cream a stranger came up and asked me if I knew that I was wearing a shirt that still had the tags on. I told her actually I have 3 shirts on that have the tags on. The main reason was it was so I wouldn’t loose them. It was a fun trip. The ride back to the oaks was fun. I was in the back seat. We had the windows down. And sang along with the CD in the car.

Murphy’s Law exist?… Yes indeed!

By randombrad

Today Deanna, Dan, and I went to lake elizabeth to go over the curriculum that Deanna and I wrote the other day. It went well. Then we got into the water and went through rescuing campers if they flipped their canoes. I had never driven a truck with a trailer before. It wasn’t too bad.

We had lunch then worked on getting a straw ride ready. We notice that the tractor had a completely flat tire. Then we saw that the trailer had a flat tire. We go get one that will work from matence and the tire is different. So then we find one off a water trailer near by and put it on. Then when we got the Dulley Truck up to the nature center to pull the trailer the truck died. It was also very hot today. Then deanna and I came back after running an erron and dan was able to get it started. It just seemed like one thing after another to just have a straw ride at 4pm in the day. Most of the counselors are here now. Tonight we also had a progressive dinner so that the people could meet the perminant staff in smaller groups. Then went to bed eventually. Oh by the way now I have some sweet life guarding shorts, and a cool mask that is used for CPR or Rescue breathing so that if someone starts to vomit you don’t get bad diseases.

Fish Creek Cont…

By randombrad

We woke up around 7am. Had a wonderful breakfast comprised of mostly sausage. Then we had over 1 hour and 38 mins of solo time where we were isolated and alone time with God. The purpose was to focus on God and help figure out what his plan for us this summer. Here is my summer prayer that God laid on my heart for the summer:

Lord you are perfect and good.

You know best. May your will

for me be known and revealed

to me. May I walk where you

want me to go. May I do what

you want me to do. May my

actions draw people closer to

you and may I show them

the true love of Christ.

We came back to camp and unpacked and then Deanna and I worked on creating our canoing curriculum for when the kids get here.

Fish Creek

By randombrad

Fish Creek is a place for hiking down the road from the camp. We went there with the Leadership staff. The hike was full of rocks and pools of water that we had to wade through. It was a lot of fun. We all got pretty wet. It was fun to hop from rock to rock. When we got to the end, there is this big pool but this time there wasn’t a water fall. Last Year when we went there was a waterfall. Then we hiked out. It was a lot of fun. Then we camped out at cottonwood. It was a great way for the leadership staff to bond together. I slept in my hammock for about 30 mins at night because I could hear some raccoons in the tree branches above me. So I ended up going in the guys tent for the night. It was a little cold but it was a team effort to keep me warm. Karen lended me a flannel shirt, Mitch tucked me in with his hoodie and my towel into the hammock.

5/8″ drill bit

By randombrad

I was walking tonight before playing the basketball game, and found a 5/8 of an inch drill bit for wood. I felt like that bit, also my last name is irroniclly wood. That bit didn’t belong there in the drive. It wasn’t being used for the purpose it was intended for. It made me analize my life. Am I being the vessel that God wants me to be? Am I doing what he wants me to do? I am trying to get into the word more. Which is more than nothing. I’m not much of a reader. I have been reading song of solomon. It is so full of metaphores which I am good at but most people don’t get them. I still have to throw more stones into the puddle. This time fog sets in and I can’t quite see what is on the other side of the puddle.

Today was pretty low key we ordered some things for rock and water. And then went through the Canoeing equipment. Then Deanna was able to practice driving stick. She did very well. Then we had some sweet ice tea at our boss Dan Harbuck’s house. We talked and debreaifed about the prior week’s training. It was good because we were both tired from training both rock and water and life guard training.

Tommorrow we are going camping as leadership staff. Also tommorrow morning I am leading devotions. The topic is Faith and Grace. I will share about Romans 6 who paul talks about sining more so grace will increase is a crazy idea. then the faith portion I will share from my Micelaioneys book about the bible where it list all of the things that jesus fufilled.

I hope tomorrow goes well

Fine!

By randombrad

I am done with lifeguard training. Now that doesn’t mean that I am done with in-services. I am so tired. It was a long last week and then an even harder weekend. We covered even more resuces starting at 8:30am and then just had a lunch break and took the written test and I finished at 6:15pm. My breathing has been difficult. I was the victim most of the time when it was deep water rescues. I’m glad that the training is over. I think it took alot out of all the people that trained.

Mucho Agua? Training de Life Guardness!

By randombrad

7am is when I woke up and officaly saw the crack of dawn. I ate breakfast and then headed over to the pool. I thought that life guard training started at 8:00 am, instead it was 8:30am. We did a 200m as a warm up. It made my arms hurt. We went over many different types of rescues. Also went over CPR rescue. The main problem I was having was that they switched things from 15 compressions vs. 2 breaths. Now it is 30 compressions vs. 2 breaths. Oh tonight I checked at wal-mart my blood pressure is is 132 over 64 and my resting heart rate was 61 bpm. With all of the compressions I got very winded. We contiunued to train after lunch until 5:30pm so it was a long day of traing. I went with Deanna and Jessica to Dessert Vinyard because we have life guard training on Sunday and not sure when we will be done with it. Afterwards we went to wal-mart and chipotle. At chipotle we joked around and laughed. Jessica was successful at launching some beans and rice at Deanna after I might have said somthing funny. Then we headed back and I went to bed after purchasing some lifeguard swimming trunks, a key chain rescue mask, and some nice hiking boots. My goal is so the hiking boots come in before the staff goes to Yosemiti National Park.

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Are you alright?, are you ok?… You (pointing action) go get help!

By randombrad

So today I was off until 3pm. That was when life guarding training started. I have been a life guard 2 summers ago at Beulah Beach in Vermillion, OH. Before 3 came around, Megan Weber asked me to do the OAKS driving test in an Astro Van. It went really well. I remembered the times when I was in driver’s training. During the test I was talking out loud the safety jargon that is overkill. One example was, “if your wheel goes off the shoulder of the road you should depress the accelerator petal and turn the wheel slowly to get back on the road. You should only use have as much force as you would think because you don’t want to be fighting with the edge of the road and you could over compensate and then end up in a world of hurt with the van on the side and kids crying all over the world.” I passed the driving test.

So on with the show, AKA Life Guard training. Let me remind you that I hadn’t swam any since last summer. Read more »

Done with High Ropes Training at the Painted Turtle.

By randombrad

Today was the final day of training. I thought that it was going to be a half of a day worth of training. It eneded up getting done around 3:30-4:00. We did some final testing such as setting up a 3 to 1 pulley system, ties knots, talk a camper through the wheelchair element. When I was the camping on the wheel chair element I was able to ride a wheelie while on the wooden planks. Read more »

Rescue, My Captain, Oh my Captain

By randombrad

We left after breakfast for the painted turtle. Went over knot tieing. We were taught the bowline, buttter fly, and bowline on a bite. This time when we rescued we had to rescue a victem out on an element. I was a little tricky but I feel I have the hang of it.

It has been tough working 9-6 and then get a shower and its about 7:30pm before you can do anything. I can’t wait til the social scean moves to the new summer program office which was the white trailer that the staff girls lived in last year. The reason you may ask. I feel that Megan’s appartment gets too crouded at times.

Ropes Training Day Two

By randombrad

It went well. We learned how to rescue after someone fell.

Training at the Painted Turtle.

By randombrad

Today we went to a camp down the road caled painted turtle. That was where we joined their staff in getting high ropes trained. It consist of a 4 day training. And this weekend we will also get CPR and Life Guard certified.

Worship on the Hill

By randombrad

I went to church this morning with Kim and Jared. They are looking for a new church. We went to highland church . It was very energetic. Then we stopped at wal-mart to get somethings. While I was there I decided that I needed a good knife for my job. It is 3.5 inches long and made of stainless steel. I felt that it was a great investment for my job. Also I can use it to defend myself from wildlife.

At the end of the evening we went up to the top of the fireroad and had a great time of worship. The stars were amazing and the people. Then when we came down we had a “dance party” to D.C. Talk and early 90’s Christian Rap group.

Picture Taking

By randombrad

This morning the hard part once again was the sleeping in this morning. I didn’t have to be anywhere until 11:15. But I woke up at 6:00am. The Water training went well. We met up with some staff from Painted Turtle camp which is down the road. Then my supervisor, Dan H, taught the training session. We swamped and drained canoes and learned some other things.

When I got back everyone else had gone to a professional story reading place and then they went to church. I was in the mood to sticking around here. I looked around to see if any other staff was here. Jessica was here so I drove her to dinner. Then after dinner I decided to relax by taking photos. Below is one of them. This is also the truck that I have been driving around, isn’t he grand?