'Dumbledore's Army' and the 'Padawans of the Jedi Council'

this has absolutely nothing to do with Harry Potter OR Star Wars. 

ha. 

So hey, i'm a BYU Sports Camp counselor.

and it's pretty much been the best two weeks in my entire life. I am thrilled for the rest of the summer.

don't roll your eyes, because for once, i'm not exaggerating.

 the night before i left for Utah, i felt like i would explode with all the emotions that were trampling me.

But i'd prayed and prayed about going, and i knew Provo UT was where i was supposed to go this summer. so i packed 6 weeks worth of me into these actually pretty small bags (banana for scale) and leaped. 

I HAVE NEVER BEEN MORE SATISFIED WITH A DECISION. 

EVER.

seriously. I'm actually a tiny bit embarrassed by HOW MUCH i love this. 

but on second thought, i'm not embarrassed at all. this job rocks. 

i was booooooorn to be a camp counselor. 

livin'. the. dream. 

I decided to wait a while to put up pictures, because i felt a tiny bit weird putting pictures of other people's kids on the internet. So i waited..because somehow that makes it seem better in my mind. haha. and i won't say their names. 

this was my first week. after about .5 seconds i was tired of saying, "girls!" to get their attention, so i told them to suggest group names. when we voted, it was a tie between, "Dumbledore's Army" and "Hot Guy Lovers". and do you really think i am going to be shouting, "HOT GUY LOVERS"? uhmmm, no thanks.
so D.A. it was.
the first evening we just spent getting to know each other

this group was 11 & 12, by the way, so why they were already obsessed with boys is beyond me. but they for sure were. and the girl pictured below was the worst offender. ha. we'll call her jane. and after about an hour of knowing me, this happened:

Jane: "so. which guy counselor has the cutest boys our age?"

me: Uhm, i have no idea. and i literally only know one boy counselor.

the only boy counselor i knew was my brother Derek's old missionary companion/old roommate/best friend, Dylan. And it just so happened that Dylan had boys who were every bit as girl crazy as mine were boy hungry.  

The first night, at field games, one of Dylan's boys, we'll call him 'John' came up to Jane with a rose, told her she was the prettiest girl at camp (which, to be honest wasn't a stretch) and they swapped numbers. 

 Dylan and i made them pose:

the whole deal even made it to the BYUSportsCamps Instagram page, haha. 

we continued mingling the rest of the night. i hung out with the only 2 girls in my group who weren't drooling over boys:

(unintentional portrait of a bromance to the right. Derek&Dylan fo-eva)

One of the boys in Dylan's group was named "Jed". Dylan called him "Jedi", so the girls referred to the group of boys as "The Jedi Council" and Dylan as "Jedi Master Shawhan".

and the rest, as they say, is history. 

the rest of the week went somethin like this:

 In the mornings, I'd roll out of bed and come into the hall way to find my girls obediantly waiting outside their doors. (minus one girl, who was ALWAYS late. bless her heart.) 

in the lobby, we say a prayer, and go to breakfast in our PJS.

after that, they'd change into their tennis garb and i'd escort them to practice!

we walk past the pool on the way to the field house and GUYS. it has literally been 3 years since i played water polo but the smell of chlorine is still the best in the world. hullo.

I take a big deep breath at these doors and smile, every single morning and afternoon.

they practice for like a million hours, and then come get cleaned up before dinner, which i eat with them.

then comes counselor time! the funnest part of the day!! and the part that adds variety. we play games, hang out, and basically just have a barrel of fun every evening. 

at night there are activities for all the camps. 

then we get ready for bed, have a short devotional, and go to blessed sleep!

and that's it. 

but some events of note my first week:

Tuesday evening, we had dinner with the Jedi Counsel and then joined them for a private screening of "Daddy Daycare". But this poor girl had a massive nosebleed and we missed like half the movie waiting for the blood to stop, and then walking back to the dorms to change her clothes. 

after that was the talent show where that girl blew the roof with "tomorrow". I met her later on in the week and forced her to take a picture with me, haha. 

 Wednesday:

Wednesday morning at breakfast; my girls and i saw, through the window, a hummingbird flying around outside. it was pretty and delicate. 

so a few minutes later when we saw it swooping toward the window, we thought we were in for a treat. 

nope. 

instead, the bird flew STRAIGHT into the window and bounced off onto the cement where we watched, horrified, as its wings fluttered and its chest heaved its last breaths. 

then blood started dripping out of the beak and i wanted to throw up, so we left. 

my 12 year old girls were a little traumatized. 

before practice, they held a 'memorial', and were quite perturbed when i kept taking pictures. i was trying really hard not to laugh at the drama of it all. 

several of the girls even delivered eulogies. 

and they genuinely cried. 

RIP minnie the hummingbird. 

watching you die was really gross, and i'll never forget it. 

Seven Peaks!

we go to a water park once a week. holla. 

this is where the girls run wild and i get to make friends. 

Rachel and Shanna, to be exact. 

 one of my girls broke her big toenail in half on a water slide, but besides that it was smooth. 

aaaaaafter i spent the evening at a water park in full clothing because i didn't own a swimsuit, 

my girls and i joined the Jedi Council for Creamery Ice Cream.

but not before they rolled down the hill. 12 year olds, ya know. 

 I got cookies n' cream in case you were wondering, and it was as good as i remembered.

IT WAS SUCH A BLAST. 

Dylan is a hoot and a half. he made me feel really comfortable and not like i had to try really hard to be his friend. so it was easy to make a fun environment for my girls, because i was comfortable! 

and my girls that week were so great! I think i might have gotten too lucky and had my favorite girls my first week. which actually, was a huge blessing because i was 100% positive that my girls would hate me, that i would be a horrible counselor, that i would have no friends blah da blah. 

not so, not so. 

Heavenly Father knows what we need. 

after ice cream, though, my girls were crazy hyper. 

 Thursday:

started out like any normal day. 

no worries. 

well, meet rebel:

 (the girl, not the fanny pack, duh.)

super nice girl. 

but she was always trying to leave the group to hang out with her brother and his friends. which is fine, and i totally let her whenever it was permissible.

but 

 Thursday i walked to the field house to escort the girls back to the dorms after practice. 

we were planning on going straight to the bookstore for a while before dinner.

Rebel comes out and asks for advil since her toenail broke in half at Seven Peaks and it's been in tennis shoes all day. i tell her that i'm not allowed to give her medicine, but the dorm counselors are. she asks to go see ours, like right then, without waiting for the group. 

i say yes hesitantly, because it's an injury. 

i make her PROMISE that she'll go straight to the dorms and STAY THERE.

she says, "I PROMISE."

I walk the rest of the girls back to the dorms, and guess what?

no rebel. 

noooo rebel. 

10 minutes later, still no rebel. 

20 minutes later, STILL no rebel.

you get the picture. 

AN HOUR AND 15 MINUTES LATER, STILL NO REBEL.

and in the mean time i had walked back in forth between the dorms and the field house about fifty times, leaving rebel angry/worried/betrayed voice mails and text messages all the while.

finally, i sit in the hall outside her door and stuff my face with pringles and Star Crunch to drown my anger, which is quickly melting into panic that she is laying dead in a ditch somewhere.

I pray. 

hard. 

and again, harder.

then i breathe and pray again, calmer.

and i know i need to go to the Cannon center (cafeteria).

"there's no reason for her to be there" i think

"but ugh, i'd better go just in case" i think

"i'm going to kill this girl" i think

as i'm walking up the sidewalk, i get the distinct impression that she's just in there eating dinner with her brother. and i feel a gust of relief but immediately overturn that with rage that she lied to my face and told me she was coming straight to the dorms. 

I grit my teeth and walk a little faster, thinking of all the blunt objects i'd like to knock her over the head with.

and then i see Dylan, who just finished his check out. we stop and talk. and he calms me down considerably.

so much, that i kind of forget why i came out of the dorms, i'm just here, shootin' the breeze with mah pal Dylan.
Who is rebel?
 why did i want to flay her?

we're chatting. and then i feel my phone vibrate. i explain quickly why i'm about to verbally rip someone's head off, and then i answer the phone. and proceed to...well...verbally rip the rebel's head off. I'm sure that was really a happy conversation to sit in on. sorry Dylan. 

she was just in the cafeteria eating with her brother, totes fine. 

TOTES FINE. 

she comes out of the cannon center and i tell her to just go to the dorms. i'm exasperated. 

she obeys. 

a wise decision on her part. 

a talk to Dylan for a minute more, and then go back to my dorm. where i take a second to breathe/scream into my pillow, and then i apologize to Rebel for being so rude on the phone, but FIRMLY explain why what she did made me so stressed, and how it ruined the evening activities for our whole group.

she was unrepentant, but i knew she wouldn't change her mind, so i left her (locked, haha) in her room to think about what she'd done while i took the rest of the group to dinner and adequately breathed for the first time in a couple of hours. 

not that you guys cared to hear all about that. OH WELL.

 and the rest of counselor time we spent playing soccer with my roommate Kristen's group.

and then was a movie/pizza night! Emperor's New Groove and Pepperoni was a more than gratifying way to end that stressful night.

 not that these two were my favorite or anything...but uh...they were definitely my favorite. haha.

Friday:

'Jane' was weepy all morning, saying she missed 'John', literally crying, begging me to call Dylan and ask for John's phone number because she lost her copy. it continued after breakfast with Jane endlessly discribing John's eyes, and smile, and cheekbones. okaaaay.

finally, i couldn't take it anymore, 

so i texted Dylan explaining the situation and asking for John's number. haha.

He graciously complied, and i scribbled the number onto a gum wrapper and shoved in Jane's backpack. hahaha HOW ARE 12 YEAR OLD THIS EMOTIONAL.

after their tournament was CHECKOUT! bittasweet.

and then i went home, did a bunch of homework,  met my off campus roommate, and had the best three hour long conversation with Derek ever. I love him. he gets me. and he gets my life. 

he makes me want to be better. 

and that's my motto for this summer:

I WANT TO BE BETTER!

one (blogged) amazing week down, five exciting weeks to go!

and just in case you were wondering, 

yesterday, when i got out of the shower, i put my name tag on my blouse. just out of habit. and my parents came over to drop of Jonathan for the night (full story later) and Derek was like, "hey, uhhh, why are you still wearing your nametag?" 

embarrassing. ha.