Well, I am glad this week is over.  I am looking forward to next week, though.  It should be easier now that the kids are used to having me and Candice in the room.  And guess what???  I was all worried about having a staff member not from Camp Adventure in the room, but it turns out that she is AWESOME.  She is super helpful, and is no-nonsense with the kids.  She doesn't allow them to back talk her at all, which works out nicely for me, because not only does she discipline the kids, she makes me seem like the good guy =)

The field trip we had was actually kind of cool.... except for the smell that almost made me puke, and the many kids that started crying because they were scared.  Anyways, we got to see A TON of crocodiles.  And a lot of them were REALLY REALLY BIG.  big fat crocodiles.  And we got to see them fed, which was pretty awesome up until one of them got too close to the fence and started chomping at the fence trying to get to some of the younger kids.  Luckily, I was on the other side of the big room thingy, so I got to watch it happen from afar.  But basically, the little kids were just standing there, frozen in shock, as the crocodile is chomping at the fence.  Their counselor (Jody) went over there, trying to get them to move, but they wouldn't.  So she finally shouts "MOVE!!!" (which is the first time I've heard her yell at the kids) and they finally did.  It was really funny.

The rest of the day actually didn't go as bad as I thought it would.  Usually, field trips are all day long, so I thought Wednesday would go really really long.  And then, that morning, me and Kate went to pick up our supplies and found out that they didn't have them...  So, basically, I panicked and was like "What are we going to do all afternoon?"  And while I was all panicking, Kate was totally chill.  And then when I was done freaking out, I realized that we can just switch the activities from Friday to Wednesday, and hope that we get the supplies by Friday.  So that's what we did.  And it worked out relatively well.

Also, remember how I got more kids on Wednesday???  Well, I ended up with 17 total, and I thought it would be totally insane.  But, honestly, it was A LOT better than having 11 kids.  I dunno.  I think when there are more kids, they are more willing to do the activities and stuff (although there's always a few of them that absolutely refuse).

Oh, and Tracey had to talk to one of my kids about the field trip because he wandered off multiple times (and I didn't notice... woops...)  But he is just one of those kids.  He wants to hang out with the older kids in the Black Pearl group, and he will just go line up with them and say "I'm in Black Pearl now" to Jon.  Jon's like "Uh, no you aren't.  I'm the one who writes up the lists, so I know you are not in this group."  and the kids goes "Oh, well, then could you change me to black pearl?"  And Jon's like "NO!"  (You gotta love this kid.  Seriously.)

Thursday wasn't that great.  The older kids (meaning my group and Lauren's group) come back from library to find an ambulance waiting in front of the center.  We weren't allowed to go inside because they needed to get the gurney out, so they sent us to the playground.  But no one told us anything, so of course, all the kids are freaking out and wanna know what's going on.  So, a couple of my kids go inside (the twerps!) and ask a counselor what happened.  It was Raindrop, and I think she really didn't know much of what happened either, so all she really said was that the cubbies had fallen on a girl from my old group.  So, of course, the 2 kids she told came back outside and started yelling "The cubbies fell on so-and-so, and she's really hurt.  They're going to take her to the hospital.  She hurt her back.  She's probably paralyzed."  And the kids who heard that all started freaking out.  I had to take the 2 kids aside and be like "Whatever you heard isn't necessarily true, so let's wait till we know for sure.  So don't tell anybody else for right now, okay?"  Honestly!

It ends up that the girl was fine (she came to camp the next day with a couple bruises), but we were all worried.  I felt bad not only because it was my old group (and I really love the girl that this happened to cuz she's funny and calls me "Bubba" because I won't let her call me "Mommy" and bubba means brother in her language) but I also felt bad because Kate was in the room basically by herself when this happened.  I mean, Carlos was in there, but i don't know how much of a help he was.  I just wish I had been in there at the time (except I told Kate this and she goes "No, I'm glad that you weren't in there, because you would have been FREAKING OUT" and I couldn't deny it).

Then came Friday, the last day of programming. YAY!!!!!  (I didn't know how stressful programming was until today, when I could just relax and not worry about anything).  We went to CDC to pick up the supplies, and using my awesome spanish-speaking skills, I ask for the 40 bananas we needed and they had them this time!!!!  YAY!!!!  We also got 15 apples, and me and Kate got to carry this big cardboard box of bananas and apples.  It was OOBER heavy, and we made it about a third of the way when Kate goes "I just can't do this.  It's too heavy and too awkward."  (At this point, the box was kinda falling apart, so we were trying to carry it AND keep it together at the same time).  So I just said I would take it, and I made it too the front door of the SAC (dying all the way) where I dropped the box on a bench and said "I CANT MAKE IT ANY FURTHER."  Kate goes "Come on, it's only ten more feet." and I was like "Easy for you to say!"

So, the point of that story is that it's Sunday and my arms are still sore.

Oh, and by the way, I was going to go to Madrid this weekend if I could, but they couldn't find another car to rent, so instead I just hung out on the beach all weekend.  Last night, though, me and Jon went to the spanish movie theater and saw assault on a train in spanish.  I understood more than I thought I would, so that was pretty cool.  And can you believe it?  I rode a bike to the movie theater without incident!!!  I mean, I almost got run over by a garbage truck, but hey, I made it through.  People are crazy drivers here, though, and I don't even like to ride my bike in Davis downtown!

Second to last week of camp!