Week 12 Recap

 This was all written weeks ago--there's only a couple more week recaps to do, so I figured I'd better get those up and out of the way before I continue on with life in general. (Life in general has grown to include getting my own car--I paid for it with cash, so it's *completely* mine, and I kinda wubs it.)

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Week 12! Only two weeks to the end of family camps.....this was the week that I officially started working in the kitchen (or rather, worked in there for a week while Annie was gone) and took the family pictures on Sunday, etc etc.

It was a good week, but....somewhat stressful. Being in the kitchen was an interesting experience, but I didn't know where anything was, when to get things ready...plus I was running back and forth to take pictures and felt somewhat stretched. But overall it was a good experience. If I had been in there another week or so I probably would have gotten to know my way around better, but as it was, one week wasn't quiiiite enough.

More after the break!

We do a lot of line dancing, and whenever a song comes on over the speaker system that we dance to on Monday nights we have to bust it out. This time it just happened to be during the greeting of guests. XD

Just look at Tess's face here. :P

Miss Bev and Lacey! Lacey was here as a volunteer for work week and came up for another 10 days. She's pretty awesome, so we'll just leave it at that. :P

Cody's horse had a little accident...

...but fortunately little Molly was there to clean it up.

Cody's 'family' (family friends/second fam, basically) came to stay that week, and he was so freakin' excited when they came up that drive that he could hardly contain himself. I think this is the biggest smile on his face that I've ever seen.

Miss Bev 'borrowed' a puppy from Miss Amy (she helps out with the rodeo sometimes) and may or may not have been really really wanting one. XD

And here we have the Arndt brothers, Preston and Logan, posing with Tess and cookies! These guys are gingers, twins, and basically awesome. Preston shot an elk a couple of days before he left and we got to eat some of it. I haven't had elk since I was 12, so I was slightly excited.

One of the guests makes these sunflower cookies to sell in the gift shop, so they gave us a case for the staff to eat. We decided to make a pictorial depiction of our own appreciation of said cookies. (Seriously. They're AMAZING.)

Gratuitous Longs picture!

And here, ladies and gentlemen, we have our very own David Payne running the torch for the Olympics.

I swear, he gets more flamboyant and dramatic every time he runs that thing. XD

Case in point. 

The torch didn't actually light, but Josiah CG'd some flames on there for the video and it looked epic.

Josiah and Amy (not Miss Amy) dancing. XD

On a side note, Josiah came here swearing up and down that he would NOT dance for any reason whatsoever. He stuck to that for the first week, and while he would come to our dances in the rec hall he usually sat against the wall and watched or played with his phone.

The day before Amy left, she and I were standing talking to him and managed to convince him, through absolute terror (which he claimed to be suffering), to dance one dance with Amy. Since then, I believe he has been intrigued. Last Monday I was the first girl down in the rec hall after dancing, and he came up to me in a flurry to say, "Quick! Teach me something before the others come down!" Since then he's started dancing with lots of other people and I must say I'm quite proud of how far he's come. :D Between teaching him and David to dance against their first inclinations, maybe I've got a future in teaching guys past their initial reluctance. XD

Egg toss! I always try to get some good action shots here.

The exploding ones are my favorites. :P

Oh! Afterwards we do jump-roping, and Lij bounced his way through while Tiffany was in action. They never missed a beat either--it was pretty hysterical.

Moriah got to dance with Chris's younger brother, and the kid was hilarious. He kept telling her what to do and where to go, and told her that she 'didn't have to bend down to dance'. XD

Sunrise over Twin Sisters.... *happy sigh*

CHRIS!!! Omigosh, storytime!

So Chris was here for 4 days during work week. I didn't get to know him as well as I would have liked then, but he's Darron's best friend/brother and the others talk about him a LOT, enough that I felt like I got to know about him pretty well.

Anyway. We all knew his family was coming to visit, but Chris kept saying that he probably wasn't going to come, that he was going to have to work, blah blah blah. We all HOPED that he was coming, but none of us knew for sure.

When his family drove up, they were in a big 15-passenger van with tinted windows that drove straight up to their cabin. I was taking pictures of families and had just gotten a few people lined up when I saw Chris walking up to our greeting group...I may or may not have shrieked a bit (squawked, as Emily P described it) and given him a bear hug. XD And let me just say that I've been thrilled to get to know him as a fellow brother--for that first week he was in the kitchen a lot, included me in conversation, and treated me like a friend he'd known for ages. I love this kid to death--he's literally like a little brother. :3

Amber and Gabi!

And my work crew for the week, minus Amber, of course. :P

I didn't take many picture this week due to be confined to the kitchen, but I got a few of various dishes and such. These are the sack lunches for the Tuesday lunch rides...

Oh yes, and here's Will, looking pathetic. (I just said, "Will! Look industrious!" but he gave me this face instead. Sigh.)

Flag-bearers for the Wednesday rodeo!

I had to get pictures of the staff humiliating themselves in front of all the guests, of course. :P So here's Cowboy Nick, posing!

And then there's Will posing too. XD

Chris, looking majestic...or something.

I think I told Preston to pose, but he just pointed instead. Sigh.

And there's Chris again on Firecracker for the dizzy-bat race.

For the race they have to ride down, grab the stick, place the stick to their forehead, and spin around 7 times before running to the fence. It's a brutal game. >.<

I think Don had just made a crack about homeschoolers, hence David's indignant pointing. XD

He was racing against Tamara, and I thiiiiink David might have won. But I don't remember. ^^;

Ya tell people to pose around here, and they just ham it up. -.-

Oh yes, here's Tamara for the ribbon-tail-tying race!

Aaaand Logan kind of took off across the arena before Tamara could catch up. XD

Keens' goat was all over the place, but she finally managed to get it caught and tied. :P

Oh! There was this awesome older couple that had to leave partway through the week, and they looked so cute sitting on the swing together that I HAD to get a picture of them. They caught a trout for their supper, so a warning for the squeamish/faint at heart, but I got some pictures of the cleaning process. XD

Basically, while Preston was cleaning the fish we took the head and took a bunch of goofy pictures. It was far more fun than it should have been.

I think Lindsay was making it whisper sweet nothings into David's ear here. XD

Yeah...I have no words.

I call it..."Moon over the Barn Roof".

A koala pancake, courtesy of Lindsay!

Then we have Andrew on Chase--for not knowing anything about horses when he first got here (or next to nothing, anyway) he's come along very well over the summer.

Oh! So on Friday morning I was down at the barn, helping saddle as is my normal wont, when Luke asked me if I wanted to ride. I didn't have to be in the kitchen until 10:45, so I quickly agreed and got to don some borrowed chaps for the ride up. I rode Sugar, who is an AWESOME little palomino, and tagged along with Cody's family. Most of my time was spent helping one of the little girls keep her horse, Echo, going and to encourage him to not stop and eat grass. He managed to wallop Sugar in the chest at one point when she got too close...but that's another story.

Anyway. After arriving at wrangler breakfast I asked to get a chaps picture with the wranglers, and if I may say so myself I think it turned out awesome. :3

Last picture! We had an old staff member come for a week, and he brought this adorable red heeler puppy. She was only 3-4 months old, and the most obedient puppy I'd ever seen in my life. She stayed on the guys' porch unattended, and came over to the girls' side porch a couple of times to steal socks and wrestle with us. She was AWESOME. It made me renew my resolve to train Javvie to be as obedient. XD