827 (June 27)

827. That is the number of children that is attending session 3 of camp. Man oh man was today busy, but I was so glad it has started!! Got to sleep in this morning which meant we got to wake up at 8:30, and it was great. Unfortunately since I am on a top bunk my fan is no longer in the perfect spot and it failed to blow on me so I sweated all night long and was very uncomfortable. So 9:30 rolled around and we had our worship time and staff talk by Sam Torn (owner of camp) about the Armor of God. Afterwards us Store Sistas reported to the store to do some last minute organization and cleaning. 1:00 finally showed it's ugly face and car after car after car rolled into camp honking their horns with kids hanging out the window pumped up about starting camp. And that's when the crazy 4 hour of work became known. Every parent and child came in searching For pre-orders which I was working, Unloading every powerade and water we had in our coolers, and buying shirts and accessories. Ozark Fun Fact: some parents send their child to camp with just underwear because they ordered their camper an enchilida, Which includes a sleeping back, sheets, towles, shower stuff, postcards, stamps, shirts, shorts, and other camp necessities. It cost over $600. Some of these parents are unbelievable. Once it was time to say bye to the parents and get camp officially started I walked over to the main chow hall and had my favorite dinner. Chicken tenders, mashed potatoes, and green beens. Mmmmmmm good! When kids started to line up on the chow hall steps I had to go to every guy counselor and make sure all of the uniform sizes their campers ordered were correct. That took a while, and shuffling through hundreds of sweaty boys is never a fun job. When that was done I took a nice 10 minute break in the main store and talked and laughed with all of my sweet friends i've made in the store. Afterwards we went to the summit store to pull what felt like a never ending amount of uniforms for all of the cabins that are assigned to take cabin pictures tomorrow. This session is another session that is both a one week session along with two week session. This means that some of the campers that showed up today are only here for one week whereas the others are here for two. This will make this weekend so hectic since half of the campers or staying trough the weekend an doing a crazy camp schedule while the other half is leaving and doing all of their closing day tribal games and ceremonies. And to top the confusing and hectic weekend off we have to start Sunday with adding a whole new group of one week campers to the schedule. YIKES!!!

When I was walking back to the store after pulling uniforms I passed a literally "unhappy camper" she was in the stage of hysteria where she was no longer crying but just full out moaning and yelling at the camp mom and counselor that was trying to talk her Into having an open mind Bout camp. She was screaming something about how she's not with her friends and she hates camp and wants to go home. It was a hilarious sight. Last I saw of her the camp mom was sitting about 10 feet in front of her talking to her counselor while the child was throwing rocks and screaming no longer in a crying state of upset. It was like seeing a cop car on the side of the road: I couldn't help but slow down and stare.

But now I find myself sitting in my bed writing my day out to you before children have there Tribal Initiation. I have no clue what we are doing then but I'm sure it has something to do with delivering the 50 pre-orders that people decided to not pick up, leaving us store girls to work extra long through the night so that we can specially deliver them. Joy.

I hope that everyones days are going great and please feel free to write me. I would love to write a letter but would LOVE to receive one in the mail.

Back To Ozark (June 26)

Hey guys, I know it's been a while but I have returned to the incomparable camp ozark for my six week working session. I left Friday morning for the NOLA airport at 4:30 in the morning. Yes can you believe it? Well once I landed in Dallas it was delay after delay until I finally took off 4 hours behind schedule. Talk about convenient...

However, I was blessed to be picked up by an understanding staff member and she waited for me and picked me up and brought me back to camp.

Once returning back to camp it was all hugs and smiles, greeting everyone I became friends with during my time working first session. I had a couple of meetings to attend being that I was placed on the SWAT (servants working all together) team. They are basically the core janitor/behind the scenes people of camp and the team is made new with counselor every two weeks.

Well today, Saturday, was closing day of session two and I was assigned to work the satellite lot. And this leads to Ozark fun fact of the day: the satellite lot is basically a large field cut out in between the trees a few hundred yards down and across the street from the main entrance of camp. Parents are loaded in and checked in through different tables and then placed in a shuttle to head to camp. For today, all 750 childrens luggage were at the satellite lot and we had to organize each bag by cabin. Once the parents arrived, they found their kids cabins and we had the joyous job of bringing all their children’s over packed and smelly luggage to their car that was most likely parked in the very back of the open field.. This lasted for 5 hours. Eventually every parent and camper was gone and we had our staff meeting and then it was time to have OFF!!!

Me and Raquel wondered around searching for a ride and eventually found a nice guy from Miss. State to drive us to the Dairyette (local ice cream and snack place) where we were treated to a free large milkshake by camp ozark. From there we watched, -Dad, don't read the next sentence-, the final over time period of the World cup USA game. Afterwards I hooked up with a sweet friend and we drove into Hot Springs, Ar ab partied it up with the rest of the Staff at the Wash and Go. It's literally a fun time to be social and talk while making yourself completely at home at the Laundry mat. Once all the clothes were dry we met some nice girls ranging from TexasA&M to University of Alabama and had Salsa's Mexican food. Gross as always. When that was done with me and Jen went to chick fil A to have some real food and then decided to head back into camp. So here I am now, in the car, enjoying a ride and listening to NeedtoBreethe. Till tomorrow-

In the words of Michael O'Connor, "Have a blessed day"

Rain Rain Go Away (June 10)

Well it's Thursday over here at Camp Ozark and that leaves just ONE more day of the first session of camp left. Sadly, however, it has been raining all day so campers haven't been able to enjoy their activities, at least to my knowledge. Also it is my day off so I'm stuck inside the staff house alone with no company and my boss won't Let me work. :( so for now I sit here on the porch of the staff house and watch the rain fall, the dew drip of the leaves, and the water flow into the creek that flows in front of me.

Wacky Tacky (june 9)

Ok so be ready for a confusing day, because its Wacky Tacky day at Ozark and everything is backwards. Starting the day off with spaghetti and country fried steak just is not the way i want to start off my day. So i didn’t. instead i headed to the store for our Beth Moore devotional and had an oatmeal to go bar. Afterwards it was off to do cabin inspection but ironically, everyone forgot to clean their cabins so i had to give out a lot of blue flags. (which means really dirty)

since it was Wacky Tacky and everything was backwards they had devotionals in the mornings and then their bible studies or time of worship, then their special event which i had no clue what it was. meanwhile us store girls weren’t open until 7:30 p.m. so we spent all day organizing and cleaning the 2 stores on camp. lunch came around and we went into Mt. Ida and had the dairyette. in case you were wondering, i had the chicken tenders and fries with a large milkshake!!!! so good. once returning to the camp we were met with an ambulance in the parking lot and an 18 wheeler pulled over and all the camp officials at the front gate and cops. come to find out an 18 wheeler came from behind and hit 2  counselors turning right into the park to have a picnic and threw them into the ditch. luckily everyone was ok. after that fiasco ended and calmed down we headed back to the store to do deliveries for those parents that keep sending children stuff. At 5 we headed to breakfast for dinner and then took a much needed 2 hour nap! ahhh it was amazing. 7:30 rolled around and i headed to the summit to work night mish mash. IT WAS CRAZY. since the summit is also the craft store and mish mash is a crazy time for crafts i literally had a line of AT LEAST 8 people for an hour straight. one of the children was Jordan Aikman. mhmm i got her autograph hahah. anyway, anyway that ended i restocked the summit store and had serious GAS! my stomach hurt so bad but Raquel was there so we laughed about...like always...well i just found out that a meeting has been called for ALL STAFF at 10:30 so i need to go since its approaching that time. hope everything is doing fine and sorry this email isnt as interesting as they use to

June 8

WIPE those tears from your eyes, Your daily blog mail has arrived! So im using the computer in the Store because cell phones were discovered and so now mine is safely hidden and turned off. but no worries i find ways-legal ways-to send your emails. so to start, i will begin at yesterday! which by the way, feels like forever ago.

lets see hahahh i dont even remember what happened yesterday. OK ive literally been here pondering what i did yesterday and i have literally gone blank. so besides it being Escape to Neverland so that i had my chance to dress up in my Cinderella outfit and had MANY compliments, thats all i can really tell you about yesterday. also by the time Staff time came around which is from 10-12 me and 2 other girls ran to the staff house so that we could decorate the room for our friend and fellow store sista's birthday which was today June 8th.

so i began today getting up early for devo just to find how our wonderful bosses bought us chocolate milk and donuts for megs birthday! it was amazing, i was so chocolate milk deprived. i then went and did cabin inspections and decided to spice things up and check out the boys cabins. THOSE ARE SOME FUNNY THINGS. in order to get star cabin boys not only clean their cabin but also try to win us over by poems, candy, and interesting shapes made with shoes and other objects. so after that and sweating my butt off i headed to the store just to go back outside and walk to the summit store to pull care packages, and restock over there.

i had to rush though because i had to get the golf cart back over to the post office for 12 so that the girls could deliver the mail. AHH i miss that job. so at 12:25, after being outside non stop today, i had to sit outside for 2 and a half hours to wait for cabins to show up to take pictures and my job was to exchange uniforms that did not fit correctly. to my wonderful surprise a couple of cabins never even received their uniforms so that was chaos in itself, trying to get them their uniforms in a hurry. After that and not eating for hours i headed to the chow hall to find out they put all the food up but i pulled some strings and got 2 burn corndogs from the back. i collapsed once i reached the store because i was so beat, but i didn’t get to rest long because i had to go BACK outside to do deliveries. WHEN THAT WAS OVER, i finally got to eat my lunch which by then (2:00) i was over it lol. 3 o clock rolled around and it was time for mish mash which was suprinrgly not as busy at it usually was. i think it was so hot today that children jsut wanted to go to Wacky World, as we know it the waterfront. then Good news hit when our bosses said that they are taking us in town to have pizza for megs birthday. IT WAS SUCH A NICE BREAK. once returning me and some store girls skipped out on the Red White and Blue special event and fireworks and detangled the door beads so now we have a decorative piece hanging in front of our door. its so 6th grade! but now i came back to the store where i sit now to type up emails, do last minute deliveries, and work staff time. but now its time to go, and i am sorry this email isn’t as entertaining, but that was a snippet of my life. i have off Thursday and will have full control of my cell phone so a better and more interesting update is in the making!

miss yall

Planet Ozark (June 7)

Hello fellow blog mail listeners! Thanks for all the encouraging e-mails! This is my way of journaling my experience at Ozark by taking advantage of the 21st Century.

Well today was Second Sunday or what we staffers were all wanting to call it Sunday From Hell! This morning all the two week campers were doing their confusing half time schedule meanwhile everyone else around the camp was preparing for 1 o clock to roll around and greet the 400 new campers that were going to arrive. The energy at camp when those kids enter the gates of Camp ozark is absolutely wonderful! From the moment their car is seen and their name is blared through every speaker on camp to where they reach the hill and drive past 30 counselor hooting and hollering, the smiles on those campers and parents faces makes the little homesickness and sacrifice of summer completely worthwhile.

Ozark fun fact/story: as I was walking up to the Main store this morning Scott Torn (youngest son of the owner of camp) and his sister in law were driving past me giving a tour to a family on the Mules. I thought to myself how odd it was for them to be giving camp tours so close to the new campers arrival, but I looked content and waved back to the nice man that waved to me from the back of the mule. Once I walked in to the store my 2 bosses were freaking out because Troy Aikman (famous cowboy football player?) just drove past. Coincidently, it was the sane person who waved at me. So...I'm practically famous... We tried to keep our cool but completely lost it when we saw him and Scott walking directly towards the store doors. Alana, head boss, turned to us store sistas an said "BATTLE STATIONS!" we took our places behind the register and acted Like it was no big deal that Troy aikman was In our presence with his 2 daughters and Prada wife.

After that excitement ended, I was assigned to head to the satellite lot ( where campers park before allowed on camp grounds) to sell concessions. That was an hour of sitting in the heat and not selling anything.

1 o clock rolled around and campers and parents were extremely excited, as were we. Today I worked pre-orders which is completely chaotic. Parents usually pre-order tshirts or tribal packages and so they pick them up first day of camp. It was tough but me and Courtney (my co-store sista) managed through it and got all the kids their orders successfully. For 2 hours it was non stop business and we shut down for a total of 5 minutes just to reopen for another 2 hours for Mish Mash. Needless to say we were very low on drinks and snacks! By then it was time for dinner but before I could eat my pizza and coke I had to check 10 boys cabins and make sure the uniform sizes they ordered were sized correctly. Dinner was good and loud with excited campers, but it ended quickly. I then headed Over to the staff house to get changed for TOTALLY OZARK. This was the night I had Been waiting for. It was throwback Ozark tonight and we basked in the jersey wearing, knee shorts, side ways hats, and wind suits, while listening to Backstreet Boys, Nsync, and having re-runs of Saved By the Bell on the big screen. Numerous karaoke and wii stations were set up as well as the Velcro wall and inflatables in the large field house. Campers flowed in through the store as always but eventually died down by 8. so we took advantage of the  break and knowing that we had a lot to restock, decided to one by one check our stations and restock before the special event ended so that when it did all we had left to do was restock the coke coolers. However, I was assigned to go to the basement And pull 30 bags of uniforms for all the cabins that are assigned to take pictures tomorrow. It was a lot of 3 YM shorts, 2 SM shorts, 4 YL shirts...etc bagging and then tagging each bag so to make sure each cabin recieved the right sizes. Finally we finished and just in time to run to the summit and deliver packages that weren't picked up upon arrival this afternoon. It has been a long and TIRING day. Everyone on campus hates how they split this session to be for one week campers and two week campers, because it makes opening day such like this one, so much more crazy and busy than it needs to be! But we all survived and I guarantee all 200 staff members that are working right now are glad the night is over and is taking a much needed break! As for me, I sit in bed with the cool breeze of Katrina and write this blog. Hope all is well wherever you may be and that your day is a little bit brighter now that you've heard from me. :)

June 6

Put on your Mardi Gras beads and your Drew Brees jersey, it's Louisina Night at Ozark! Oh, it was good to be home. We had Cajun fried chicken, scalloped potatoes, Cajun rice and corn on the cob. Don't forget the Drew Brees football throwing, picture station with Drew, or the Reggie Bush down hill race. The putt putt course was open as well as the blobs. But before I get too ahead of myself (which I think I already have) let me start at the beginning of the day.

I woke up this morning and felt like P. Diddy, knowing that the day ahead of me was going to be crazy busy...and it was. I decided to skip breakfast in the Chow Hall and just grab a special K bar and head to the main store to prepare for the closing day rush of parents making last minute purchases for their campers. The lines were crazy and Alana, head boss, says it's the craziest she's ever seen on a closing day. Afterwards we Restocked for an hour just so that we could re-open the store again to more parents. After that craziness ended we, yup you guessed it, restocked. Time for lunch I was a little overly excited and chowed all my cheesburger, fries, and cheesecake brownie faster than a bolt of lightning! I even turned down sharing a French fry to a friend because , well, I don't share potatoes. And yes, that's exactly what I told her haha.

After lunch I realized the post office probably needed someone to bring the summit their mail so I jumped in Darla, our golf cart, and Floored it to the summit. (and by floored I literally mean floored it, I only went about 2 miles an hour. I see snails passing me on this thing) once I arrived to the summit post office I was sad to see I missed the mail rush and felt bad for all the campers who were hoping to look in their cabins box to see mail only to find emptiness and cobwebs. Afterwards I went to the staff house and took a much needed nap in front of Katrina (my fan) and cooled down. Then I enjoyed an hour of sitting on the porch talking to the family and catching up on letter writing. 5 o clock rolled around and it was time to eat my Cajun dinner and listen to louisinan music and watch all the LSU fans surface. We had a huge Saints Sign in the all purpose basketball courts and a life size cut out of Drew to take pictures with. It was fun! After scarfing down dinner I headed to the summit store where I was assigned to work the special event. Being that we weren't busy at all I took my time to eat my Twix ice cream bar and make 2 ribbon bows in the craft center. (which is the downstairs lobby of the summit store) they are as KJ Marbry would say "KaYooooooot!" anyway when Louisina Night was over we store sistas restocked and cleaned like it was nobody business. We need to the store to be perfect for opening day of the next batch of one week campers. I'm getting excited to get a new wave of kids in an also to have this week fly bye and be in a well needed break with the family and friends of NOLA! But for now I find comfort in my Pringles and freshly washed hair and write this Blog Mail to you guys. So farewell to my friends and I will write tomorrow when something a little more interesting rolls around.

P.s. Can someone send me a new can of Pringles, I accidently ate all mine.