what a past few days!

well, this week (so far) has been full of quite the adventures. :) we usually have sunday's and monday's off, but this week we had to work monday so we had sunday and tuesday off instead. every monday at the ranch their are program meetings.. that is why we worked that day. it is somewhat of our programming week at the ranch. so we sat in on our first programming meeting. it was nice to see how a meeting is run and what the meeting entailed. even though i am not participating in the meetings it is still very beneficial for me and my desire to be full-time in camp ministry. i am trying to absorb every experience i get! later that evening we played in our usual monday night volleyball pick-up league. with this weather keeping me locked up inside, going to volleyball is a very good thing to keep me from going crazy.

tuesday we had off, but i needed to earn a comp day so that i can go to italy in may! a little vacation i have been saving for. i figured i would be working on our summer program and a book report we have due on friday, but matt suggested i go recruiting for summer staff with the recruiting team at Messiah. being in an office all day or recruiting summer staff?? i think you know which wins. hahah it was nice to go to messiah.. i got to see an old co-worker who might be interested in working at the ranch :) she also might go on our vacation! a girl i met at the ccca conference was there as well. that's the 2nd recruiting trip we have been right beside each other! too fun. sandy cove was also there. the head of the HR department was there and so was the director of their summer camp in WV. he is a real cool guy and has tons of connections to camps in austrailia. so, i guess i will confess that i have been thinking about working at a camp(s) in austrailia for a few months next winter. it's exciting to know that it could possibly work out if the Lord wants it. after talking to Tim, i realized it is a real possibility! if it doesn't work out, no worries. it was fun to think about it :) it's nice to have a connection who could really be a huge help if i do go down under. so i will be praying and researching this little idea..

wednesday... sarah and i had the opportunity to go to downtown baltimore for a marketing meeting. i am very grateful for this opportunity and although i still have a lot to learn about marketing, i really enjoy it. i think i need to narrow down a field of camp ministry i want to work in, but i have a problem. i like them all! haha maybe i will just wait and see where the Lord leads in that area. it was vaguely a meeting on how we can bring more campers to RVR. too me very beneficial. i think the meeting was very successful.. a plan was devised and details were made. people were placed in charge of certain areas and all in all a good day. the plan can now go into action back at the ranch.

last night.. oh where to begin.. sarah, taco, dess, and i were going to meet some friends down in annapolis for an andy mckee concert. he is an acoustic guitarist. it was at a tavern so we had some dinner and then walked over to the concert. well, our friend who got all our tickets didn't see where it was a 21 and up show. bummer, cause dess isn't 21. they wouldn't even mark her hands to say she was under 21.. it was weird that rule was in place just for a concert.. we heard that annapolis has some pretty hard core laws about drinking and concerts and underage people.. so her and i ended up not going to the concert. since we were an hour and a half away from the ranch we couldn't just call someone to come get us. so we tried to sell our tickets and with no luck decided to walk the streets to find a coffee shop and sit for a bit. well we chose the wrong side of town to walk towards and saw some sketch places and people so we turned around asap. and went towards the other side of town. much better. since it was 8 and on a week night, not much was open. we ended up finding a little ice cream shop that said they had the best hot chocolate in town.. so we, being frozen, thought this place sounded good and looked safe.. we were right! haha we each got a little ice cream, which was homemade.. delicious. and we split a hot chocolate.. delicious! the place was real cute and real mom and pop shop like. a tradition they have started is allowing people to decorate spoons. they will be hanging them all over their walls soon. so dess and i colored our spoons and then left them there to be placed on the wall. he closed at 9:30 so we had to leave and go into the cold again. haha we ended up walking the levels of our parking deck for the next hour and 15 mins and just talked. it was great to get some exercise after that ice cream.. not gonna lie i was really happy.. there were 6 levels and we walked up and down and up and down the stairs.. on our way home i read my daily reading from my one year Bible out loud.. i felt like i was reading to my little kids.. :)

now, its thursday and the week has already been so eventful... we will see what the rest of the weekend holds.. like sarah's birthday tomorrow.. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

joyful,
beth.