everyone's a drummer.... kudzu week 2 highlights!

this week was a big one. i debuted on drum set thursday night with the CeeTLes. aah it was so crazy! of course we sounded awesome and all, but i was really nervous. not only was it the first time i played drum set in front of people, but these people are also used to scott playing, and he is awesome! afterwards, one of my favorite campers (a 11 yr old boy, call him B) came up to me and said, "Leelee, you rock!" That pretty much made my week right there.

i would have to say that this week my favorite activity was improv. i was scheduled there a lot, and i got some really awesome cabins to hang out with! it's so great to see kids to come out of their shell and just have fun. one of the cabins i had was B's cabin. they were an interesting group of boys, but every time they saw me they said hey! another group i had the last day. also boys, they were the group who wrote a song to my cabin. meliss had a girls cabin at her kayak session at the same time and asked us to do the bean skit for them, so i taught it and everyone embraced it wonderfully!

my cabin was great this week. they were 12 year old girls and by the end of the week we all really clicked! i had to fight back tears when i was saying goodbye.

Silly Band Diary

• kudzu day 2: added a microphone
• kudzu day 3: traded the elephant for a penguin and the crown for a hedgehog!
• meliss traded her absolute favorite sill band, an alabama A (roll tide!) for the coolest one ever: marshmallows on a stick
• saturday: my lovely roommie hannah brought back even more silly bands, so i added a tepee, an elephant, and an ostrich to my collection!

Cabin 7 Love Song: by Cabin 24 (to the tune of Soul Sister)

v. Your cabin stays
On the girls' side but we just can't wait
For the mealtimes when we can make you
Shake your booty yeah

c. Hey Cabin 7
We know that you're from heaven
On the radio, right now you know,
Tellin all the world it's so
Hey cabin 7
My blood sugar's 11
Won't you share your juice with me
Tonight?

v. If you'll be mine
We can meet together at free time
We can watch the band forever
Put our hands together
Yours and mine

The 7 Rules of Romance
These were written by adorable 10 year old boys about what to do. When asked if the were rules, one responded: They're the law

1.Make her happy
2.Get to know her
3.Act cute/Smell good
4.Date her
5.Marry her
6.Have babies
7.Love forever

boys: take note!! these are rules that all males should follow!

bottom line: kudzu week 2 was awesome! now ready for camp sunshine teens!!

silly band diary

who hasn't heard of silly bands???? no one? good. EVERYONE has them here at camp and a lot of us trade or give them to campers. I decided today that I am going to record where my silly bands go, what i end up with, and what others give. woo!

kudzu day 1:

• I started with a dollar sign (my absolute FAVORITE), a rabbit, a hook, and a crown. After opening ceremony I traded the dollar sign for an elephant with one of my campers whose sugar was high
• Somehow Caley managed to get the coolest silly band ever: a kite! he got it from a camper who traded the kite for caley's unicorn
• becca b (my co-parent for this week) gave one of her silly bands to a camper in our cabin because she didn't have any. yay becca!!
• my other roommate hannah had the "groovy" pack, and she gave me the love and peace silly bands!

that's all for now! it's going to be interesting to see where all my silly bands end up and what i finish the summer with!

D-I-A-B-E-T-E-S

so.... I did a really bad job of updating last week! i apologize.

who's ready for camp kudzu week 2??? I AM!! it's always great to meet a new set of campers every week. I've got cabin 7 so I'm thinking they will be about 13 yr old girls. maybe?

Some more of what happened last week:

What do a certain group of professional cyclists and kudzu campers have in common?? Type 1 Diabetes. 5 of the cyclists from Team Type 1 (made up of cyclists with the betes!) came last week and stayed for two days. they talked to the kids about how not to let diabetes hold them back! they also stressed how important it is to manage their blood sugar well so that they can live their dream of becoming pro cyclists. then they just hung out with the kids and went to activities! one of my favorite things to do is watch adults who get thrown into camp do all of our songs and dances. it was pretty cute. the youngest one (who was 2o. younger than me!) really concentrated to get it all down pat! by the time they left they were experts at ctl life.

thursday night was...... the dance!! remember my camper who had a date monday at breakfast? well she ditched him and picked up a new guy to take to the dance. a few of my other girls had dates too! oh to be young and have camp love...

speaking of dancing, i had the dance activity at least once a day. i was pretty nervous to do it, but it turned out to be AWESOME! every cabin that came wanted to learn the 'Hoedown Throwdown' (thank you miley) and even the one group that kinda got bored, the counselors wanted to learn more line dances. i have lots of those btw, which is weird since i do not like country music. but hey, there's a first time for everything, right? and 'callin baton rouge' is one of my absolute favorite songs at the moment. one cabin at dance, cabin 3, was so cute and enthusiastic. they ALL wanted to tell me there diabetes stories and how when they were little they would take glucose tablets from where their mom hid them because they tasted so good, etc. and one of those girls gave me a headband she made!! She had two, and I said that i loved them because they were adorable, and she practically forced me to take it. we had an argument. and you just can't argue against a 10 year old girl. they will win!! another girl in the same cabin saw my tattoo and said 'you have a sunshine tattoo?' of course i said yes, and then she asked if i had cancer and what type i had. i was pretty caught off guard because most ten year olds don't know what the other camps are for, let alone ask questions about it!

one of my best sessions last week was definitely radio. i was paired up with my dear roommie Grace and we had a cabin of ten year old boys. they were probably the funniest cabin at camp. they wanted to do a radio show and have me and grace be their guest callers. not to mention that their song requests were epic! they told grace that her character was named penelope (haha). both of us talked with funny accents. mine ended up coming out a jamaican-hispanic mix. but the kids thought both of us were hilarious, which is what it's all about!! one of the things we are striving for with the radio is to make everything more camp-centric, so when we called in, both grace and i pretended to be moms of campers at kudzu. my kid, i think i named her amelia, was new and does injections, so i asked how she was being taken care of there and helped. those boys were the best advocates for their camp. they talked about how great it is. they talked about the pump palace and how everyone helps everyone else learn to manage their diabetes better. it was pretty adorable and awesome and everything that we strive for at camp.

this week i checked my blood sugar for the first time!!! i even pricked my finger myself. next step=pump site. one of the girls in cabin 11 who comes back for another camp told me that she would bring extra sites just in case any ctl staff doesn't get the chance to get a pump site this week! woo! i'm pretty nervous about it actually, but that's okay!! for those who don't know, pump sites involve needles, and i am not too comfortable with those. it's great to get a bit of the experience that all these kids go through every day!

gah i can't wait for another great week at camp twin lakes!!!

we're brothers and sisters at camp kudzu!

this week is off to a great start!! my cabin is ballin, the dance dimension is pretty much the best workout ever, and kudzu is awesome!! not to mention a helicopter landed on the ball field today......

wait, what? yes. that is correct. a helicopter landed ON the sports field yesterday, and not for a medical emergency but for two (almost) famous people! the first was Jordyn Shellhart, an up and coming country singer from nashville. She was actually quite good and had one heck of a voice for 16! her songs were taylor swift-esque. the other was Chase Elliot, son of a nascar driver, and a driver in his own right. (I don't really know much about nascar...) both of them were adorable, and the kids today thought the whole helicopter thing was awesome! poor kid, chase pretty much became every tween girl's object of affection after that! After lunch, Jordyn gave camp a concert in the gym. the weather was crazy flip floppy so the safe bet was DEFINITELY inside. every kid wanted an autograph or picture with her and she made sure they all got them! look her up on www.jordynshellhart.com or http://www.myspace.com/jordynshellhart !!

where to start when talking about my cabin? well.. they are 11-year-old girls that were originally supposed to be in cabin 4, but the air conditioner is broken so they are in cabin 28, right by the oldest boys!! they got here midday sunday, and by breakfast yesterday, one of my girls already had a date for the dance! well... she had one, but broke up with him and now has another. haha i love them. my cabin is crazy... just the way i like it!!

this week i also have the dance dimension with JoJo!! Dimensions are for teens only and they get to pick an activity that they do mon, tues, and wed night. Three of the girls were really into it and the two that weren't didn't come back! So we pretty much learned choreographed stuff the first day and then let them make up their own dances. We also learned the beginning of "Thriller".

that's all for now!!

Chuch in the Tree House

So another week is starting at Twin Lakes with Camp Kudzu which is for kids with juvenile diabetes. My cabin is great (11 year old girls) but that is not what this entry is about. It’s about something new to staff: Church in the Tree house. Reminds me of that old tune “Church in the Wildwood”…

As staff, we typically have to meet on Sundays around 11-11:30 am to get schedules and stuff for the upcoming week. Unfortunately, all the churches nearby start their services around 10:30. Too late for us to go! So some people decided, why not do our own kinda church? And that’s what we did tonight. With no lights in the tree house and starting at 9:45 at night, it was dark and a little creepy walking out there. But when we got there I found that I really enjoyed the little light that we got from flashlights. It all seemed more reverent to me.

It is so easy to just get caught up in everything that is going on around us. Even at camp there is so much to do, and in the back of all of our minds there is so much to worry about. Tonight was perfect. Too often we don’t have time where we can just breathe and be at peace, and for me that’s what it was. Not only was it wonderful to hear everyone else’s thoughts and stories, it was a great time to relax and just remember that we aren’t alone. I am the type of person who if you push me to do something I will just push back harder, and it was good for me to have a relaxed evening to slowly let my doubts fade.

Because church can be anywhere and with anyone as long as they believe.

feel the rhythm, feel the rhyme

Camp Braveheart ended today. It was a good week though! Like every camp should, it ended with the dance, probably the highlight of everyone on staff's week. I mean I loved dances as a camper, but they are SO MUCH BETTER a adult. Why? Because camp dances are full of young love and heartache and crazy dancing. Girls getting flowers, boys dressing up to impress the ladies... all at a camp dance. At least one couple cried because they had to leave each other this morning. :( Adorable as always, we said goodbye to the kids after a last song set by the CeeTLes after breakfast.

So I promised more info on the CeeTLes... basically we are the coolest band ever. At the moment there are 5 of us (although special guest performers are always welcome). We are: Jamie on guitar, Joanna on keyboard, myself on the djembe, and Melissa and Grace singing! Jojo and I sing too sometimes! Thank you Beth for giving me the confidence I need to pursue my drumming love. Look out next fall for me to take over drumline! Haha jk, jk. So I learned this week that little kids LOVE, i mean, LOVE djembes. And they want them for themselves. I had to distract/fight off/etc multiple little girls from stealing my drum! One 7-year-old was PARTICULARLY difficult. During a few songs I got her to play with me, but sometimes she was a little too crazy! Got through it though. I'm glad I play such a popular instrument! But anyways, we play camp songs (our own versions and remixes) and try to play the songs that are most popular among the kids! We mostly succeed.

Continuing on this drumming tangent of mine... Tuesday night we had Drum Cafe come to camp. they. were. awesome. As a percussion lover myself, I quite enjoyed the festivities even though they arrived late. It was 3 guys, one from South Africa, one from Jamaica, and an older guy from West Africa. For starters... their drums were SO COOL!!!!! and I want one. The two younger guys had these jumbo djembes (love the alliteration) and one had a shaker attached to it, and the older man had three drums attached to each other that he played with sticks. The coolest thing about this was that everyone, every camper, counselor, staff member, etc got to play their own drum. Throughout the night they added in some different instruments as well. The kids who were awake for it thought it was pretty cool. The drummers talked a lot about how drumming is used in Africa and how anyone can make music and be a drummer (everyone's a drummer mt friends!!) It was a great evening program this week. After it was over, a few of the CTL staff hung out on stage with the guys to help them pack up and just talk. Of course, music nerd that I am, I ran on stage and thanked them and told them how cool their drums were. And I very sneakily touched one! haha. They would be so cool to just jam with. I would very much like to do that one day. The older gentleman told us about all the different places he had been to all over the world. It was pretty cool to hear those stories. i can't wait for them to come back! maybe i will muster up the courage to ask to play one of those drums... for more info: www.drumcafeatlanta.com

bottom line.... music is the best and it brings so many people and different abilities together!

Caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamp!!

Yay summer! Wow I have not been on here in a while. Not much internet access at camp! So now that I am at camp…. I am going to make all my updates about that! No camper names will be mentioned (for confidentiality purposes). Not only is this for me to keep a record of everything that happens, but also to let everyone know how awesome it is!! And, well I really suck at keeping in touch with people over the summer. Not much free time! But that’s okay with me!!

What camp do I work at? Only the best: Camp Twin Lakes!! A camp for kids with life challenges and serious illnesses. There’s a new camp pretty much every week! We cover kids of all shapes, sizes, and disabilities. I am at the Rutledge site, but I went to Will-a-way during staff training!

What do I do? I am on the arts and music staff leading drumming, radio, ceramics, improv, and dance sessions. I am also in our ballin band, the CeeTLes playing drums (yes drums. Right now just a djembe) and whatever else. A post dedicated to the band will follow!

What’s new? My nametag says “LeeLee” not Lelia. Let’s face it, it doesn’t quite look like it sounds and this is MUCH easier for kids to say! And lots of them say it all the time!

This week is Camp Braveheart, which is for kids with congenital heart defects and transplants. The campers are between 7 and 13 years old. They got here Sunday and tonight was the TALENT SHOW!! Let’s just talk for a moment about how incredibly cute all the kids were doing their respective talents. Outside my cabin buddies (cabin 8 what what!) I have to say that my favorite act was a group of 7 year old boys doing magic tricks! You could not take the smiles off their faces throughout the whole thing! There is a girl in my cabin who is always in her own little world (I have 12 year old girls this week) and when she got up to sing, it was a whole new person! Everyone was in shock. She was hamming it up like nobody’s business. I could go into exact details about every act that I remember, but to sum up the talent show I will say this: Justin Bieber’s “Baby” or whatever it’s called is OFFICIALLY the most popular song of the summer.

More later, but for now I leave you with the saying on the back of our 2010 staff shirts: There’s a camp for that. And there is at CAMP TWIN LAKES!!