Day (11)

Retreat Day two! Today might have been the longest day of my entire life. Got up at 5:00 to turn on the coffee pots, they take like 40 minutes to brew the whole thing they're so huge. Started on our first meal of the day for 130 people, making gravy for the biscuits, scrambled eggs, bacon and fruit. WT sure doesn't let anyone go hungry, or accept diets. Its crazy because by the time we finish breakfast and doing dishes, its time to start on lunch. For lunch we had baked potato bar and salad bar so that kids would definitely have enough energy to do the GBC. After lunch is when I start passing out the Individual food for hikers. Each group comes to my station where all the Trail food bins are set out and ready for them to get to take out on the trail with them. Everyone gets ramen noodles, fruit cups, snack packs, applesauce, hot chocolate, coffee, apple cider, grits, oatmeal, poptarts and nature valley bars that they can eat for lunch and breakfast. Once all the groups had individual and group food, I went back to the kitchen to help Malker with dinner- BBQ! Hush puppies (hikers can have more than 2 this year, suck it steven!) coleslaw, baked beans and of course salad bar. Our Light of the World skit went pretty well, and did a good job of leading into Kristen's talk and to the worship up at the outdoor chapel. This part of the night is probably one of my favorite traditions at Trail, the outdoor chapel just has something about it that speaks to just about everyone. We took communion and just got to enjoy each others company while we watched the sun go down on the mountains that the next day we would all be hiking for the next 5 days :)

Day (10)

Retreat day one!! so nervous for tonight-dinner is chicken parm and Kaylee is freaking out more than we are! Started making brownies at like 2:30 and had dinner done kinda early! since support staff doesn't have Jstaff, just worked on putting all the group and trail food together while everyone did a deep clean of the property. Bad news-our Food City order was apparently never transmitted to the shipper, so some of the food we needed for trail food wasn't going to be here for the first event at all. UH OH. Made a plan, and I was so frustrated and tired at this point and now i had to make a trip all the way to Bristol where the Sam's Club and Wal-Mart is to get 400 Nature Valley bars and a whole bunch of apple cider. I've been so worried about forgetting things, there's so much that hasn't been on our food orders, but so far we've always remembered right before it was too late. Hikers started arriving around 4:00 for Meet and Greet!! MJ did announcements and a tour of the property while we finished up dinner. We were a little nervous having to announce dinner, but it was more fun than I expected. The worship team was awesome, everyone seemed really excited for the new additions to the band- noah on the djembe drum, ashley singing, and matthew on bass. We did the WT Security Skit after dinner, which turned out to be kind of chaotic- we didn't really have a good plan for the first night we had only practiced the Top Gun skit for the next night. (Mary Walker and I bought the boys a Seal Team Six book just so they could look like they knew what they were doing)

Day (9)

First day of Event 1, Junior Staff day! Feels like this day was never going to get here. usually junior staff are told to get here around 2:00, but Jason Feliciano decided to show up at 9:30, 5 hours early. it was pretty funny because this was our one day to sleep in and half of us weren't even up yet, so it kind of put some of us in a funk. The rest of the Junior staff showed up in the afternoon; Matthew's sister Jordan came up with Preston and Jared's brother Gage, so it was fun for them to get to see family! we made lasagna, salad and cheesecake for the jstaff lunch and then had orientation time for them. it's weird orienting other people when you don't even know everything, but i think the kitchen orientation went pretty well for the first time. Patrick and Jessica are in charge of Jstaff games so we all went to play 9-square after lunch and get to know everyone. The Jstaff learned who their hiking staff was which is always fun to announce, and who they would be hiking with that week; I felt bad for some of the staff because there weren't enough groups for every staff so some had to double staff-which, is always really fun. but for the first week, i can imagine feeling a little disappointed, especially for the new staff. We had our staff meeting in the DD and got our STAFF SHIRTS!! the revealing of the color is hugeeee. This year they are navy with yellow writing, we all thought they looked pretty good! The only thing for the girls is they ordered Men's sizes for everyone so they're pretty big on us.

Day (8)

Every now and then you need a day where everything just goes wrong. Today was that day, but it always helps me to appreciate more and i know eventually i'll look back on the day and realize that all those things were pretty insignificant. Mary Walker and I were just so tired and energy less like everyone else and it became hard to see the good in the day at all. We all took an adventure to Pirates late in the afternoon after working, and brought the steaks and picnic food out to them but realized we had no grill, so we had to go back to the property for that too. Dropped the watermelon as we got to the car and it broke in half...we decided that since it was already broken we might as well have fun and throw the pieces at threes and get out anger out. The day took a turn back at Pirates, we gathered for a really special campfire- we had a group foot washing where the person to your left would take on the role of servant-hood and wash the feet of another; I washed Patrick's feet and Ashley washed my feet. this is always a really memorable thing i think and as the night went on, i realized that this foot washing with the staff was almost necessary- we needed to hear each other build everyone up and praise all of the amazing talents and gifts each person has, especially right before the first event. we ended up doing foot washing for three hours, staying up till 1:00...was late and freezing but that time with each other was worth it!

Day (7)

Day of the exciting Wilderness Trail Road Challenge! I was really excited about today to get to go on the road challenge and learn where everything is. We got in teams of three and set off with a map and a list of about 30 places where WT drops hikers off, pickup points, or important locations around town. my team was Noah, Jessica and myself-also including our wooden cow cutout, golf club and trashcan as props. We had to go to each destination and take a picture with atleast one group member in it- earning 500 points. we got 1,000 bonus points if we had a picture with a teammate in the water, 500 bonus points for each picture with a homemade sign creating a new name for the location, 12,000 points if we found Alan's lost wallet-summer 2002, 50 points for pictures with all team members in it, 1,000 points if atleast 5 pictures depicts a story, and 1,000 points for a picture with a known community member. Our team headed towards Damascus first since it was pretty far out and ended up meeting Jennie, Patrick and Kristen. The road challenge took a good 4 hours and our team didn't even get to a lot of them. We ended up in 3rd place with 14,000 which was also last place..but 3rd sounds better...and got a lovely prize of a found pair of glasses, equipped with cleaning rag and contact case. We'll work out a schedule of divided time with the glasses. i did a lot of organizing in the loft today- prepared the trail food bins and got everything ready for when Lavonda (the health inspector) comes tomorrow to look at the kitchen. we're a little nervous, we only hope that things are tidy enough and that we pass the written test portion also. We worked for awhile that afternoon and then had dinner (Mary Walker's famous Gumbo!) and had worship. went to watch the candle game in the equipment shed...bad idea for trying to convince me, chew spit looks a whole lot worse on concrete than it does in the grass. Patrick, Jess, Noah and I left to play a good game of Rolley Chair soccer in the lodge till we were too worn out!

Day (6)

Everyone else got back from the staff hike this morning, around 11:00; Mary Walker and I started on the big feast for them-the last really good meal before events start. Malcom and Kaylee made homemade bread and butter and showed us how Malcom did his famous BBQ chicken. With it we made an asian coleslaw, corn on the cob, mac and cheese, ricotta and tomato pastry's and watermelon, kind of like Thanksgiving, we needed nap after. Kaylee talked with us after lunch about the property and some things we needed to remember taking care of it-we went to organize our staff houses (not officially named yet..the boys are still pushing for the Swollery ..) and get some things picked up in the yard. Hung out till dinner and then had the leftover feast again! Worship tonight was really nice up at the outdoor chapel, the sunset was beautiful and is always so relaxing up there. it got really late quickly it seemed, and none of us wanted to walk all the way back down so we all piled into the back of Jared's truck-fun for Jared! It was literally like being on a roller coaster we flew so fast down the hill, I don't think he touched the brakes once. We screamed like girls and came back to the lodge re energized and decided a RAGE would be perfect. Blasted music and wore ourselves out till midnight dancing. I sat and listened to Ashley read some funny short stories for awhile and headed on to bed!

Day (5)

Woke up late for on trail, about 8:00 and packed up all our stuff. Malcom had already made us some sausage for breakfast- a big treat compared to an oatmeal packet. Quiet time was led by Matthew- I got really frustrated that i couldn't consentrate because of the million flies that were around us for some reason. you would think as a fly, if you got flicked enough times you would stop landing on me...before we left (Malcom, Mary Walker and I had to leave early) Malcom wanted to bless us. and our summer so instead of annointing oil he used crushed up tobacco to put on our heads...different! We hiked out and came back to the property to meet KayLee who is helping us get some things ready in the kitchen. We took a trip to food city and got some good stuff for our cookout tomorrow at Pirates Paradise (swimming hole) and some other food along with our trail food order. Grand total of $3,000 today, BOOYAH! The dog that wandered up to the property a few days earlier, Morphius, was asleep in the kitchen when we got back and peed on the drawers and paper plates. Carlos-I think that Morphius has you beat here champ!

Day (4)

Today we started off the morning with a discussion on Junior Staff, and the importance they have to our ministry and how we can make them feel important and give them as much thanks and praise as possible for giving up their summer to be servant leaders for us. We split into pairs and were given a word from the "7 steps of creating disciples" and Ashley and I's word was Consecration, along with readings from Roman's 3:22-24 and Matthew 7:24-27. We incorporated the Junior Staff into the message wit the idea that the passages were telling us that if you put faith in God then you have a strong foundation and you can find wisdom through faith. The main concept being- we need to build up our junior staff and encourage what they are doing. Today was also the beginning of the staff Hike HOOORAY! We packed up around lunch and got all our packs in the van's and headed out to put in at Massie Gap. Jack, Jared and Jennie all got car sick from the curvy roads- although Jack and Jared chewing probably had a little something to do with it too. Our hike was so pretty and was nice to be away from the property and out in Grayson Highlands, heading towards Wilburn Ridge. We stopped at Wise shelter to have a group talk on "how to handle adults in your group" and discuss countless scenarios that probably wouldn't happen (lots of sleepers again...) we finally got to our campsite, Quebec Branch and set up hammock and tarps and then went to go meet our surprise guests, Rob Blackburn (my minister in Asheville) and Malcom. They had chips and salsa all ready for us and fried some summer sausage for us while Rob gave us some advice for the summer he wanted to share. Malcom spent the night with us and helped us cook the Stove Top and mashed potatoes- I'm always so amazed at how little we eat out on trail compared to at home where it wouldn't even be qualified as a snack, but somehow we're always stuffed. Malcom had quite a lot to share with us, some of it was really confusing but still had lots of knowledge to offer. Malcom is a talker, he talked for almost three and a half hours straight at campfire just saying anything and everything on his heart while we didn't say a word and just listened, I don't know how he does it! We were pretty tired at this point and a little overwhelmed so a few decided to play the Candle Game (didn't take part in this one yet...) where you take chew and stand in a circle with the candle lit in the middle and each take a turn spitting at the candle and whoever extinguishes it gets a point and you keep going until you run out. Campfire was so nice just to get to sit and have fun conversations with everyone. Crazy how you can stay up with people till 1:00 even though you know you'll see them bright and early in the morning all day every day! Good tarp talk with the girlies! :)

Day (3)

Got up extra early today to make pancakes for everyone- we had been feeling bad about having sandwiches everyday for lunch, so we wanted to do something special for breakfast. Jared led the morning quiet time and then circled up to practice the first night group meeting on retreat day one. We all piled into the Director's Den (the DD) which turned out to be a bad idea-bean bags and couches are too comfy- resulted in about half of us falling asleep...couldn't use sunglasses to hide our eyes this time. We had a big food order come in from US Foods, with around 200 cases of food and Trail Food. I was feeling pretty exhausted at this point and didn't know where in the world we were going to put all this stuff but everyone pitched in and got everything stored and put in the loft and freezers! Hope next time there is a different truck driver...caught me pretending to do an Elvis dance with a microphone and laughed for a good 5 minutes. After unloading, we all got to get showered and dressed up to go into town to shop for summer supplies at Sam's and Wal-Mart; we all got a shopping partner and a list and went out to collect our items...Malker took a couple oatmeal boxes to the face trying to get them down :) We all met back up and drove on to go to dinner at Outback Steakhouse pretty dang expensive for 15 people! Our waiter looked like Frodo and became best friends with Jack, guess he knew he was going to be getting a pretty large tip. Walked to see the Hangover 2 after dinner and immediately became became the most obnoxious group there, at least one person was yelling the entire time. Drove back from Bristol and unpacked all of the groceries, the boy's were fascinated at how many feminine products we had to buy for all the campers this summer... and invented "tampon bowling" with the boxes looking idiotic as usual.

Day (2)

Today started off with a quiet time led by Ashley and then started into some work on GBC orientation (group building course) and continued to a deep clean of the kitchen! Mary Walker and I organized and used our label maker to get everything in an organized space. Today was a lot of cleaning for everyone-we got assigned to our cleaning areas that we will be in charge of over the summer and learned how to manage it. MJ led the next discussion of Light of the World-we broke into our small groups to look at some of the passages. Started brainstorming on what the staff skits would be, based on the theme and came up with one demonstrating God's Light and Sharing God's Light. The first skit demonstrates sharing His light and how it can't be extinguished no matter what obstacles it faces. We worked on our Security Team dance, either the Jai Ho dance again or one from 500 Days of Summer :) I voted for Hoedown Throwdown, but the boys weren't big fans. Mary Walker and I decided to do make your own pizza night and have everyone create what they wanted...some of the boy's looked more like a nacho pile there were so many weird toppings. Had some singing and guitar time after dinner on the porch, and even was convinced to participated in the boy's bonding time of smoking pipes-keepin' it classy Troutdale.

Day (1)

Orientation started off with a fun pond jump and for Mary Walker and I, a huge trip to the grocery store. We were able to make it under our budget of $60 per meal this time, thank goodness, and came back to the property to start some cleaning in the kitchen. MJ gave everyone their new staff folders and notebooks as well as bibles for the new staff to go over the orientation schedule and started talking some about the theme for the summer, "Light of the World." Our first dinner was a little bit of a disaster, we decided to go for the sale on the ground beef..in a tube..turns out it quite possibly wasn't ground beef. The grill was another problem, we didn't have any lighter fluid for the charcoal so we used lamp oil from our lanterns...the grill kept going out and the burgers were refusing to cook it was such weird meat. We gave an apology speech and a forewarning before we let everyone eat them, but they ended up tasting pretty good they just looked hideous! We had worship with the praise band after dinner and can't forget some Movin Like Bernie time.