always a choice

For those of you who don't know what my job is during the summer, I am a camp counselor at a summer camp. Basically it is glorified babysitting, but whatever, I get to play (and yell) at kids all day. Most of the time it is relatively fun, but some of the time it is just down right exhausting and annoying.

Today we had a little bit of something we like to call "camp drama." [Because I don't want to share the names of these kids on the internet for privacy reasons, I will name one Prince William and one Prince Edward. Don't ask how I came up with them, they were just the first things that popped into my head.]

For the past week or so we have been having problems with Prince William. He is always being tattled on by of the other kids for bullying them and we have even caught him in a lie once or twice. He is just one of those kids that you pray and hope will stay at home instead of coming to camp that day. Prince Edward has been at our camp for the past 4 years. He is usually well-behaved and even when he gets out of line, when you talk to him about it, he always steps right back in.

According to Prince William and Prince William's mom, Prince Willy and Prince Eddy are inseparable friends and do everything together. Butttttt, when you talk to Prince Edward and Prince Edward's mom, Willy and Eddy rarely see each other and actually don't like to spend a lot of time together.

CONFUSION

Anyway, on Monday, Prince William's mom came in and talked to the counselors about how her son is being bullied and how he comes home every night from camp upset about the kids calling him names and picking on him. We try to tell her that it is actually her son that is doing the bullying and hurting other kids' feelings, but to her, her son walks on water. [NO reasoning with a mother with that mentality]

So today, Prince William and Prince Edward had a little falling out. I found Prince William crying in the corner after lunch. He explained to me that Prince Edward told him that he no longer wanted to be friends because he was a bully to the other kids. [Makes sense to me] We brought Prince Willy and Prince Eddy into the staff office and let them discuss their feelings toward each other. Everything seemed to be going pretty well between them until Prince William made a remark that really smacked me in the face with a red flag.

"If I stop bullying for the rest of the week, then you have to be my friend and play with me next week."

WHAT?!

He has to play with you. Definitely not. I explained to him that Prince Edward does not ever have to play with him or be his friend if he doesn't want to. I was trying to tell him that for the rest of his life, no friends should ever be forced, nor should he want them to be forced. If you have to force someone to be your friend, then you shouldn't even want to be friends with them in the first place. I think at that age (10 years), it is difficult to really have "good" friends. I mean, you have your friend's you see at school and sometimes that is that only place that you get to see them. Families are busy now-a-days with tons of extracurricular activities that all the kids do, that sometimes it is hard for children to see their school friends outside of school. 

I think that is what happened in the case today. Prince Willy and Prince Eddy were school friends during the last school year. But when summer came, they rarely saw each other and then when camp started, they made different camp friends and when they wanted to come together, they just didn't mesh quite as well as they would have hoped. Hopefully Prince William will find his place in the camp before anything else bad happens and there is more "camp drama" to take place.

This just really got me thinking about my friends and how they have changed from different schools I have attended and different sporting teams that I have been on and different clubs that I have belonged to and different stages that I have gone through in my life. It is amazing to look back on your life and think of all of the people that you had, in one time of your life, called your friend and now you wouldn't even call them your acquaintance. It sounds like a bad thing to say, but I really don't think it is. All of those people were friends at that time for a reason; whether it was to teach you something, either about the world or about yourself, help you through something or whatever it may be, they were your friends at that place in your life.

God places people in your life for many, many different reasons. Embrace them, but please, do not force them.

cleaner than NYC

We aimed to leave around 9pm on Thursday night and to pull an all-nighter to drive 12 hours and arrive early in Chicago Friday morning. I drove the first 4 hours and slept for the next 8. I got the good driving shift.

Friday: Shedd Aquarium

Saturday: Field Museum and Navy Pier

Sunday: Art Institute and Shopping and Dinner with MJ

I don't have any pictures from this day, 
but that doesn't mean that it 
wasn't eventful. In the morning we dropped

Caleb off at the corner of the Art Institute and 

said "SEE YA LATER" and Mom and I 

went shopping! Later we met back up

and went to dinner at Tavern on Rush.

Little did we know that this was Michael

Jordan's *favorite* restaurant in town and happened

to be there only about 5 tables away from us.

!celebrity sighting!

Monday: Lincoln Park Conservatory and Zoo and Millennium Park and Wendella Boat ride

Tuesday: Driving ALL day home

chi-city

This is where I am headed for the next 5 days with Caleb.

Chi-town, HERE WE COME!

Hopefully, I will be able to get some great

pictures with my new camera!

new toy

This weekend my dad got a new camera and therefore I inherited his [old] camera AND my Papa (grandfather) was generous enough to give me some of his [old] lenses.

Here it is!

What can I say?

I'm in love.

summer "really" starts

So I had been home from Elon for about a week and I didn't do anything that I would really call "exciting" till last Friday.

4 of my girlfriends and I got together and had LOADS of fun!

 - pool

 - tanning

 - St. Michael's

 - Justine's ice cream

 - bonfire

 - Chesapeake bay

 - beach

 - s'mores

 - horseshoe crabs

 - italian opera singing

 - Justin Beiber

 - matching anchor dresses

 - sunburn

 - laughing

 - sunset

LOVE THEM TO PLUTO AND BACK

celebration

Monday, March 1, 2010 was one of the hardest and worst days of my life.

That night I received a text message from my dad telling me that he needed me to call him. I texted him back saying that I was in a friend's room watching Grey's Anatomy and that it wouldn't end until late and that I would call him tomorrow after my morning classes. He texted back saying very sternly that he needed to talk to me tonight.

This scared me. He never usually acts like that. Usually when I tell him that I will call him tomorrow he responds with a nice "Okay. Good night. I love you." But with that response I could tell something was really wrong. I quickly left my friend's room and called him as soon as I got back to mine. I would have called him on the way, but was too nervous about what my reaction would be to whatever he was going to say and wanted to be in the safety and privacy of my own room. (Luckily my roommate was no where to be found)

I dialed my dad's cell number and my heart was pounding as the phone rang. I had no idea what he was going to say. Truthfully, I don't remember what the first couple of lines said to each other were. I was too focused on what was so urgent.

He then said it: Aunt Suzy has a brain tumor.

WHAT?!

I couldn't believe him. I didn't want to believe him.

I started crying instantly. And my dad held it together for a while, but then soon we were both sobbing to each other over the phone. I kept thinking to myself there is no way this could be true. There is no way this could be happening to me; not even to me, but to her and my family.

Well that is the sad part of the story. And now onto the more encouraging part! (You always need one of those)

From the very mouth of my amazing Uncle Barry on the
family blog about Aunt Suzy's recovery journey,

Tomorrow [which is actually today for this post] is a very important day. 

30 days of radiation - completed. 

42 days of chemotherapy - completed.

 6 weeks over! 

Time for a giant party!!

So today was the day! The first milestone! Woohoo! Certainly a time for celebration!

Aunt Suzy has been one of the greatest people in my life that God has ever blessed me with. I'm not sure if she know's this, but I give her (and God, of course!) the credit for me coming to know and love Jesus. And I know for a fact that I am not the only one who has this claim to fame. She has shared her faith with people like no one else I have ever seen. For goodness sake, she was even sharing God's love to the doctors and nurses that are treating her right now.

Ever since I was little I was able to see God's love shine through her in everything that she did. She is truly an amazing women of God.

This is Aunt Suzy and me punting down the Cherwell River in England last summer!

I love you Aunt Suzy and the whole Gaeddert clan over there in England. Can't wait to see you all soon!

ultimate with the guys

Starting about a month and a half ago, about once a week (and sometimes twice if we are lucky) I go out to the intramural fields with about 6 of my guy friends and we play ultimate frisbee in the dark.

And you are probably thinking...How in the world do you play in the dark?

Good question.


Answer:

Yes. A light up frisbee. AND it changes colors!

So, yeah, we go out at about 10pm and play for about an hour and a half and we have a blast. I have so much fun playing with all the guys and believe it or not, I can actually keep up with most of them! :)

Tonight we had our last late night frisbee get together of the school year. We had so much fun. I even met someone new! (Something that I have come to love since being at Elon. You meet some wonderful people everyday here!) And he was REALLY good at frisbee. He had the honor of being asked to play on the ultimate team here at Elon as a freshman this year.

Anyway, he was on my team and I just have to say that yes, we did win. A whopping 7-2!

Looking back at my year at Elon and what I am going to miss the most, these nights with those awesome guys are definitely one of the top things on my list. There is just enough competition to make it fun, but not enough that we get mad at each other. We all jump on each other and push each other around. Sometimes it's nice to just be "one of the guys."

I am really going to miss these guys and these fun nights during the summer. I am sure we will have many more of them to come in the years to follow.