Aaaand We're Back! | Camp Joy and Life lately

Charity when we had a bonfire:)

Wow! It's been a long time hasn't it? All summer to be exact. My sisters and I had the most amazing summer ever! Maybe I'll get them to say something about it, but for now I'll just tell ya'll about my summer:) As I said, my sister's and I had the awesome opportunity of working at Camp Joy in Whitewater WI this summer. My mom posted a couple updates throughout the months we were gone, but I'll give some more detail. And throw in a couple random pictures too:)

Charity, Mercy, and Amarisa

I (Carissa) worked in the Housekeeping department. Basically, we cleaned everything. By everything I mean bathrooms (at least most of them which was a lot!), the chapel, the Lodge (which included the Fireside Room and Dining Hall), the Heritage Room, the Office, the Gym, the Nurse's Station, etc. We also serviced the Driftwood Cabins and Deluxe Rooms where families stay during family camps and sponsors stay during teen or junior weeks. Every afternoon we stocked the Gym Snack Shop and Snack Shack (try saying that five times fast! "Stocking the Snack Shop."). In the afternoons and evenings we worked in the different shops: the Bookstore, General Store, Gym Snack Shop, and the Snack Shack in the Lodge.

Me and Audi!

Charity

Because I wasn't able to be at Camp Joy during training week, I was definitely baptized by fire! I honestly had no idea what I was doing the first week, but thankfully, the other girls and both my supervisors taught me well:) I may or may not have exploded a blender during Junior Camp 1, dump hot chocolate mix all over me, and cut my thumb open two days before I left, but I survived! During Teen 3, a lot of us Housekeeping girls were able to help out in the kitchen because the Kitchen staff had lost a few people. We didn't really have any idea what we were doing in there, but the Kitchen staff graciously taught us. We waitress-ed, worked in the dish room (we REALLY didn't know what we were doing in there ;)) and helped clean up as much as we could before doing our own jobs.

Timothy building a tower while Amarisa taking it apart:)

I made a lot of friends over the summer as well! I had my own little cleaning buddy (the nurse's three-year-old son) who helped me clean every morning. He called me Cleaning Carissa:). And then all the other op-staff people. We had so many inside jokes that no one would ever get and would probably think we're crazy. But we had tons of fun. I was able to go to most of the evening chapel services. There were so many great messages and God was definitely working in every one of the camps. I had an amazing time this summer and hope to be able to do it again next year!!

On the way home from camp! It was a sad ride home:)

Audi isn't in this pic, but we're all home from being away all summer!

But, moving on from Camp; now to life lately. Josh and Autumn leave for college in exactly one week, Josh as a sophomore and Autumn as a freshman. Melody and I are both high school seniors. We're taking a couple college classes on-line for dual-credit, plus some other random classes we need to graduate. Timothy (13) is a freshman this year, Stephen (12) is in 6th grade, Serenity (10) is in 5th grade, Mercy (7-soon-to-be-8) is in second grade, and Charity (almost 4) is sort of but not really doing Kindergarten. Amarisa is almost 1 (when did that happen??) and, even though she's still pretty tiny, she's pulling herself up on everything, "talking" all the time, and waving (and saying) "hi" and "bye".

Audi an Josh

Well, that's all for now! Thanks so much for everyone's prayers for us this summer!

~Carissa:)