Spring has arrived!

March is ending!  Wow, has time flown by or what?

Let me TRY to recall what has happened since our last post.

Kelly had off of school for spring break a couple weeks back. That was great! We were able to hang out at home in the evenings together without Kel having to do homework. These pictures are of a beach that we went to while in San Diego. We had a blast hanging out on some sandstone cliffs and taking pictures of the ocean. We also went to the "Children's Pool"... which is a beach full of seals!!!!! For good reasons we had to stay at least fifty feet away from the seals, but it was still so cool to see them in their natural habitat.

Cache 2

Cache 1

     Kel and I have taken up the sport of Geocaching.  It is an "outdoor treasure hunting game using GPS-enabled devices. Participants navigate to a specific set of GPS coordinates and then attempt to find the geocache (container) hidden at that location." To learn more, go to: http://www.geocaching.com/
     So far, we have found eight caches... and two days ago we even placed our own!  Unfortunately, Kelly learned that our cache was too close to another one in the area. The rules are that it has to be 0.10 miles (528ft) away from another and ours was too close. Last night we went out and relocated it.

Cache 3

Cache 4

     Wednesday, the two of us went to a part in the national forest to hide our cache and decided to find a couple caches that were in the area.  Kel and I climbed up some large boulders in search of a trail. Instead of finding a trail, we seemed to be in an "untouched" area of the forest, and had a great view of the town of Pine Valley below us. There was also an old Native American grinding stone on one of the boulders we were standing on. It was pretty neat! We eventually found a trail and headed out to find our first cache of the day. It was quite easy, as we were familiar with the area. We had actually walked past it the previous time we were out there!!

Cache 5

     Our second cache we looked for that day was a bit more challenging. The problem started when the

Cache 6

trail we were walking on disappeared. We were soon surrounded by a bunch of bushes, trees, and other desert plants. The majority of our hike was spent bent over to get under branches, and in some areas where the brush was so thick, we had to crawl through on our hands and knees.  At first, we thought nothing of it because the cache terrain difficulty level was a four (5 being the hardest). There was one point where Kel looked at his phone (where he had the cache info.) and read that the people who hid the cache hiked on an actual trail. Yup. We were on the verge of going crazy. But after a bit of searching, we finally found a trail. However -dun dun dun- the trail ended. Again. And we never did get to the top of the mountain to find the cache. Oh well. We'll find it another day!

Cache 7

     After an afternoon crawling through brush, bouldering on moss covered boulders, sliding down sand hills on all fours, we came back to camp with some good stories. Kel had been impaled in the leg by a branch and I was stabbed (in three areas on my leg) by a Yucca plant. As awful as the story sounds, we had a fantastic afternoon together!! :)

Cache 8

 
Other good news!!!!!!!
     We bought a dresser for Kelly from Ikea using a gift card we got as a wedding present. A family at camp gave us one of their old dressers so I am able to use that one. We also have a coffee table in our living room, courtesy of another staff family.
     Kelly had a birthday!!! He turned 23 just this last Sunday.  He was gone that whole weekend for his Lifeguard Training Certification (he can now train people to be lifeguards- how cool!?!) and came back Sunday evening - just in time for us to celebrate a bit of his birthday together. Since then, five (out of eight) pieces of twirly crepe paper have fallen off our ceiling, and Kel has successfully eaten all of his Chocolate Banana cupcakes (with cream-cheese/nutella frosting). Yum.
     We were invited for dinner by two staff families in two weeks.  Lasagna was this week... steak was last week. Yum.

Our new bookshelf

     I finally finished my bookshelf project that I have been working on for quite a while. Kel found an old "bookcase" in storage that used to belong camp's gift shop. He asked if we could have it and was told yes! After sanding it all down and repainting, it is finally complete. Now we have a place for all of our books! We agree that it will look much better once our walls are painted so it's not one shade of white against another shade of white.

     A new staff family came today all the way from Idaho! Dan Gunderson and his wife (I forgot her name) and their 2yr old son, Laef, will be our new neighbors. Dan will be working in the maintenance department here at camp. Our old neighbors, Nathaniel, Kiersten and their 18mo. old, Caleb, moved into a house on the other side of camp. The maintenance dept. is working on renovating the Gunderson's new home, so the family is staying in a camp cabin for about two weeks.    

Kelly testing out the sling lines he made

     Kelly is making all new sling lines for the high ropes course.  Sling lines are what hold you on the course as you traverse different elements/obstacles. There are clips up top so it is easy to clip and un-clip from one rope to another.

Newly painted brake platform

 
     The picture to the right is our brake platform for the zip-line. It is located at the end of the zip. When the zip-line is in use, a staff member is designated to this spot to help the participant make a complete stop as they near the end of the cable. The staff member also helps them get off the course safely. Last week, Kelly and the intern painted the platform! Prior to the brown being there, the platform had gross green paint that was chipping everywhere and part of the deck had been stained. This looks much nicer! :)
   

Testing out the water

     One of Kelly's many jobs is to test the chemicals in the pool. Kelly is so fun... he taught me how to do the testing... it's pretty fun! We'll go out once a week and do all of the chemical testing together. The picture below is of me testing the waters for the first time.

Cutting some Manzanita

     Kelly also taught  me how to use a little chain saw. The tree I am cutting is called a Manzanita. They are very special trees here in California... not sure why. I'm not too fond of them due to the fact that their flowers attract bees. Anyway, this silly tree was growing all around that brown structure you see in the picture. Inside the structure is where all of the horseshoes belong (ya know, for the game of horseshoes). Kelly did the majority of the cutting, but I did get to cut a few little branches. It was very fun.

Caleb and the doggy

     One staff family had a bunch of us over for dinner on Saint Patrick's Day. Kelly taught our little friend Caleb how to lay down on a dog. It was the cutest thing to watch!
     Here is a list of some other things Kelly has taught (or tried to teach) Caleb:  How to... 1) Steer a golf cart. 2) Turn on the golf cart's lights. 3) Open the screen door of his house by pushing the button with one hand and pulling the handle with the other.          4) Play "swords" with sticks. 5) Scrape off the white filling off the Oreo cookie using his teeth. 6) Dance on bubble wrap to make the popping noise.

Just looking for a cache!

Prayer requests: 

-Continue to pray as we search for a church.

-Part of my right eye is quite red. It hurts occasionally throughout the day, mostly in the early mornings or later in the evening. Kelly says that part of it looks raised/there is a small bump, so I might have a scratch or something. I've been wearing my glasses (instead of contacts) for three days now. We have been putting re-wetting drops in my eye, but they don't help much.

-Our friend Kiersten is due to have a baby any day now. She could have her little girl any time within the next few weeks. Pray for a safe delivery and a healthy baby. This will be Kiersten's second in-home birth here at camp. 

We love you all so much and are so thankful for all of your love, prayers and support. 

A fun week :)

Hello friends and family!!

This week was pretty eventful.

Kel and Dan on the "Giant's Ladder"

     Kelly went up to the city of Big Bear, which is a little over three hours north of us. He went with his supervisor, Dan, to do some high-ropes training. The elevation is about 7,000ft... a little over 3,000ft higher than where we are (notice the snow).  Kelly told me that he could definitely feel the difference in elevation- he was huffing and puffing doing some of the activities (blame it on the elevation- not the fact that we know we need to get back into shape). Participants were taught multiple things during this two day training. Things like learning how to tie different types of knots in rope, how to perform safe belay techniques, how to rescue someone on a high ropes course if they are injured, etc. Kelly knew how to do the majority of the things he was "being trained on" because he learned it all while working at Timber-lee. Dan, however, learned something new: he learned that Kelly knows how to do all of this stuff! Kelly and I knew that he knew how to tie knots, perform different belay techniques, and rescue someone from a high ropes course, but before the trip, Dan never knew how "capable" Kelly was.  This trip was a good thing. :) Hopefully Kelly will be able to have more freedom in his job instead of people telling him what to do/how to do things.

Haley working

Kelly working

     Friday/Saturday/Sunday was our first Women's Conference Weekend.  About 250 women came to Pine Valley for a women's retreat. Normally, our camp is an outfitter- where church groups rent our facilities- most groups bring their own "speaker" or pastor, and do their own music. However, this weekend was different because as a camp, we hosted the retreat. We had a speaker and band come up for the weekend and we put together all the different activities for the ladies.  Staff men were supposed to be "invisible", hence the title of the event: "women's conference".  Kel, since he is the Rec. Manager, was still in charge of high ropes and paintball.  He was also asked to be in charge of Power Point for all of the chapel sessions (because he is better at it than any of our staff ladies- it's okay to chuckle).  I was able to do some decorating in the dining hall, help with high ropes, go on a 4 mile hike in the national forest (where we live!), and help out staff if they needed something. We now have our 2nd women's conference tomorrow! It is supposed to be rainy and much colder than last weekend. Pretty gross, right?

     Our week was complete when we found out that my aunt and uncle were in San Diego for a work conference!  Kelly and I drove an hour down the hill and met up with them for lunch.  It was absolutely fantastic!!!!  Although they weren't down here specifically to visit us, I give them the honor of being our first visitors. My only complaint is that we didn't think to have a picture taken of the four of us!!! Next time, Sue and Terry!

Oh. And I buzzed Kelly's hair.

     While Kel and I were down in the area that day, we went to Ikea and got a dresser. Yay!  We also went to the beach on Coronado Island for a few short minutes to look at the pretty ocean. And had free Chick-fil-A for dinner. :)

*If you would like to read about how I won free Chick-fil-A for a year, there will be another blog post specifically about that coming later today.*

Prayer requests:
*Still looking for a church - Kel and I were busy last Sunday and will be busy this Sunday because of the conferences... so we will continue our search Sun. the 17th.
*Kelly specifically- dealing with the busyness of camp, while staying focused on the Lord and our marriage.