Barton Bible Camp

This is the place to go when you’ve been having a bad year, a bad week, or just a bad attitude.  Barton can help clear that up real quick.

I always get nervous when I go into Barton because there are always so many new faces that mix in with the old.  It’s hard to give 60+ kids all the attention they need and deserve at church camp, but the counselors sure do try.

There are a lot of stories I could tell you about this week, but I’ll try to keep it short(ish.)

First, there’s one camper who just made me smile every time I saw him.  He got baptized that week, and won second place in the Bible Bowl (it’s like quiz bowl, but with Bible questions.) The look on his face when he won second was even more excited than the first place winner.  He was one of the sweetest kids I’ve met.

There’s also always the Battle of the Barton, where kids take bottles of shaving cream and silly string and run around on a tarp covered in water and cooking oil.  Sound disgusting?  It is.  I had the chance to hold the water hose and hose off all the slimy kids when stuff got in their eyes.  It’s the most demanding job I’ve ever had.  Kids constantly yell your name and fling grossness on you.

Nasty.

There were quite a few baptisms that week, which was great!

Of course, the counselors were also fantastic (at least in my opinion.)  Friendships that started last year became stronger this year.  A few really helped me out without knowing it.

I wish I would have taken more pictures with more people, but…I didn’t.  I was glad to get to know these people better, and glad to spend time with old friends too.  Seriously though, at Barton, you can find the best friends you may ever have.  I sure have!

fRecipe fRiday! (It's back...for now.)

It's been a while since I've tried to bake something new...and it's been even longer since I've done my recipe blog. 

Lately I've been fascinated by crepes.  They seem to be everywhere (in reality, I just know of one family who has opened a creperie.)  Either way, I decided to make my own crepes.

I found a pretty easy recipe online.  I thought crepe-making was going to be really difficult, but if you aren't set on perfection or high-quality crepes, it really isn't too hard.

So here's what you need:
4 eggs
1 1/3 cups of milk
1/2 teaspoon of salt
2 tablespoons of butter (melted)
1 cup flour
2 tablespoons white sugar

First you'll want to whisk all of that in a largeish bowl until it's not very lumpy.

Then heat up a medium/large skillet on medium heat and grease it with some butter.  Not too much like this, though:

Because then your crepe won't even touch the bottom because all that butter is going to melt right to the bottom.  The after-math of that:

Thank you, Caleb, for drowning that skillet.

Pour about 1/4 cup of batter onto the skillet once it's heated and try to tilt the pan so that the batter spreads out evenly.  I discovered tonight that my oven is tilted.  Here are some of the best artsy crepes, as designed by the stove:

Lovely.

Cook the crepes over medium heat for about 1 minute on each side or until light brown, then flip.  Treat them like pancakes, especially since this recipe makes them pancake consistency.

Most likely you'll want to add something else to make the crepes taste better.  My choice was strawberries and bananas!

Fill them with what you want!

Add powdered sugar, of course.

And there you have it.  Pretty tasty!

Audubon Ecology Camp 2012

Like every other year, I headed out to Audubon Camp for two weeks this summer.  I always know it will be the highlight of my summers, but after this past year, Audubon Camp couldn't get here fast enough.

I'm about to lay out a really photo-heavy blog for you. Lots of names, lots of pictures, lots of stories.  Be prepared to invest yourself in reading today's post.

FIRST WEEK

Here's where I got to reunite with so many friends of mine.  I arrived at camp to find Emile, a former camper with whom I used to be very good friends, working there.  Fortunately, we had facebook stalked each other enough to pick up where we left off.  Another former camper, Erin, was there, and I'm not sure why we hadn't been friends before, but we best friended it up.  Seriously, we are long lost sisters.

My co-teacher for Aquatic Biology is Matt, also known as AquaMatt, to whom I am PlankTam, and we are a small portion of a large group of Eco-Avengers.  We've known each other for (I think) five years now, during which we have become really sassy friends.

Little froggy, seining camper, AquaMatt and lizard, Still on the Hill, hammock sitting, and Andy.

Andy and I have also been buddies for a while, typically running in to each other at thrift stores, if you couldn't tell by our taste for vintage style clothing.  And Still on the Hill is a duo that is based in the Ozarks but is internationally known.  They even have their own Pandora station now, so go check them out!

AquaMatt and PlankTam

I don't have an insane number of stories from first week.  They were generally good kids.  Emile, Erin, I, and a senior camper named Penelope even made a list of plans for the rest of our summer, including making dresses, tyedyeing shirts, and visiting Still on the Hill's Ball Museum!

SECOND WEEK

I got a new brother this week, thanks to 11- and 12-year olds thinking that my new friend Mitchell and I looked alike.  So I'd like to introduce you to bro Mitch now, a recent high school graduate who this past year (Jan-Dec) saw 311 species of birds in Arkansas.  If you aren't impressed yet, read this article. 

This is our family photo.

At one point this week, a senior camper noticed me getting on to some kids, (maybe I yelled a little) and said to Mitchell, "She seems to get mad a lot, was she mean to you when y'all were kids?"  To which he responded, "Yeah, she'd get mad because I'd beat her at everything."  Thank you, Mitchell.

Alligator,  little kid helping sein, happy fake family, Pablo and Pike, Halo and helgrammite, me painted with shale, and Chloe with water sample.

AquaMatt and I were in charge of the water game, as you can see by the bottom left picture.  I always enjoy watching kids fall into the water as they try to race each other.  And most of these pictures are from the last day of camp, also the saddest day of camp. 

If you would, notice the dark picture of me and my cabin-mate, Lori, as we prepare for the bear prank that night.  Since the kids thought Mitchell and I were siblings, I told them Mitchell had gone up the hill to call our ma one night.  When bear calls started coming from that direction, my ladies freaked out, and from then on, every flashlight they saw brought on cries of, "MITCHELL?!?!  ARE YOU OKAY?!"

We got to hold a gator this week!  That's pretty cool, right?

AquaMatt and I had a pretty good track record this year of no canoe flips in class...until the last day, when crazy children thought standing and rocking was a good idea.

We also took a little boy, Thorin, to one of our classes.  He rode in my canoe on the way back, and some campers tried to pass me in canoes, which is against the rules.  I yelled, "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!"  Thorin looked at me and said, "You just Gandalfed them!"  Which was probably the cutest, most intelligent thing I've ever heard a five-year-old say.

Anyway, here are some of the people that I owe retaining my sanity to:

Erin B, Erin S, Emile, me, and Mitchell

PlankTam and AquaMatt, BIFFs for life.

The besties. 

Dad doesn't take many pictures, but he'd be on this list too if he did.

In my opinion, you'd be hard pressed to find a camp better than Audubon Camp.  It's a beautiful place with beautiful people, all working toward the goal of educating kids about the earth on which they live and how to take care of it.  Classes include Ornithology, Herpetology, Mammalogy, Aquatic Biology, Entomology, Geology, and Botany.  We encompass everything you can think of in terms of earth science.  The games we play teach about relationships between animals and their habitat and our impact on the world. 

I can't say enough about how wonderful this camp is, but I have to cut myself off somewhere, so I'll leave you with this:

"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not."-The Lorax

Kid-sitting

Today I got to baby-sit (or as I used to say when I was their age, kid-sit) my tiny friends G and B!  I wanted to share some of my favorite quotes and events from today, because it never fails that they entertain me with their talk.

“You can never have too much yogurt.”-B after his second helping of yogurt.  He had one more before I left at 3:30.  When we saw an Activia commercial while watching cartoons, he went and got some yogurt out of the fridge and brought it out to me singing, “Activiaaaa,” like a true stud.  I hope this is a pick-up line he uses in the future.  “Hey girl, you look under the weather. Have some Activia.”

“Wait, stand still.  There’s a wasp.  They can smell fear out in these parts.”-G while we were on the trampoline.  I don’t think he was trying to sound as Crocodile Hunter-esque as he did.

My favorite question of the day was from B, asking, “What is a moonstone?” while looking through his Pokémon book.  I may not be a great mentor for youth, but I sure can lay out some poke-knowledge for you.  He continued to ask what different things mean like, “What is a link trade?” and “What does it mean when it says that it evolves based on friendship?” 

And finally, “Is that cookie really going to take 3 hours and 32 minutes?”  B saw the real time on the oven and confused it for the baking time.  Classic. 

The Dogs Are Training Me

This weekend I have been dog-sitting two of my favorite dogs for my brother and sister, and this is what I have learned:

• I need to be accompanied to the bathroom at all times.  Potty breaks, face washes, and mirror glances are no longer to be private events.
• If I am outside with the dogs, I am outside touching the dogs.  Sitting out in the sun is unacceptable unless A) I am petting the dogs or B) Their heads or paws are on my legs in an effort to acquire A).
• Dining should also not take place alone.  One dog must have a head in my lap while I make and eat anything.
• If I insist on working out, my workout area must be framed by the dogs laying down so I know my boundaries.  Kicking the dogs is unacceptable.
• I cannot blame the dogs for passing foul-smelling gas, because he who smelt it dealt it.
• It does not matter at what time I went to bed, it is imperative that I wake when the dogs do, whether it be 5 or 7 in the morning.
• Laying down to watch anything on TV is useless, unless I want to listen to a show while watching dogs try to lick my face.
• No matter how frustrated I get with the dogs, I can never hold anything against them because they are too stinkin’ cute.