...On to Wednesday....

...by now, getting out of bed in the morning is absolutely miserable. The bed has become ridiculously comfortable despite its lack of size, when laying on the bed, roughly half of my legs dangle towards the plywood floors. We have officially reach the half way point in the week. Wednesday is the day that a majority of the VIP's come to camp to spend time with the kids, and to see exactly how the money is spent that is donated to MDA. Our Wednesday evening activity is a talent show, so during the lull in our morning activities, we tried to put together a skit for everyone to enjoy.



Even though we didnt perform the skit that we spent the majority of the morning planning, I want to explain what we were trying to do. I know that the humor behind the skit is somewhat vague and a tad "adult", we thought it would be pretty humorous. Bear with me here. So the skit was going to be to the tune of Bonnie Tyler's song, Total Eclipse of the Heart....find it on itunes. You will know the song after 3 seconds. Alright, rewind. On the Saturday night before camp started, we went over all of the camp rules, and how to act/behave around the kids. You know, no drugs, alcohol, smoking, sex, inappropriate behavior, etc. So anyways, the music starts, and one of the counselors was to walk out on stage. He is playing the part of a new counselor to camp. He is wandering around acting real sheepish and shy. Every time the lyrics in the song say "turn around, every now and then I..." one of our campers that was going to be on stage would turn around holding a sign depicting one of the "camp sins", the actions listed above. SO our counselor is wandering around, becoming somewhat interested in these banned activities, but not really knowing how to handle them selves. After all of the "turn arounds", campers holding the sin signs circle around the "new" counselor trying to turn him towards the dark side. When this happens, the devil, played by yours truly, enters the stage and enters the circle of sinners. I too begin to attempt to turn the counselor to the dark side. All of this happens during the 2 minute instrumental in the middle of the song. About the time that Bonnie Tyler starts singing again, one of our other counselors enters the room from the back, and begins making their way towards the stage. This counselor is playing Peggy, the lady that is the MDA camp director. Peggy is the Jesus figure in all of this. At the intense down beat in the song, Jesus, played by Peggy, played by one of the other counselors throws his/her/his arms down, the devil dies, and the little sinners drop their signs. Then during the remaining "turn arounds" the sinners start raising signs that are the antithesis of the sinner signs. Jesus then leads the "new" counselor into the light. Everyone lives happily ever after. I know that some of you will probably be wondering what the heck did I just read. It was going to be funny. Trust me.



So back to camp. The morning activities go breezing by. We had a special treat for lunch. Between 20-30 firefighters showed up to the camp to spend time with the kids. Firefighters and MDA are pretty tight. If you ever see firefighters standing on the side of the road with their boots out collecting money, there is a good chance they are trying to "Fill the Boot". So anyways, the firefighters cooked burgers for lunch and ate with the kids. Following lunch, they had a watermelon eating contest on the quad area. About 15 watermelons went by the wayside in no more than 2 minutes. Kinda crazy. After our rest period, we had to prep the power wheel chairs for the water wars. Water and 10k dollar power wheel chairs dont exactly mix. Water wars is one of the activities that everyone looks forward to during the week. The name is pretty self explanitory. Anything goes. The firefighters participated in the water wars as well. Water guns, buckets, cups, water ballons, anything that can be used to soak someone else is/was used. I cant describe the enjoyment.



After the water wars, we officially decided that we were going to bag our skit for the talent show. Blake was the only one that wanted to have a talent so we let him pick what he wanted to do. He chose to do "Blake's Tokyo Scooter Drift". After we made plans for him to do this, the other kids decided that they magically wanted to be in the talent show. This is where the attitudes started to show. Finally we came to a compromise, and the kids that wanted to participate became Blake's bodyguards, you know, Tokyo Blake needs bodyguards. It made sense.



Again, we had another meal, boring camp food. I am beginning to think that they are recycling the food. Yak. So right after dinner the talent show begins. The kids have a great time showing everyone their talents. There were some great singers and dancers this year, but I missed the majority of the show since one of the campers had a delayed arrival to camp, and I helped get her situated when she arrived. Maria was unable to come for the entire week because she had just finished her treatments for cancer. She is an unbelievable young lady, and was quite an inspiration to me. She had a tumor removed from her hand last year during camp, and immediately following camp they determined that it was malignant. For the past year, she underwent Chemo and Radiation, and it is my understanding that she is now in remission. Even though she was only able about 24 hours at camp, it was a joy to have her there since her camp eligibility was expiring.



After the talent show, we took the children back to the cabin to get them ready for bed. When we were in the cabin, the ladies man, Brandon, asked if he could go next door to say goodnight to the she tooter Caitlyn. Mind you, throughout the day, every time that Brandon caught a glimpse of Caitlyn, he tooted his little horn at her, and she tooted right back at him. So anyways, I took Brandon over to the cabin next door for the good nights. I knocked on the door and asked if Brandon could say good night to her. The girls in her cabin went crazy. You know how that goes. So they get her all prim and proper to see her beau. When she comes out, she gave his chair a little nudge. He then asked her if she would dance with him at the dance on the next night. She was thrilled to say yes. They then exchanged good nights and we returned to the cabin. I dont really know how to explain how happy these kids were. They were both extremely excited, and they just couldnt quit smiling. Again, a little sappy, but very cute.



So after we get the kids in bed and enjoy our evening dose of Delilah, I head back to the Gym for the going away party for the "graduating campers". This week at camp was a little different than the past 8 years. MDA decided that this year they would be lowering the max age for campers from 21 to 17. This meant that we had almost 50 kids that would be permanently leaving us. Peggy staged a special celebratory party for all of these kids. One of the campers made a slide show that included the memories from the past 8 years of camp, and all of the kids that would be leaving us. After the slide show, Peggy also gave out picture books to each of the kids with pictures that she had from previous years at camp. The kids had an opportunity to sign each others books, and leave messages for each other, kind like year books.



Once the party was over, it was back to bed. All I dream about is the comfort of my own bed....



I will also leave you with some other fun camp pictures....