the girls of emerald bay

hey everyone! just dropping in to say hi. :) this was from one morning last week when brooke, sam, and i went for little hike. brooke is my roommate, and sam is the director of marketing...cool girls. hope all is well.

much love,

brooke

first week of camp is over

we have this little tradition at good ol' emerald bay that whenever the kids take off on the boat, some of the staff jump off the dock as they're pulling away...they all cheer, it's fun to be a part of...everyone enjoys it. the first group of kids we had took off yesterday...and here's a few captured moments of the send-off jumps...

back to ebay...

so here i am, back at emeral bay. it's a gorgeous place, there's no doubt about that! wednesday kicks off our fall season with a group of kids rolling in. so until then, we're getting camp set up, we're brushing up on the classes that we teach, and of course snorkeling and kayaking too :) here's a few photos of life here...my awesome cabin, the waterfront, the dining hall...the basics:) oh, and the deer family that i was feeding an orange to last night.

fun family photos

i love my family! it's true. i have been blessed in a huge way with a family that loves! my parents and sister were able to fly out and see me this past week...and it was such a great time! (we missed you chad, cara, and mike!) i actually just dropped them off at the airport today...and i drove away with tears in my eyes because sometimes God just overwhelms me with the good things that he pours out on me. as good as it is out here in california and i believe that this is where God has me for this time, it's still hard to say goodbye to family. this week i was able to show them where i've been and what i've been up to for the past six months. the mountains to the island...and more in between. for those of ya'll back in rockford, make sure to ask my fam about the lovely boat ride back from the catalina. haha, it was a memorable time. :) oh...and let me just tell the whole world right now and any that's reading this blog...my sister makes the cutest pregnant woman ever! you can't get away from it, kari...you're simply beautiful!

until next time,

brooke.

p.s. i just realized that the hippo picture is kinda random....but come on, they're pretty sweet creatures!

one kid's perspective on being grown up...

so i was talking with one of the campers today...and she was asking me about where i live and whether or not i still live with my parents. i could tell that her little brain was thinking real hard about what it all meant and what that would be like. then she says to me, in her cute little six-year-old voice..."you're so lucky. you get to make all your own decisions, and you get to have candy whenever you want!" she made me laugh outloud! sometimes i think about how easy it is to be a kid...the respsonsibility is at a minimum...you've got the rest of your life ahead of you, but she helped me realize that one of the perks of being a twenty-something is that i can eat sour patch kids and twizzlers for breakfast, if i so choose. :)

hey...

hi friends! i fully realize that little river hasn't kept ya'll updated on her adventures lately, but hey...thanks for hanging with me. :)

first of all...this precious little girl is one of my favs. her name is olivia, and i have had the joy to spend last week and this week with her here at camp in newport beach. she's awesome...that smile tells it all.

summer camp is wrapping up pretty soon, and i'm finishing it up here on the mainland. island living is certainly fun, but i'm not gonna lie, i like having a dairy queen down the road and a church that i can go to. i'm here for a few more weeks and i'm going to soak it up before i head back to emerald bay for the fall season.

unfortunately, adventures aren't always happy-jump-for-joy ones...last week i had to say a goodbye to an awesome friend. somewhat suddenly, sharayah left to go back home to pennslyvania. our friendship has been one of my great california adventures...and i'm so thankful for it. but i miss her a lot.

on a brighter note, my wonderful parents and my lovely pregnant sister (yes...for those of you that may not know...kari is pregnant!!!) are flying out to california in exactly ten days. that's right. :) i'm going to enjoy playing tour guide as i show them a piece of life here. it's gonna be so good to see them once again!

alright...i gotta run. the sunshine is calling my name.

love,

b.

flashlights

so last night i was heading up to the campground after being down in the hopping town of two harbors. it was extremely dark, which made the stars that much more amazing. i couldn't find my headlamp, so all i had was this crappy little flashlight. it was pretty worthless. it barely lit the path in front of my feet. i tried to shine it into the darkness ahead of me, but it just seemed to make it worse. so, i just pointed it at the ground right in front of my feet...cause i guess that's all i really need, right...to see where my foot is about to step. maybe it's just curiousity or thinking about walking into the black unknown...but my natural inclination was to want to see far beyond what i could actually see with this tiny flashlight. but i knew where i was headed...my destination was the campground that was a ways up the hill. i knew i would get there, but only one step at a time. the analogy became so clear to me. it was so much like life. and that verse in psalm 119 flashed into my mind. the one about God's word being a lamp to our feet and a light to our paths. then i thought about my future. it's like my life was that path. the campground, the place where i was seeking to get to, is my dreams, my passion, my place in this world, who i was created to be, and what i was created to do. i trust that eventually i will get there, but my eyesight doesn't allow me to see anything besides the ground right in front of me. my mind skipped off to november when i will be jobless...and quite honestly, i have no idea what i will be doing. i trust that the Lord won't leave me high and dry and homeless...but when i really think about it, i get a little anxious. just because i don't know. it's stepping into that unknown. (which, i must admit, there is a certain level of excitement and adventure in that! but still...it weighs on my heart)
a friend of mine here in california recently shared the verse in proverbs that says something to the effect of how we determine our course, but the Lord plans our steps. there is definitely comfort in that...especially for a girl who is asking that question yet again, where am i going? and what am i going to do with my life?

california

i guess this means that my move out west is now official! i'm not gonna lie, it was a little bit strange taking the illinois plates off my car yesterday...but at least i won't be driving on expired out-of-state plates any longer. and...as if i wasn't already certain about it, it's been confirmed that the department of motor vehicles is one of my least favorite places to spend any amount of my time. to make matters worse, i had to return again this morning to retake the written test because i failed it the first time. whoops!

oh give me a home where the buffalo roam....

on my way to avalon a week or so ago, brooke and i (yes, there is another staff member named brooke!) came across a herd of lovely bison. what awesome beasts they are! actually, during camp this past week, we were camping out with the high schoolers at a place called little harbor, which is a few miles away from two harbors...and i woke up in the middle of the night to sharayah telling me that a buffalo just wondered through our camp site!

so...we just finished our first week of summer camp. i can't say that it was my best week ever, but there definitely were some high points. throwing up off the side of the boat wasn't among that list of highs. i was out with a group of kids on a shark search. we were chumming for mako sharks...which basically means that we cut up a bunch of fish, putting them in plastic bags, and trying to entice the sharks to the surface. well, it turns out that we didn't see any sharks...but as we were sitting in the boat, there was a bit too much rock and roll action for me...and i lost my breakfast into the pacific. i thought i was over that sea sickness business, but i'm afraid not. one awesome thing though was that we saw a huge amount of dolphins swimming along our boat. the coolest thing ever was the baby dolphin that was among them. no joke, it was no bigger than two feet long. oh my goodness, it was so very precious!

we stayed the week at a camp ground in two harbors. i was an instructor this week, which meant that i didn't have to sleep with the girls in a cabin. i've included a photo of my view from the cabin i was in. simply amazing. can't believe i got to wake up to that each day.

the week went pretty quickly. lots of snorkeling and kayaking. good stuff.

i'm on the mainland now for the next two weeks. my team is here to do camps in newport beach. MSA has rented an apartment for us, which is kind of nice. it's going to be nice to have a place to go to at the end of the day. a place with a light switch, a normal toilet, a refrigerator, and good drinking water. :)

alright....have a great day!

b.

God's amazing creation...

alright....so we were out on a snorkel adventure yesterday morning. it was a beautiful day, by the way. california has this awful thing called "june gloom" where it's terribly cloudy until late morning or early afternoon...but yesterday morning, the sun woke me up. hardly a cloud in the sky. it was beautiful! so anyway, we had to test out a couple different snorkel locations that we are going to be taking kids to this summer...places i've never been to yet. as we were cruising along in the boat, i saw something that just amazed me. i had heard about them before, but quite honestly thought it was kinda silly. so have ya'll ever heard of a flying fish?! yeah, they're awesome! all of the sudden, someone pointed one out to me....it looked like a bird, but then at a closer look i could definitely see that it was a fish...but it had wings!! and it was flying. not just a big long jump....but actually flying and then diving back into the water. it fascinated me!! really....it was awesome!


and the snorkels were awesome too. one of the places we went was called ship rock. i jumped out of the boat, and was immediately amazed. the water was so deep...i've never been in such endless water. fran told me that it was at least 300 feet deep at places, if not more. it was kind of surreal...i was starring into this deep blue nothingness....and would suddenly see huge schools of fish, or gigantic kelp that i couldn't see the end of. it was so fun! as we jumped out of the boat and started swimming around the gigantic rock, we noticed that there were a couple sea lions sprawled out in the sun. they started barking at us. and it's possible that we got a little too close..maybe. pretty soon, they were jumping in the water and swimming towards us. now...i didn't know much about sea lions before moving to cali. i just thought they were some cute ocean mammals. well, they don't have the word "lion" in their name for no reason. so....we started swimming as fast as we could, but there was really no where to go because we were out in the middle of the ocean. it's funny now, looking back on it...but i'm not gonna lie, my heart was beating pretty quick! after a bit, we thought we lost them. so we started just enjoying the amazing stuff underneath the surface of the water. a few moments later, we saw the sea lions in in the water, swimming down below us. it was really neat at first to see them swimming...but then i remembered that they can be dangerous. so once again, we just started swimming really fast. they ended up swimming right under us and all was well.

our other snorkeling location was through a small cave. it was so great....it got to the point where the water seemed pitch black and i couldn't see a thing. kind of a strange feeling, but fun. as we slowly made our way around, things started came back into light again, and it was so sweet. it's unbelievable just how much goes on under the surface. it is truly amazing!

we're heading back to the mainland this afternoon. we'll be back on sunday with a group of kids for our first week of summer camp. it'll be interesting to see how it all goes. i have a feeling it might be a little choatic, just because it's a lot different than the program we ran at emerald bay and most of us have never done a summer camp. but...we'll get through it :)

much love to you all...

brooke.

highlights

this past week has been filled with some semi-unorganized training for the summer season. i'm still not quite sure what to expect, but i do know that summer camps will be a lot different. we moved from emerald bay (which is where we've been running camps) to two harbors. i've never lived in a place quite like two harbors. it's a town of about one hundred people...where there is one restaurant, one store, and that's about it. we will be living in a public camp ground that has an absolutely amazing view of the ocean! not kidding...it's stunning. we have to pay for our showers...a quarter for 90 seconds. my goal is to become a pro at a two quarter shower.

as far as the summer program goes, it'll be a little less education-oriented and a little more adventuresome. i'll still be doing a good amount of snorkeling. which, by the way, i went yesterday for the first time at the two harbors location, and it was amazing! i saw a crab, some huge sea hares, a brilliant kelp fish, a sea star, and a tiny garibaldi...along with a heap of other fish. we'll also be doing a lot of sailing. it'll be interesting teaching that, seeing as i've only done it twice now!

i was at the bolsa chica beach earlier this week and saw a dead whale. the thing was huge...although, it was actually pretty small as far as whales are concerned. it was a young one...and probably 20 feet or so. even though i felt bad for the whale, it was quite fascinating to see. it was being swarmed by gulls and was getting tossed around by the waves coming into shore. and oh man, the stench was like none other.

i've been kinda frustrated lately because i feel like my life needs to be simplified a bit. by that i mean that i've got too much stuff...too many possessions. maybe it's just because i'm living the life of a vagabond and my car is packed full of all my things, aside from the one backpack i take to the island. i just realize how many things i really don't need. i'm thankful for it...and i'm glad to simplify...because it almost feels like it drains me...like it drags me down having to cart around all this stuff that doesn't matter all that much anyways. for some reason, it seems to be heavy on my heart.

i've been back on the mainland this weekend...hanging out in laguna beach at sharayah's friend's place. i'm heading back to the island tomorrow for one more week of getting ready for summer camp.

hope ya'll have a great week!

well hello there...

thanks for being faithful readers of my "little adventures" despite the fact that it has been several weeks since i posted anything. we finished up the spring season at emerald bay with two of the busiest weeks we've had yet. many kids, crazy schedules, and good times. this past week i actually had off...so ian, sharayah, and i flew home to rockford to surprise my family! and what a surprise it was! man, i love that kind of stuff. they had absolutely no idea...and it was so fun and good to see them! it was a pretty packed week trying to hang out with people and relax at the same time. it was good for my heart though to be able to be home. but it was also fun to come back to california because i knew i was coming back to a job that i really enjoy.

i went to an amazing church this morning, which filled me with a desire once again to go overseas and love people and tell them about Jesus. that has been a reoccuring theme over the years....hmmm.

this afternoon we decided to take a trip down to mexico. which is so foreign to me to think that i could just spend the afternoon in mexico. stange...but i love it. it was a first time for sharayah and ian...so it was a fun experience. we strolled through the market area and stuck out like a couple of tourists. oh how i love being in different places! i know it was just a hop, skip, and a jump away from the united states border, but it's quite a difference. there was this one woman selling stuff at her booth...and i could hardly communicate with her...but she just brought a smile to my face. she wanted me to buy a hat so bad, and maybe i would've if i'd had the money just because i liked her. she had a sparkle in her eye. then there were these little girls trying to sell us gum. oh, they were so precious.!

it was a quick little trip...and now i find myself at a ridiculously huge house in laguna beach. sharayah has a friend that nannies and lives with a family here. and quite honestly, as nice as this place is...i just don't fit here. sometimes it almost upsets me when people have so many "things". the houses in this neighborhood are straight from the movies. but i must say, i'm just excited to have a bed to sleep on for the night. the alternative was a tiny sail boat shared with five other people. so i guess i got the better end of the deal.

alright. i'm off to get some sleep. tomorrow we start a week of training for summer camp...and wednesday we head back to the island.

for those of you that i saw this past week at home...it was great to be there!! thanks for being a part of my life!

much love,

brooke.

i'm still alive

hello everyone!

well....in case ya'll have been wondering, i am safe and sound on catalina island. the fire was on the opposite end from where i'm at. it's kind of strange though that people back in illinois knew more about it than i did...because we had no way of watching the news or anything. although we did see and smell smoke. so the only way it really effected us here in emerald bay is that we haven't had electricity or internet for the past week. it just got turned back on a couple hours ago, and i must say that it was super nice to be able to check my email. i feel connected to the outside world once again!

so camp has been going well. we've had some fantastic kids...i got charged by a buffalo...sharayah is back on the island...i had to do some first aid on my boss this afternoon when he walked up to me with his hands covered in blood (he ended up having to go to avalon to get stitches)...i decided to train for another half marathon...and tonight was burrito night in the dining hall, which is my fav meal here on the island! it's the simple things in life:) oh, and as you can see by the photo, i'm working on my tan lines!

more later....

love,

brooke.

my humble abode

so this is where i live now. not quite the awesome cabin in the mountains....but yurt life is great! just saying the word "yurt" is fun. basically, it's a glorified tent. when i moved all my stuff over last weekend, i brought a few more things to make it a bit more like home...so it's really comfortable.

we just sent a bunch of kids off yesterday. so i'm enjoying my first weekend on the island. the camp is filled with boy scout or ymca groups on the weekends, so this place is still hopping.

last night a bunch of us walked over to parsons...which is one of the beaches on the other side of the island, just a mile or two away. we got there just in time to watch the sunset....it was beautiful! the waves were all kinds of crazy, so it was fantastic just to sit and watch them. i don't think i could ever get tired of that.

we're going into town this morning...which means that we're driving into two harbors, a town of about a hundred people. since i'm one of the older staff members here, i am now one of the drivers. which means i get to cart everyone around on the weekends. msa has two vehicles...a really old suburban and an even older 15 passenger van. i'm kinda scared that one of these times they are going to break down on me. but, it'll be an adventure. just to give you an idea of the condition of these vehicles...in the suburban (also known as hercules), only one of the windows rolls down. not a terrific thing for living on an island in the summertime. last weekend, one of the guys i work with, ian, rode in the backseat with the door open. there were some close calls though, seeing that he was sitting on the outside seat...and the road follows a cliff the whole way. yikes!

sharayah, my friend who has been in the hospital, is out!! she was actually released last sunday. her and her mom are coming out to the island today just for the day....so her mom can check things out here and see what it's like on catalina. then hopefully she'll be back to work in another week. the doctors still don't know what happened. she has some follow up appointments next week, so maybe that will reveal something.

alright. enjoy the weekend. i know i will...it's been a hectic week, i'm just still getting used to how things run here on the island. but i love it!

until later,

brooke

island living

i love working outdoors. seriously. it's great! this morning i sat down by the ocean before breakfast. i could hardly keep my eyes open because the sun was so bright and beautiful!
my day was filled with doing a natural history hike...snorkeling and teaching about fish...dissecting squid (and i tried eating the lense of the eye ball)...and leading a trust walk. we got two groups of kids in today, and it's the craziest week i've had so far. there are kids everywhere! we had two kids on the front deck tonight that were getting cactus pricklies pulled out of their arms and hands. whoops!

keep praying for my friend, sharayah. it's been a week since she got taken to the mainland, and her condition has not improved. they took the tube out of her today...and had to put it back in an hour later because she wasn't able to breathe on her own. i hope to go to the mainland friday to see her and give her mom a bit of a break.

alright...i'm off to bed. i'm enjoying life in a yurt. i'll have to throw some pictures in here of it sometime. it's fun :)

here's a few more...

oops....i meant to add these photos as well. these were all from two weeks ago in newport beach doing day camps there. they were precious kids! but it was an incredibly draining week.

island life

alright, so living on an island is tough, as you can see from these photos. :)

these were from my trip to avalon last weekend. what a cute little place. at times i felt like i was in a different world. maybe it was because the town was filled with golf carts. it was just so unique...like we were in some play-land or something.

so all of last week, i was working at camp in emerald bay, which is on the opposite end of the island from avalon. also a phenomenal place, but so much more secluded. but the views are unbelievable. it's so strange to me that i'm working on an island. never quite thought i'd do that. and it sounds like i'm going to be moving to the island for good...as in leaving the camp up in the mountains and working on the island for the rest of the season. i wasn't expecting it, but i'm definitely ok with it. i've got lots to learn though...because i'm more comfortable in the mountains, just because i've spent more time in them.

so i work with this awesome girl named sharayah. now, sharayah has had quite the last two months. she has been accident prone, to say the least. so this past wednesday night, all of the sudden her lip got super swollen. huge. then she started having trouble breathing. being in the middle of nowhere on an island, we called baywatch...which is the island way of saying that we called 911. they came...and longer story short, she ended up getting air lifted over to the mainland. so, it was midnight....the camp is full of sleeping children....and in comes this helicopter. and off she went. i was scared for her...she was going all alone...and this is her second helicopter ride to a hospital on the mainland in the past two months. she's an incredibly tough girl, and she nearly refused to go...but after some encouraging on our part...she decided to do it. and we were all so glad because they ended up having to intibate her (not quite sure if i spelled that one right), and she's still in the hospital. ian (one of the guys from the island) and i took the boat over yesterday to be with her.

so much has happened...and i know this is brief....but i just wanted to let ya'll know that i'm still here and i'm doing well :)

my cell phone doesn't work on the island...and email time is limited, but keep checking back in for the latest on life in southern california :)

much love,

brooke.

my week in newport

hey friends....
so, it's been quite a week. it wasn't hard to get used to driving to work down the pacific coast highway with the ocean right there the entire way! although it was kinda strange to pass by bentley and ferrari car dealerships on the way to work. definitely not something i'm used to! this place reeks of money. the other day, i was canoeing with some fifth graders, and they were talking about how the houses they live in were a couple million dollars. but the strange thing is that they weren't saying it in a bragging kind of way...it's like that was normal to them and each other. so that certainly isn't something i'm used to! needless to say, it was quite a different feel being in the newport beach/huntington beach area than up in the mountains. but i loved the fact that i was able to just go and enjoy the beach after work. it was absolutely beautiful!

i was doing day camp this week because the kids were on spring break. we spent a lot of time at the beach...we disected squid...talked about sea stars and whales and cool stuff like that. but it was quite a frustrating time. we had no clue what we were doing. we weren't prepared for it and hadn't received any traning on it, and they were completely different classes than we teach up at the mountain. there were times that i just felt embarassed because it seemed as though we were just throwing this thing together, which isn't a way to run an organization. i don't know how they function this way. but we pulled it off...and i think the kids had a good time. i just think it could have been done with more excellence. and we're all glad that the week is over.

so tomorrow morning i'm heading back to catalina island. i'm going camping with a group of people i've actually never met before, which should be fun. my friend kelly has a friend out here, and he asked me to come along. then...i'm going to be staying out on the island for next week and the following week to work at the camp there. i'm looking forward to it. i like the variety of it.

alright...well, i love you all...and those of you back in illinois...enjoy the snow for me. i'm struggling over here because i got sun burned this week. :)

easter on catalina

hello, hello...

well, i would say that this past week has been the best week i've had since being here in california. some of the MSA "islanders" came to help us out at the mountain...and it was just fun. fun to get to know them. it was the kind of fun where i laughed until my stomach hurt...and the kind of conversations where, at the end of the day, i was satisfied with my friendships here. it was great.

i'm in newport beach this week doing day camp. it was a choatic day because none of us really knew what we were doing. i don't understand how an organization can function this way...by not actually training their employees and making it so we can do the best job we possibly can. it's been frustrating.

i ended up going out to catalina island yesterday for easter. took the ferry in the morning and came back last night. it was fun to get to actually sit around a table and share a meal with people on this awesome holiday. i was thankful for that. plus, i didn't throw up this time on the boat....so that it always a bonus :)

just wanted to send a quick hello and a little update.

much love,

brooke.

oh how i love the ocean

well...i've been making my way around southern california, and this weekend i spent in santa barbara. beautiful place! quite wealthy, so it seems...but it's still gorgeous! on my way there, i witnessed my first california forest fire. when i was still a long ways off, i thought it was the most disgusting smog i had ever seen...then the closer i got, i realized it was indeed a fire. the smoke was rolling off the side of a mountain, and down onto the highway. (turns out it was the backside of the famous hill that the "hollywood" sign is on.) i later read in the paper that it was two teenagers from illinois that were on vacation with their parents...and they intentionally set the fire. man, those illinois people....what are we going to do with them?!

so anyway, my time in santa barbara was great. i love the location of the camp where i live...but i also love to get around and see things. and i can't quite seem to get enough of the ocean. (oh, i saw another whale!!) about four or five years ago...tristan, jessica, izzie, and i spent spring break with connie, a great friend of jessicas...and she just so happened to live in santa barbara. she's a great lady....and since then, i have sporadically kept in touch with her. once she found out that i was moving to california, she invited me to come visit. so of course i took her up on it! we took walks on the beach...ate meals at restaurants on the beach...walked around downtown sb...it was very refreshing and relaxing. a change of pace from the camp lifestyle. hey, and i got to watch the news for the first time in a month...that's the huge reason that i miss having a television.


well...my laptop battery is running low, so i better end this....i'm hanging out in riverside, cali at a barnes and noble. i'm checking out a church here, so i was just wasting time.

much love to you all....

friends forever...

together at last...together forever....

ah, yes...the day finally came where i stepped foot into a wonderful new relationship. you might remember me talking about her. her name is rosie, and she is a furry chilean rose turantula. as she walked onto my hand this afternoon, i just knew it was going to be an instant bond. a bond that will never be broken. bosom buddies, kindred hearts, best friends...whatever you want to call it. that's rosie and me.

ok, ok. so maybe it didn't go quite like that. and it probably never will. i was scheduled to help teach the animal class today for the first time. i kinda laughed, because...well, i'd never even touched the thing before. so, jiffy handled rosie with the kids...while i watched. my chance to hold her came later behind closed doors. right before i held her, i felt sick to my stomach. but i just had to do it, there was no way i wanted to back down. once her first leg climbed onto my hand...(i can't believe i'm saying this)....but it really wasn't all that bad. i mean, not that i ever, ever want to have one of my own or would ever enjoy crossing paths with one unexpectedly....but for someone who has always screamed for someone to kill a spider for me, it wasn't as frightening as i was certain it would be. and i don't expect to have nightmares tonight of taratulas climbing all over me. i can even imagine doing that class all by myself one day. i was so glad to have done it.

the island experience

so my first island adventure began when i stepped board the ferry boat. i was so excited...it was new...i would be experiencing a lifestyle i'd never seen before. within 20 minutes of being on the boat, i realized it wasn't such a joyous occasion that i had day-dreamed about. let's just call it the barf boat. no kidding! now....i've never gotten sea sick before this. then again, i was told the water that particular day was unusually rough. i found myself on the back of the barf boat, looking out at the horizon, tring to get the repulsive feeling out of my stomach and head. pretty soon, there was a whole row of people along the back of the boat...all huntched over the railing. i will say though, that it was the coolest throw-up experience that i have ever had! i'd rather puke off the back of the boat into the ocean anyday over having my head in a toilet. so anyway...it was rather comical.

the island was absolutely beautiful! i kept feeling like i was on vacation...then i remembered that this is my reality, this is my job! the camp sits on the north eastern side of catalina, with nothing else around. it's about 6 miles to the nearest town...and it's on the opposite side from avalon, which is the touristy town. i didn't have to teach any classes while i was there...so i pretty much shadowed a few of the sea classes.

i ended up breaking a fear that i never even know that i had! it showed itself during my first attempt at snorkeling. it sounded so great! i mean, how could it not...checking out the life under the sea! well....once i had the wet suit on (the water was ridiculously cold, by the way), had my flippers and mask, i thought i was all set to go! the struggle came when i actually had to put my face in the water and breathe through the tube. i felt like no matter what i did, i just couldn't get any air. it was awful. it was suffocating. but here i was...on staff, amidst all these campers...doing it for the first time...and realizing that it made me panic a bit! i kept trying...but it was the same feeling every time. i flippered my way up to the guy who was teaching...and told him i was really struggling. he was more than kind and had me swim out with some girls that were shivering uncontrollably. i was a bit bummed because i felt like a quitter. but i knew i'd have a second chance. that second chance came the next day. i was told i didn't have to go...but i needed to. i wanted to. i didn't want to be afraid of snorkeling. after all, "breaking your fears" is plastered all over the MSA staff shirts i wear...so i was determined to do this. i am so thrilled to say that the next time was 100 times better! wow!! after spending a few minutes practicing the breathing, it was like i didn't even want to lift my head from the water! the fish...the kelp...things swaying with the waves, all an amazing indication of our Creator. i was captivated by it! i was so excited. now...it's not to say that i'm some superstar snorkeler, but i sure want to do it again! i don't think i'll look at an ocean the same again...there's so much going on under the surface that we just don't see.

other than that, i kayaked, hiked, slept in an a-frame(basically it's in the shape of a tent, but it's made out of wood with a door...small, but it does it's job). i saw a whale and hundreds of dolphins...it was brilliant!

i made a new friend, too...her name is lorena, and she's from venezuela. (i love friends from other countries!) it's kinda random how she ended up coming to the island...but she knows someone who knows someone....and she just came out to practice english. so we had fun trying to communicate and understand each other. she made my time on the island even more fun.

and, i'll have ya'l know...i held my lunch down on the boat ride back :)

my (distant) brush with a celebrity...

ok, ok, so i suppose it was bound to happen. seeing that i'm in california...the breeding ground for rich and famous people. so i went to the house of blues last night in hollywood. mat kearney was playing, and oh man, i think mat k. is fantastic! so after the first opener, a woman went up on stage and was talking away blah, blah, blah...and then she said, "we have among us tonight, keifer sutherland and a big bunny...." huh?, i thought. i didn't know if she was being silly or what. but then again, i did see a big fat bunny costume walking around. so i started searching the crowd for jack bauer...uh, i mean kiefer. i couldn't see him anywhere. well, at least i figured that i was possibly in the same room as him. even that was pretty neat! i heard some whisperings behind me....and it seemed like kiefer was the buzz word. so i asked the lady behind me....and sure enough. she pointed him out to me...and he was sitting at a table so close to me! there he was! turns out he has his own record label now, and the second band that was opening is on his new label. so from then on, it was hard not to just glance over at him and think about how that's the same guy the united states sees on tv and loves, that's the same guy who fights terrorists in a single day :). it was just weird to see him hanging out....sitting having a drink at a table with some friends....and clap and cheer when the band finished. i definitely recognized a jack bauer haller even over the rest of the crowd. i would've inserted a photo here of the one and only jack bauer had i not had to check my camera at the house of blues valet...silly rules. and i had to pay 5 bucks to check it! silliness.

besides that....let's see....
i'm continuing to check out churches. and having fun doing it. there's just so many here, it's crazy! i went to saddleback this past weekend. the place is amazingly huge. it's almost like it's an entire community within itself.
yesterday, jiffy and i drove into san pedro....which is right on the ocean. it's not as glamorous as you may have just pictured in your mind though. when we were driving into the area, i kinda felt like i was driving through gary, indiana. not pretty. it's an industrial area...with all these big rig looking things. a bunch of huge metal structures. just not at all a nice beach town. when we got around to where we were staying though, it was a bit better. it's a boy scout facility, and mountain and sea adventures has an office in their building. so guess what...jiffy and i got to sleep on couches in the little office room...and this morning we had to shower outside in our swimming suits. ya know those kinds of showers that you might find at a swimming pool. the ones that you have to get wet in before they let you jump into the pool. yeah, those were like the ones i had to use. kinda strange. especially because there was a big important meeting this morning happening at this location...and there we were showering. kinda awkward. but hey....it was a great view of the ocean!
so today we had a group of high school seniors arrive from las vegas. we did a bunch of marine biology stuff with them. it was so neat!! we went to an aquarium that was just spectacular! then we went tide pooling. i got to hold a little octapus...and something called a brittle star. amazing stuff. God just blows me away with his creation and creativity. really...it's amazing. i am in wonder of God because of it....the colors of these creatures are so brilliant...the way they were delicately made with such a purpose and part of how they work with the environment they are in. it's awesome! and tidepooling is just fun!! life abounds in those little nooks and crannies of the ocean. absolutely awesome!!

there's some photos for you to see....(for some reason they decided to put themselves up at the top by the talk about jack bauer...so maybe i haven't figured out this technology thing yet.) two are from the aquarium. the other is fran (the husband to the big wig director of the whole organization) showing some of the students some creatures he found.

alright...well...that's about it for now. we're headed to the island tomorrow. it's such a different lifestyle there, so i'm excited to experience it.

the team...

hey, hey....if all went well with my limited technological abilities, ya'll should be seeing a photo posted here! :) this is the MSA (mountain and sea adventures) clan. two of these guys came over from catalina island just for the week to help us out because we have a lot of kids. so....it's hana, ryan, jiffy, maverick, faith, rocky, and me. speaking of catalina island, i found out that i will be taking a little trip over there next week!! we have no campers next week....so all of us are going to san pedro on monday. my california geography is definitely not up to par, so i have no clue where that's at. but i do know it's not terribly far from LA, and it's on the coast. then....on wednesday, jiffy, maverick and i will be heading to the island for a few days. i'm very excited to see this place that i have heard so many people talk about. i'll make sure to post some pictures :) so check back.

much love... b.

more mice...

well, it's a new week. a new groups of kids. 120 of them, in fact. they're only here for three days of camp, but i can already tell that it's going to be a choatic couple days. it started off rough...classes this afternoon weren't as smooth as i'd like...but some of that is to be expected.
i taught pond lab twice this afternoon. as i was setting up for it, i just stopped and thought about how awesome it is that this is my job....that it's my job to work outside....it's my job to be in the mountains. whoa...it's great! the two groups of kids i had were mostly uninterested, didn't want to listen, had chaperones that just contributed to the distractions (which was really frustrating)...but we got through it. i could see a couple of them were into it and were fascinated by all the organisms they get to dig out of the pond and check out under the microscope, and that's what i like to see. i have to do the same thing over and over as i teach this class, but i can tell that i won't get tired of seeing them get excited about it.
then tonight, i taught owl archeology. quite interesting. as the kids were disecting owl pellets and finding bones of mice and birds and moles and who knows what else....all of the sudden the kids started screaming. i heard someone say....it's a real mouse!! having seen many other mice in that room before, i wasn't surprised. one of the dad's immediately began to try to catch it. the kids totally got into it. i looked as one of the teachers from the school groups jumped up on a counter and was squirming and laughing. everyone was giggling and trying to get a peek at the mouse, but it was hiding behind a stack of chairs. it took awhile...but finally it was caught! it was a tiny little thing. kind of cute actually. kind of. the dad was holding it up by the tail and kids were flashing pictures left and right. it was so funny. then he let it outside...which means it'll probably just find it's way right back in. but oh well. the teacher who had planted herself on higher ground came up to me and was apologizing that it had interrupted the class...but she said that this was already one of the highlights of their time here. it was just fun to watch them all get into it. it definitely added some excitement. :) i wonder if i'll ever stop having mouse stories. maybe one day i'll just get so comfortable with them around. i don't know, we'll see about that one. actually yesterday in our cabin there was a lizard. that's a new one!
alright...well...i'm off to bed.
later,
brooke.