Beating the Rain

It was a clap of thunder at 5:30 in the morning that officially told me all the work we'd done was about to be tossed aside. And the pouring rain that followed? Well, that just rubbed it in. While the rain echoed off the tin roof of the carport below our bedroom window, Jillian and I laid in bed cursing Mother Nature, that bearer of perfect weather for two weeks and now, the week of Healthy Kids 2009, the bringer of low 60s, wind, lightening, thunder, and rain.

For the past two months we've been preparing for this with our trusty sidekicks, Tina and Bube. The fabulous colored t-shirts were hung by the coffee pot with care, with hopes that bright, hot weather would soon be there. [About those colored t-shirts, the printer didn't have purple, so we manually dyed them ourselves--which is to say Bube's 80-year old grandma pushed aside our Rit Dye directions, grabbed the 15 white shirts and dye packets, and went to town over an enormous metal pot and wood fire. Well, that was easy.]

Instead we got rain, which was a real bummer, especially considering we'd just held two solid days of counselor training in the hot sun. Since we decided to throw caution way into the wind and invite 110 campers (slightly more than the 25 we hosted last year), we figured some prep classes for our 30 teenage counselors was in order. We reviewed lessons, played all the team games, tried on our team t-shirts, and generally wondered just what we'd committed ourselves to.

With the counselors after training for the big week

Then Central Europe sent us a package, special delivery--a week-long storm and we suddenly became Healthy and Improvisational Kids. The sports field we had worked so hard to secure for the camp now resembles an alligator habitat and postponing the camp wasn't an option, since Jillian and the girls head off to Camp GLOW next week. So we talked to the director of the local primary school and got permission to use her gym and a few classrooms...all this after Tina spent almost two hours (beginning at 7am) calling parents to tell them about the rainout on Monday.

So with some slight alterations, the show goes on. Updates to follow...