M.A.D. camp 2008

It's over. That which I have planned for over the last 11 months is over. And I am glad. Not that I didn't have a fantastic week, I did, it is just that I am so exhausted! But what a great week. Here's the scoop:
This was my third year as "dean" of M.A.D camp. M.A.D. is short for music, art and drama. Basically I take a group of 6-9th graders and put together some sort of program that they present at the end of the week. It's crazy. I had a record amount of kids this year (41 at the highest point). We presented the musical "Jailhouse Rock" by Celeste Clydesdale. And I had the best faculty I've ever had. Those are just the facts.
There was a stark contrast between this year's camp and last. I'm guessing it was the age difference but I didn't have any trouble with, well, boy-girl issues. Last year was nuts! I was constantly wondering where some girls were and what they were doing and so on. This year? Not so much. We have this saying at camp, "No purple", when translated means "girls are pink, boys are blue, together they make purple". The girls were so young and naive (which I loved) that they thought if you just stood by a boy that meant you were making purple. I sure hope I don't get any letters from parents! Yikes...
I also noticed a huge difference in attitude this year. I didn't have any of the diva syndrome that I dealt with last year (again...love that!). They were all so sweet and nice and just plain excited to be there. Granted, they were a little more high maintenance and had about 5 million questions about each little instruction but I'll take that any day.
(sidebar here: if you went to any of the previous years of MAD camp...please don't take this personally...it's not that I didn't enjoy those year, this one was just easier!)
I had one girl ask Jesus to live in her heart and I saw one boy have a total change in attitude (in a good way) through out the week. I made some great new friends (a few of which are just plain weird, you know who you are). God is so good.
So, not much to complain about, eh? The only downside? Ethan has the absolute worse case of poison ivy I have ever seen. It is AWFUL. So awful that the doctor has him on steroids for it. I hope they don't do drug testing at Nationals this week (wink wink). Ok, the sand in my bed every night was great either...or the bugs...or the fact that everyone decided to get sick AFTER the camp nurse went home. (Seriously Brad, you couldn't stay for 24 more hours??? I don't do barf or blood.)

I guess I should start planning for next year, eh?