Wow…much has happened since my last post. Last Sunday, our summer staff arrived at camp and we’ve been working like crazy to get through training, finish our prep work around the camp grounds and get ready for the 1200-1500 kids we’re planning for this summer. Everyday last week started around 6:15 with a workout and ended around 10:30 when we finally finished our CPR/First Aid training sessions. So, life has been busy, but this is one of my favorite times of the year.
            On Friday, Melissa and I loaded up in our little Geo Prism, stuffed Maximus in the back seat, and headed south to Bedford for my 10 year high school reunion. Since I was class president, I was responsible for planning the event. For anyone who knows me, you know I am a “live in the moment” type of person and planning out details in advance is about as fun for me as having my entire body hot waxed by a cross dressing man named Leroy doing hard time for beating up his grandma (okay, perhaps that was a bit of a stretch, but I still hate planning things)! So, for this event, I was elated to have my old friend Lindsay Mitchell (now Fletcher), whom you may remember from a blog a few months ago about my most embarrassing/pathetic JH crush (Blog Title “Cash Cab” from January), as the point person for the entire thing. She did a great job getting everything in order and all I really had to do was show up and grill burgers all evening. It was a great time and I really enjoyed seeing so many old friends I hadn’t seen in about 3650 days. It was also a time of reflection for me as I tried to recall anyone who I might have been unfair, unfriendly, or just an outright jerk toward who might be at the reunion with intent to see my life come to an untimely end! I know that probably overstates the case, but I really tried to think of anyone with whom I might need to make amends because I don’t want to be “that guy” and don’t want to live at odds with anyone if I can help it. Most everyone I talked with was friendly and we shared about good times we’d had together. In fact, there wasn’t really anyone I saw I felt awkward toward or with whom I sensed I really needed to make amends. If you’re reading this and you are a person I have somehow hurt in the past, please know I am sincerely sorry and would love to talk with you personally about it. Life is too short to live at odds with others (Romans 12:18: If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone).
             All in all, it was a great time and a few of us even decided to get together for dinner on Saturday evening. I loved the chance to reconnect and also to have Melissa meet some of the people I grew up with and for them to meet her. In case you didn’t know, I’m really fond of my bride and think the world should know how awesome she is! Lindsay and her husband, Daniel (who I played football with), are expecting their first child just a few weeks after we’re expecting our first. It was so strange to see people who I’d know since early elementary when they had bad hair cuts and were missing teeth that are successful business owners, spouses and parents. As is often the case, our time in Bedford prompted Melissa and me to discuss how difficult it is to grasp the idea of being almost 30! I know for many of you that milestone has come and gone (and you probably have smart comments to make, which I always encourage), but for us, we still feel like we should be roller skating around our basements or blowing up frogs with m-80’s in the creek behind our barn! In the immortal words of Nationwide Insurance, “Life comes at you fast.”
            We carried that feeling with us to Popcorn Christian Church on Sunday morning where I gave a brief presentation to a group of people who watched me grow up for most of my formative years. Popcorn is partnering with us in our work here at Rainbow and it was great to give them a picture of what their funds are going toward. It was also great to see so many old friends and to see them share in our excitement about our new baby. We said our goodbyes after church and headed back north toward home to meet Melissa’s parents, who are here for the holiday and helping us get things sorted out with our landscaping in the yard. For me, if the yard is green and you can see more grass than weeds, I’m usually happy. However, Melissa has a bit more of a green thumb and we’re trying to make since of all our flower beds and figure out what needs to go where.
             The only other big news for the time being is our animal barn here at camp, which is rapidly filling with animals in need of rescue. We are a wildlife rescue site and whenever the C.O. in the area comes across a wounded or neglected wild animal, we often get the chance for rehab. Currently, we have 4 baby raccoons, a juvenile red-tailed fox, and a fawn still covered in spots. We should be getting another fawn tomorrow and we’ll have the responsibility as a staff to feed and care for them until they’re ready to be released into the wild. It’s awesome to take our campers to the barn and see them light up when they get to bottle feed a baby raccoon! We enjoyed feeding them this morning and, aside from the bruise on my foot I have from kicking the cow in the head with my sandals on, life is good (Hey, he was trying to eat all the chicken feed in the chicken barn and the only way to move him is to grab an ear, twist it like you’re turning on an outdoor water spigot, and kick him square in the noggin’)! After the ordeal was over, I limped back to the house, enjoyed some Chicago pizza for lunch, and sat down to blog for all of cyber space. Since this blog is mostly informative and not exactly controversial, just tell us know about your own HS reunions (if you’ve had them) and if you have any crazy stories from your own life about dealing with people you were a bully to or were bullied by in HS…

Okay, I guess I’ll just come out and say it: Melissa and I would now describe ourselves as a “green” couple, or at least we’re seeking to be more that way. To be clear, “green” means we are taking steps toward making our world cleaner and neater than when we found it. I was taught this method when borrowing stuff as a youngster, and it seems a good method for the planet God has loaned us for the time. With that said, please don’t get me wrong and take us to be the treehugging, bra-burning, armpit hair growing (okay, I am), no deoderant wearing type. We simply see being good stewards as an appropriate response to what God has blessed us with. Part of that stewardship has been to become a bit more conscious of the products we buy that could have a negative affect on the environment. As much as I hate to use the term “organic,” we buy many household products and foods that now hold that certification (on a side note, I was organic when organic wasn’t cool anyway, as we always butchered our own beef, had a huge garden, and got “raw” milk from the dairy farmer down the street or the goats in our barn- thanks Mom and Dad for the good upbringing). It is because of this change in our purchasing habits that a near disaster befell us last weekend. After a great dinner (see pic below) with our friends Todd and Bethany, I filled the dishwasher, added the new “organic” soap under the sink, and walked away. Moments later, while I was gone checking on a group staying at camp for the weekend, our ole dishwasher started belching out white bubbles like it was biting a mortally wounded Stay Puft Marshmallow Man and spitting out his liquid remains (okay, maybe that was just what my crazy imagination saw when I got back). I was, of course, upset by a broken dishwasher and started trying my best to get to the source of the problem. To make a very long story short, my dear sweet wife had purchased two different kinds of organic soaps and her uninformed husband inadvertantly grabbed the soap designed only for sink washing the dishes (which looked very similar to the one designed for a dishwasher), filled both soap holders and walked away. The 2nd pic at the bottom shows you a mild shot of the shenanigans!

On to ankles: We recently finished laying a nice rubber floor in our weight room at camp, and on Wednesday morning I was working out with my friend, Aaron. We were 2/3 of the way done with a pretty intense session of plyometrics (jump training) when I lunged forward onto my left ankle, which was unexpectedly hanging out in a position about 90 degrees to the left side of normal! As such, that silly little knob on the outside of my left ankle ended up be that excruciatingly painful little knob that was folded over and touching the floor. For the past few days, sandals have been a necessity, as the swelling makes my lower leg look more like a spongy tennis ball than an ankle joint. Thankfully, the pain hasn’t prohibited my walking around, or else the end of this blog would be much less enjoyable for me.

We are, in fact, staying tonight @ a Super 8 motel in Abingdon, VA, about 10 miles from Damascus, VA, where the annual hiker festival known as Trail Days is being held. It is a great chance to see friends from our recent AT thruhike, and since we don’t know if we’ll get the chance to anytime again in the near future, we hopped in the car last night about 5:15 and headed south. We got to Damascus around 11 this morning, after a lovely night spent @  a room in the Knight’s Inn just south of Beckley, VA trying to sleep with the soft glow of the neon lights from the all-night adult video/novelty store across the parking lot! It was great to be back in Damascus and within the first few hours, we had seen probably at least 2 dozen friends from the trail, many of whom we hadn’t seen since mid-summer last year. The only person we saw that we’d finished the trail with was Bus Driver, who was getting settled in for the weekend in his old yellow VW minibus. We’ve also seen Blues Traveler, Bear Pack, Pacer, Recurve, Brown Bag, White Lightning, Blaze, Orange Dust, Circumstance, and the list goes on and on. Right now the forecast is for nasty thunderstorms tonight and I’m thankful my pregnant wife is uncomfortable in the clammy confines of a lightweight backpacking tent. That means we get to stay cool and dry here at the Super 8 and go back tomorrow to see our wet, smelly, and more than likely hungover friends! We’re back to camp either late tomorrow night or early Sunday morning for the arrival of our summer staff. The camping season is upon us!

Talk to you soon.

Melissa wanted me to show off her mad cooking skills - pork tenderloin with fresh veggies and olive oil!

Yes, I used the wrong soap - Shut yo mouth!