I should be working on my stories, but I’m going to camp in a couple of months and it’s all I can think about, so I’m going to tell you about it. I will not possibly be able to do it justice, because you have to be there to fully appreciate everything. Just so you know, however, this may bore you stiff. If there are any descriptions that you don’t understand, I can clarify if you comment. (This is my sneaky way of getting you guys to comment.) MiVoden stands for ‘Missionary Volunteers on Hayden’. Just to let you know.

The Blob, the boats, and other water-related things:

The Blob is, put simply, a giant blue-and-yellow striped tarp pillow that’s only partially blown, and put in the water under a VERY HIGH diving board. You jump off the board and land on your butt on the Blob, and crawl to the end, and then the person behind you jumps and you go flying into the air and into the water. It’s beyond fun, but then, so is everything about camp.
They have one of those big plastic icebergs, a water slide, and some little floaty devices that you can ride on, all things that you could find at a community swimming pool, but so much better, because you’re at camp and everything is better at camp. (I’m serious; I used to hate root beer floats and sloppy joe sandwiches, but I had them at camp my first year and I’ve loved them ever since.)
They have this thing called the Wasp, and it’s shaped kind of like a giant hotdog, and they tie it to the back of a motor boat. Everyone climbs on, and there are little handles you can hold on to, and you get pulled around at break-neck speed while the boat driver goes into these crazy twists and turns, trying to get us to let go. Finally he’ll manage it, and we all get dumped in the lake, sputtering and splashing and wanting to do it again.
I guess I should mention wakeboarding, because I’m going to do that this year, but I think you guys already know what it is, so I’m just going to mention it.

The Breakfasts, the dinners, and all the lunches in between.

Ahh, the food at camp is NOT TO BE BELIEVED. There is no better food in the world, except maybe at grandma’s. Maybe. There are too many meals to describe all of them, but they have fruit at all the breakfasts, dessert at all the dinners, and the lunches are classicly American, meaning hamburgers, hot dogs, (all vegetarian of course, but a very good type of vegetarian) and, as afore mentioned, sloppy joes, on homemade buns. Very good stuff.
They make beautiful, lovely, delicious, perfect, fluffy (etc., etc) biscuits, with gravy to pour over them, and pancakes with syrup and/or strawberries, and plums and peaches and apples, but not the red delicious kind that are always mushy unless you get them at just the right time. These ones are really crisp, and they don’t taste funny.

The Boys and the girls, although the former are often more interesting.;-D

Almost all of the boys are cute, and the ones that aren’t make up for it by being either funny or extremely sweet, except for a rare few. For the most part, the same goes for the girls. This is shorter than most of the others, but that’s only because it’s very hard to describe people when you’re as excited as I am.

The Bunks, the bunkmates, and the crazy schedules.

The beds are four to a room, two rooms to a cabin, two cabins to a bunk. The two cabins are connected by a long hall, and the one at the opposite end is our ‘sister cabin’. Really though, it’s the people that make the cabins totally awesome. Last year I ended up with five cool Canadian beans (‘cool Canadian beans’ is my name for five of the awesomest people ever to enter Camp MiVoden territory), and two Idahoans.
Everybody wakes up early at camp. You just can’t help it; you don’t want to miss out on anything! You get up and get ready (we MiVodenians are masters of getting ready quickly – we have to, or else not be ready), and….
8:00 AM is line call, and then you go to breakfast as soon as they’re sure everybody’s there, usually around…
8:15 AM, when they have the awesomest breakfasts ever to be served in the U.S.A.
9:00 AM, by which time I hope 10:00 AM you get an activity, anything from beach volleyball to free swim, to arts and crafts. I got to do candle making one day last year, and it was awesome. I stuck my finger in the hot wax about a million times, filled the hollow cavity with red wax, stuck a wick in it, and called it a candle. And yes, it hurt, but it was fun.
10:30 AM you get another activity.
11:00 AM you go to lunch….mmmmm.
12:00 PM Free Time!!! You can sleep, read, write, whatever, as long as it’s quiet. One year our counselor had a day off, and we had a sub who was a lifeguard, so we went swimming during free hour.
1:00 PM you go to your first class. You get to choose three classes to take. I’m doing gymnastics. I hope I can still do the splits. 2:00 PM is second period, arts & crafts for me. This is the first year I’ve done anything remotely art-related.
3:00 PM is seventy-eighth period. No, not really. Period three, I’m doing wakeboarding, which I took last year, and decided to take again because there is absolutely nothing like gliding on the water like that.
4:00 PM, you get ready for another line call, and dinner, which is, as usual, is something that words fail me to describe.
5:00 PM dinner is over, and you go to fire bowl for worship. They always choose a really funny pastor, and there’s a play every night performed by the camp’s drama team. Some of them have you in hysterics because they’re so funny, and occasionally they’ll make you cry. Not that I did. Not really, anyway. Of course I didn’t cry! What makes you think that? I didn’t cry. Not once. I didn’t. *nods head emphatically*
Once a week, they also have a play that you have to hike up to see, but it’s worth it, because it’s beside a pond and somebody always jumps in, either because it’s scripted, or because the audience (namely, us, the venerable campers of MiVoden) begs for it.
8:00 PM you go to your cabin and get ready for bed, then you have a private worship with your bunkmates and counselor.
9:00 PM is lights out. G’night!

The Banquet, and the feast with really, really good food.

There are two big, BIG events that happen at camp. One is the Banquet, and the other is the Agape feast, aka ‘the feast with really, really good food.
The Banquet is, hands down, the most looked forward to and talked about event at camp. Well, almost. It’s kind of a tie with the Agape feast, and maybe the Rodeo, which we’ll get to later.
The Banquet is on Tuesday evening. You’re allowed to bring a date, so the lunch before the banquet is pretty busy, with the guys walking over to the girl’s tables and asking them out, although some people will do it much earlier, or even just before the Banquet begins. Last year a guy asked a girl to sit with him halfway through dinner. Another guy asked a girl to go with him over the intercom, and I’m not going to mention any names, of course, but I thought that was really sweet. (She said yes, by the way.) And occasionally, a very brave girl will ask a guy out.
I did that, got turned down the first time, and the next year I got accepted, but this year I’m probably just going to go with one of my guy friends. It’ll be more fun, I think, unless some devastatingly handsome young man comes up and asks me, in which case I may be forced to accept.
Every year, the Banquet has a different theme; last year it was “Around the World in 80 Minutes”. No one dresses accordingly though, except the counselors, who know beforehand what the theme will be.
The plates of food are brought to you by camp staff, instead of you having to go and serve yourself like you do at every other meal. Every year they have Grasshopper Pie for dessert, which is a camp tradition, and it’s also tradition that nobody knows what it is until they’ve had it for the first time, but suffice it to say that it is delicious beyond words, and there are no grasshoppers in it whatsoever.
The Agape Feast is a feast representing God’s love for us, and the food is better than the food at the Banquet, if any such thing is possible. We have only fruit and bread and water, but this isn’t regular bread; oh no, it’s pumpkin bread, and chocolate muffins (the sight of which is enough to make most of us chocolate-deprived girls faint to the floor, although no one’s has actually dared to do it yet, because they might miss out on the muffins), and pineapple muffins, which sound weird, but are the best things ever to be invented. I’m serious; they’re better than chocolate, even. And there are maybe ten kinds of fruit; pears and cherries and peaches and plums, nectarines and apples, and grapes, and apricots, and bananas, and I guess that’s only nine, but believe me, it’s absolute heaven. The camp staff walks around, and each table gets to pick a song to be played, so there’s music all night. There are no dates for this one; you sit with your cabin, and aside from the music, it’s usually pretty quiet. This happens on Friday night, and usually everyone is pretty solemn, because there’s only one day of camp left, and nobody wants to leave.

The six (and sometimes seven) Big events, and the freaky event that you know is fake, but seems more real every time.

Event #1 – The Traditional Game of Medic
Every year, we play medic, which is kind of a cross between Dodgeball and capture the flag. Maybe you guys have played it before, but for those you who haven’t….
Two teams, three medics per team, and more than a hundred soft foam balls – and a few soccer balls that hurt slightly more than the others. (Those are my favorites – yes, I’m evil.) Each team has to try to ‘kill’ the other team’s medics by hitting them with the foam balls, while protecting their own medics. If any non-medic player gets hit, the medic can heal them, and they’re back in the game. There, I think that’s the basic idea.

Event #2 – The Gymnastics Show
I’m in this one this year!!! It’s just what the title says, and they do all sorts of cool contortionist-looking things, and it’s really fun to watch, but I bet it’s better to actually do it.

Event #3 – The Rodeo
The Rodeo is the event when all the people who took horsemanship get to show off their skills, and where those of us who did not take horsemanship get to eat hot dogs and cookies and soda, and play tug-of-war and bob for apples.
We have to hike up a long way to get to the rodeo ring, but once everybody is there, they elect a king and queen of the rodeo, who announce the festivities. Halfway through the rodeo, the members take a break, and everyone gets called out to play tug-of-war, boys against girls, and if someone were to come up and state that the boys won last year, and the year before that, I would deny it to my last breath, however true it may be. Not that it is. True, I mean.

Event #4 – The Wakeboard/Water ski Show
The campers don’t participate in this one, and it’s not just wakeboarding. They build a temporary ramp, and someone riding a bicycle goes over it and into the lake. They also send in a non-manned grocery cart, just for kicks, and because it’s tradition. I personally like our traditions, although you might think they’re weird. They do really awesome flips on the water skis and wakeboards, but it’s a little difficult to describe. See, this is why you might think this is boring! I was right!

Event #5 – The Juggling & Unicycling Show
They juggle. They unicycle over unusually difficult courses. Enough said.

Event #6 – The Pie-Faced Counselor
Okay!!! This one is fun. Now cleaning your cabin pays off. The cabins that got the most points (one girl’s, one boy’s) get a pie made with sour cream, mustard, and pickles, and collectively they choose anyone on the camp staff. This person must come forth without shirking, stumbling, or falling on their knees, begging for mercy; and have a pie smushed into their face. Never fear, no one has died yet from this.

The Freaky Event, aka……The FIRE DRILL!!!!!
Once a week, they have a FIRE DRILL. *cue scary music* You stand out in the hot sun for maybe five minutes while they make sure everyone is there, but invariably someone will not be there, and it will take up to fifteen minutes longer, and if you don’t have sunscreen on, you will get fried.

The Bad part of Camp MiVoden.

Camp MiVoden does have a dark side, which comes out at the end of camp, when you must leave your beloved friends and Fire bowl and food, and make your way back home. Now, I am finished with this ridiculously long post, much saddened by it’s inevitable ending.