Spinning up for Summer

Staffing, Insurance, Water, Construction,Pray...or is it Pray, Staffing, Insurance, Water Construction or even better. Pray, Staffing, Insurance, Water, Construction, Pray. Vote on the best way to handle my recent days. These have been the hot topics along with risk management of the last few weeks...all while I got to travel to the nation's hot spot of Atlanta....woot. Amazing that both IBM and Young Life seem to want to send me to Atlanta...very cool to visit friends there. I also got to meet the entire summer assign team the week before here at Lost Canyon...overwhelming but very fun.

J- man's basketball is wrapping up at the Y. B-days for the boys have come and gone. Ryan has just built his first Star Destroyer....the dark side is strong in this one. And Amy had an amazing time at the YL Women's retreat at Camp...She went to this cool camp and got my a sweat shirt there. Will try and get a picture up of it.

Return of the Day in the Life Post

Ok, its been a while and a new diversity of stuff has risen to the surface. These past weeks have been quite different. A day would start with a devotional with the staff...great folks. The other day I handed out pieces of paper to everyone and said "7 lines"....they proceeded to draw 7 lines in various configurations...was very interesting. Stop by the office to see the Lost Canyon first annual art show of "7 lines". Similar days might have a worship prior to staff lunch at the dining hall or the Assigned team for the summer might be here for training from various western camps to meet and plan...lots of dining hall food that week...mmm. Yes I might gain weight. Travel has been a recent activity..flying to Reno for the Western Property manager's meeting at Mountain Lodge..a very cool location..and then a few weeks later to Atlanta at Sharp Top to meet with the rest of the property managers for some refresher training for them..new to me. Risk management was the scariest....even over finance. Truly by God's grace we walk in this ministry..any youth ministry for that matter. Still loving the diversity. Another day would be filled with discussion on starting the new intern program, followed by review of a store layout chock full of train station themes and concerns over materials and probably display space and the best use of the entire floor plan. More invoice signing of course and a day long meeting and overnight with the property committee at Lost Canyon to make sense of the future. Kicking out the next 5 year plan and budget for round 1 discussion for 2008...man already!! Major maintenence is a continual focus to keep the camp in as new condition as well as expand on some unfinished parts of the camp...got to get that mud landscaped. Hit the Lost Canyon website and see the new buildings..its really going to be amazing in Summer 07. Oh and for Y-man...I will try and post some frisbee designs per your request in the last post. For the more observant blog reader...you may have noticed that Ryan and Justin's ages have changed...yes it is birthday time..both kids will have had their birthdays in the game room here at camp...very cool. To keep folks interested...two words for another post "pig roast".

A Post from Ryan (10)

Hi fourth grade,
I am having a great time here. I am also having a bad time. Hope you are having a good time. How are you guys? I miss you guys a lot. I have some friends. My school is fine. But it is not RMCA. Thank you for giving me encouraging words. I really needed them. Some of the kids in my school are mean. I have different special subjects such as typing class and Spanish. I won first place in the science fair with a friend named Nick. Subjects are 1 hour long and at recess every grade goes together. My family does like our house. My school’s name is Maine consolidated #10. Justin said it wasn’t fair that you guys got so much snow. My school has a big play ground but there’s not much you could do. My teacher is funny and serious. There are many spider webs on the high ceiling but otherwise it is fine. The kids in my class don’t laugh as much. Some of them laugh at each other if they fall down or something like that. Sorry I didn’t write back quickly. My dad got the hang of his job really quickly. My favorite subject is probably technology now. My PE teacher is fun and not fun. I still play the recorder in music. I also have this activity in music called recorder karate.

I miss you guys, Ryan Smiley