Rocky Mountain High

Snowboarding Season is Here!

alp2498 — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 02:55:02 +0000

The holiday season is upon us! We had an awesome Thanksgiving in Fraser. I spent the day with friends and we all house hopped to spend time with different families throughout the day. It was great! We have also been getting a ton of snow, which has meant great things for Winter Park. The mountain opened on Wednesday the 19th and by the weekend practically all of the runs were open, which is very unusual for this time of year. I am happy to say that I was able to pick up with snowboarding right where I left off and that only means good things! Riding switch and going off boxes are my goals- we’ll see what happens and I’ll be sure to keep you posted.

Week One

alp2498 — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 05:20:03 +0000

Our first group of campers arrived this week. They got to camp on Sunday and will be here until Saturday night. Then the next group of campers will arrive on Sunday. We will have this schedule until the middle of August. The fun thing about summer is how many people we have at camp. Our intern house now has 19 people since the 9 summer interns have joined us. The 10 weeks of summer camp is broken into 3 sessions and each session we have different younglife staff at camp serving as the assigned team. The assigned team roles fill the positions of camp director, camp speaker, program team, camp musician, head leaders (counselors), summer staff coordinators and work crew bosses. The summer staff (college) and work crew (high school) are students that volunteer to work at camp in positions ranging from serving meals in the dining hall and landscaping to running the ropes course and lifeguarding.

We have many different events throughout the week- rodeo, carnival, water olympics and club. I will definitely be posting pictures of all this stuff in weeks to come. My job in the office has me working in camp for most of the day to help campers, take phone calls, answer questions, take in the deposits from our retail outlets and anything that comes up. At night all the interns help set up and run the rodeo, carnival and tableau.

Throughout the summer, all the interns, are going to be reading through a book called ‘Chasing the Wild Goose’. We are still going to meet once a week to have fellowship and talk about the book. I’m excited to have a time that all the interns will be together! Our schedules have been so crazy we really haven’t had a chance to spend time with all 19 interns together.

He is Risen

alp2498 — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 02:38:36 +0000

Happy Easter! I had a great Easter with the family. We went to church in the morning and had family over for dinner that night. Here is a picture of me and the kids from Easter morning.

We’ve spent a couple of days at the beach. Yesterday, my family and my Aunt Jacqueline rented motorized kayaks and took them out on the bay. It was a ton of fun- we got to see dolphins! When I get back to camp I’ll be putting up a video from our kayaking adventure.

With all this down time, I have been working on memorizing verses from James to get caught up for our next bible study. Today I was working on some verses in chapter two and I wanted to share some of the verses that have stood out in my mind:

“What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him ‘Go, I wish you well! Stay warm and well fed’, but does nothing about his physical conditions, what good is it. In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied with deeds, is dead. But someone will say, ‘You have faith; I have deeds.’ Show me your faith with no deeds and I will show you my faith by what I do“

The part of these verses that stood out the most is the last part about showing my faith by what I do. Initially, that concept seemed to be very basic; something that’s expected of us as Christians. When I started to think about it, I realized how easy it is to fall into our sinful nature. To be more concerned for ourselves than for others, especially when we’re in a hurry or in a bad mood. But to identify those opportunities when they come and in the moment of anger/frustration/disappointment to remember our faith and how He would have us respond.

Sandy Bottoms

alp2498 — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 23:08:33 +0000

I arrived in Florida yesterday for the first day of our spring break. The trip was good. I had a 2 hour stop in Atlanta so my mom came to hang out with me. I spent part of the day today at the beach with my stepmom, Bree, and Hunter, Lundyn, and Kennedy. The weather is amazing and it really makes me excited for summer at camp. This week should be good time to get some reading done. We are still working on memorizing the book of James and we have to start memorizing more verses per week so we can finish the book by summer. During the break we are starting our newest bible study book, A Work of Heart: Understanding How God Shapes Spiritual Leaders.

Powder

alp2498 — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 06:56:37 +0000

We’re fully into our spring snow season. It’s been sunny and beautiful. I’ve gone biking a bunch lately and then we get dumps of snow. A few weeks ago Winter Park got 16″ of snow. The best part about it was the pass into our valley was closed so no one could come in from Denver to ski. The mountain was practically empty that day and the snow was so deep we would be riding through it, unable to see our boards with powder up to our knees.

Camp has been steadily busy this past month. We’ve had a couple of week long groups staying with us- Young Life students on spring break and a Captivating men’s group. I love working in the kitchen. Each week or weekend that I an in the kitchen my schedule alternates between the AM and PM shift so I’ve had the chance to prep, cook and serve out breakfast, lunch and dinner.

The first week of April we have week off for spring break before our busy summer starts. I’m going to florida to see my Dad and family. I’m really excited- I haven’t seen the kids since July. For those of you who may not know, I have three younger siblings. My sister Hunter is 9 yrs old, my brother Lundyn is 7 yrs old and my baby sister Kennedy is 4 yrs old.

It’s getting to that point in the year where all the interns are getting a little home sick and we’re anxious for summer. Since we’ve finished our spiritual warfare books in our bible study, we haven’t started a new one. We’ve been focusing on the gospels. We each have chosen a gospel to read through this year and we have to write a paper on it and what we’ve learned from it or how it has impacted us. The gospel I’m reading through is John.

Our summer jobs were announced two weeks ago. We were all really excited to find out and they made us play this guessing game to find out what positions we are. I am going to be working in the office as the admin intern. The position will allow me to work in our main office as well as our summer office plus helping out with different summer events. I’m really excited for the assignment and how God will work through us this summer. Ever since our Christmas break I have been thinking that I would like to stay on staff and work at camp for a year or so. There is a possibility of a few positions being open in the fall and one of them would be in the office. So I think that working in the office this summer will be a good opportunity to get a feel for if I would be interested in applying for an office position next year.

Laundry Day

alp2498 — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 23:38:36 +0000

We just got back from working- we spent the day in housekeeping. It has been snowing so much lately. Today was the third day in a row that we’ve had to shovel snow. All the snow has been great for snowboarding- there is so much powder! I really feel like I’m getting a hang of it.

Things are going good at camp. This past weekend was my third weekend working in the kitchen. I’m really enjoying it and I like seeing a different aspect of camp. In March we are going to have several week long groups in for skiing and retreats. I’m halfway through the newest book we’re reading for bible study- The Beginners Guide to Spiritual Warfare. Its been really interesting and we’ve had somegood conversations around the book and how spiritual warfare has impacted our lives. This week we’ll be off three days for President’s Day. We don’t have a ton planned but hopefully we can get in some good snowboarding!!

She was injured, injured bad

alp2498 — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 18:28:50 +0000

I got the first sports injury of my life last week. All the interns were playing soccer in the gym and I sprained my ankle (because I’m such an intense player The sprain isn’t too bad and I’m able to walk on it, but only after using crutches for a day. It’s been kind of a pain in the butt because we are so busy with the New Staff Training Conference. The group is great. I’ve been serving their meals, working in the kitchen, and working in the snack bar/coffee shop this whole week. Its has been really great because the whole staff is helping out with group. Its funny to have all of our maintenance guys washing dishes from the meals each day!

I have a day off tomorrow after 7 days straight- it will be nice to rest. The weather has been so beautiful, hopefully we can spend the day outside.

Happy New Year

alp2498 — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 07:15:40 +0000

This holiday season has flown by- I went home, to Atlanta, for Christmas. It was really great to spend time with family! I had to be back at camp on the 27th because we had two ski groups coming in for a week. The ski groups were all Young Life students who spent the days at Winter Park skiing, which meant we weren’t as busy as when we have regular campers but it was still nice to have people at camp all week.

We have been getting a ton of snow which has been beautiful and great for snowboarding! We went to the mountain today and had a good couple of hours snowboarding. All the interns have four days off this week because there is a group coming in on Friday for the Young Life new staff training conference. They will be at camp for two weeks straight and its going to be so crazy. We will all be working non stop all over camp. We also get to be the servers for all the meals. I’m excited for this challenge!

We just found out our next job rotation that starts in February and lasts through April- my job will be in the kitchen. I’m really excited about it too! All the interns are going into denver tomorrow to go to an Avalanche hockey game which should be fun. Due to the holidays and our work schedules, we haven’t had our weekly bible study in a few weeks. We did just get the new book that we will be reading together- Emotionally Healthy Spirituality by Peter Scazzero. I’ve only gotten through the intro but it seems like it will be good.

Rocky Mountain Mullet Cutters

alp2498 — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 11:50:23 +0000

Since I’ve been at camp I’ve had the opportunity to do lots of things and learn many new skills such as painting, laying sod, shovelling snow, belaying, etc. This past week I had the opportunity to do something I would have never expected and that was cut a mullet. On Tuesday night, Alyse and I, gave Spencer a mullet haircut. Spencer is one of the property staff in the kitchen, who hangs out with us a bunch…he is crazy! We had fun-Here are some pics:

This week has been pretty short for us. We were off Tues/Wed for our regular days off and we’re all off this weekend because there is no group in camp. Gabi, Jena and I are going into Denver tomorrow and Sunday we have family dinner. We just got our Christmas tree today and on Tuesday we are exchanging our secret santa gifts between the interns.

Yesterday we had a really good FOB (our thursday night bible study). It was my turn to recite our verses from James- we are memorizing the book of James and each week a different intern has to recite the verses. Since this is our 5th week of memorizing I had to know verses 1-20 because we learn 4 new verses each week. It went well and we’re finishing up our first book- The Spirit of Disciplines. We are going to be spending some time on prayer and as a group will choose something that we want to commit to praying for. We are also going to be reading and practicing fasting in a few weeks.

Have yourself a merry little Christmas

alp2498 — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 01:10:53 +0000

We had our staff Christmas party tonight and it was so much fun (pictures to come)! Everyone was there with their spouses and kids. After dinner, Alyse and Jena organized a really funny skit that involved a bunch of people on staff. The best part was that none of the people involved knew they were going to be in the skit until right before. I’m posting a video of it that you can see through my Youtube link on the right.

It has gotten so cold here in the past few days. Last night it was supposedly 20 below. I’ve been inside painting all week so I haven’t been too cold. We have basically been trying to get a bunch of projects finished this week so half of the interns have been doing housekeeping projects and the other half have been working on a maintenance project. I have been on the maintenance project painting rooms in our adult guest lodge. The adult guest lodge is where all of the visiting adult guests stay for the different Young Life camps.

I’m not sure if I have mentioned this before but all of the interns had to pick a mentor for the year. Our deadline to decide was Thanksgiving and we were given a list of people on staff or staff spouses who were interested in mentoring. I decided to ask Lisa who is married to Ray. Ray is the head of Guest Services on camp and since I am one of the guest service interns right now; he is my boss. Lisa has worked for Young Life in the past but currently stays home with their two girls (Ellie-8 and Kaite-6) and works part-time as an EMT. I”m really excited about getting to know Lisa better and hanging out with their family.