Christmas in August

Every Saturday night after the campers have left and we do a clean up of the camp, we have what is called Staff Development. Mainly it's a time for us to all do something fun together as a team. In the past, they have done crazy things like Human Foosball, or Capture the Flag in the field at night. I usually just take Anne and head for bed as it is late. But the past two Saturdays we've stuck around and we have had a blast! Last week, of course, was our Country Mountain Dancing which I blogged about. But yesterday we had "Christmas in August". Everyone had to bring a White Elephant gift for the Dirty Santa gift exchange and they decorated the Dining Hall and played Christmas music. What was really funny was - to us, the Franklin's, it was cold outside - so it really felt like our Florida Christmas!!!! At one point a few of the guys found a Christmas Tree stand in the program closet and they went into the woods and came back with a real Christmas Tree! It smelled so pretty. They decorated it and we put all of our gifts under it.

They decorated this cart to bring in the gifts and Anne got to ride in the seat.

This is a group shot of our Staff. I wanted you to have an idea of our camp family we've been working with all summer.

Management staff. Newt (Program manager), Mallory (Business Manager) and Jesse (Camp Director and head boss man) He left today for Arizona. He got a job teaching Biology in a High School and had to leave camp early to get set up.

These are our Wranglers. They are in charge of all the horses in camp. In order to work here as a camp wrangler, you have to go on "Horse Trek". It's a week long, 180 mile journey on horseback, taking horses to one of the other BSA camps here in the Portland area. This is Jesse, David, Brian and Emily. Emily just graduated from a Equestrian/Bible College here in the area. Anne adores her.

This is our wonderful kitchen staff! These guys are fun! I've helped out a lot in the kitchen simply because they are fun to be around. And when you have 250 people to serve 3 times a day - well, an extra hand never hurt. This is Andrea, Katie, Ginger (head cook), Daniel, Caleb and Zack. Caleb flew in from Alaska to work here all summer. He's great! Ginger is an awesome cook. The food has had rave reviews all summer and I got the cook book that she wrote during the gift exchange last night.

This is me and Sqrat (Phil) in the back and all of our Trail Bosses. Greg, Jacob, Robbie, Jacob, Mikel, Alicia, Tom, Kaylie and Michelle

Program Staff - Billy (Pioneering), Robbie (Dutch Oven Cooking), Jeremy (Archery), Roger (Leather Working), Jacob (Dining Hall), Timmy (Geology - Panning for Gold), Emily (Horses), Newt (Program Mgr.), Stephen (BB Guns), Laura (Pioneering) and Jacob (Staff in Training)

This is our Chaplain and his lovely family. Can you believe they traveled all the way here from Florida! Amazing!!!!