WELTMEISTER:Week 7

Week 7 has come and gone, meaning I only have FOUR weeks left here. What?! That can't be possible. I still have so much left to do!


Monday

The weekends are never long enough here. I love my internship, of course, but there's so much Colorado has to offer and not enough time to explore it all. Monday morning started out as, well, a Monday. I started working on a story about the YMCA of the Rockies' partnership with the Russian YMCA and another story about the cabin adoption/donation program here. In the late afternoon we took the drone out to Mountainside for another run and we all took turns flying it.

Monday night is volleyball tournament night! The Sandmonsters, now decked out in new (thrift shop) Hawaiian shirts, were ready to play. Two of our players couldn't show up and one of our subs couldn't play either so we recruited a new player and just played 5 on the court. We played PODOH again and beat them, then played the Cougars again and lost 20-25. Getting so close!

Scrappy, Cannon, Viper, Fire, and Killa.

Tuesday

Tuesday I answered a lot of emails, posted a few blogs, and brainstormed new story ideas to write around camp. My favorite days are when I can get out and talk to people about what they're doing and why they love doing it so I'm hoping to do more of that!

After work I made plans with friends for dinner and then we played a very non-competitive game of minigolf, a silly game of tennis, and then went into town for our weekly dose of Hayley's magical icecream. I went to the LT service afterward with a few friends. The service was SO good. I love those moments when God reveals things to you when you need it the most. The speaker was talking about work - how God created us to be workers and Jesus worked as a carpenter for 20 years before beginning his ministry.

Wednesday

I found out one of my articles I wrote about the Navy IRT at Snow Mountain Ranch was published in the Sky Hi News! Read the article here: http://www.skyhidailynews.com/news/12134801-113/seabees-construction-mountain-snow

Laura and Andrew were in a goofy mood today - once they get going on a joke they're hilarious. I'm so grateful to have the opportunity to work under them. It's definitely shown me a different side of the marketing/communications world. I once told someone I was interning with the marketing department and they made a face at me and said "Ugh that sounds so dry, how do you do that?" And they, my friends, are totally wrong. (Also I had never thought that before. Do people really see marketing as dry? It requires so much creativity so I'm not sure why they thought that.) Laura and Andrew get things done and do their jobs extremely well, but they also know how to have fun and be silly while doing it. I love that.

The other intern and I ate lunch with Andrew and we started asking him about our interviews for the internship- how many people applied for our spots, why they picked us. Andrew told me there were a lot of people who were really upbeat for my position but I had a certain voice and personality and positive energy that they could see themselves working with. That was super encouraging to hear, especially when I was getting bogged down with the day-to-day drag of office life. I told him I wanted to be out talking to people more and exploring the camp and he was like, Go for it! Do that and find more stories. So great to hear.

That night was half price movie night for Y staff - we went and saw 22 Jump Street and it was HILarious. The Y staff took up like 3 rows and it was great.

Thursday

Thursday Laura and Andrew had to make a trip to Denver so it was just me and the other intern.It was a great day though, I've decided to start a blog series on "Faces and Places of the Y" and was able to hang out in the day camp building for a little while and interview some people there. Because so many of my friends work in the Day Camp it was easy finding people to talk to.

Thursday night we played pick up volleyball games. It's always interesting when you have a variety of skills playing but it was still fun, I bloodied my knee up on a dive in the sand and everyone was like "Oooh Rachel's going hardcore"

Afterward we went to the Thursday night LT service and if possible it was even better than Tuesday night. The speaker talked about Leadership through Trials. It was a really deep philosophical kind of night, and he went into some discussion I had in my Christ in Culture class last year - things like, If God is all powerful and loving, why does he allow suffering? I love discussions like that. And the songs were on point - we sang Sweetly Broken and I'll Stan, two of my absolute favorites.

Friday

Sorry this week is so light on pics! I've been out doing things all week but haven't been able to get a hike in yet and I keep forgetting to take pictures at things! Friday in the office was great, I worked on a few projects and ate lunch with some Day Camp staff that were off work.

It was storming during dinner so we decided to wait out the rain and watch the Lion King. Can you possible picture a more exciting Friday night? ;) Afterward we went out to the admin front lawn and watched an ultimate frisbee game and played ERS (card game) with a bunch of friends. It was 10:00PM now, but the best part about being college aged at a camp full of other college aged kids is that 10:00 is still an early night. We decided to go out for karaoke night at a place in Estes Park and it was a BLAST. There were some people who sang so good! As for me, I sang the Backstreet Boys (I want it that way) and the Spice Girls (Wanna Be, of course) with lots of friends. It was a great night.

Saturday

Saturday was supposed to be a HUGE day for me. We drove down to Boulder to drop a friend off and then went to Longmont to do said HUGE thing. Some of you may know what I was going to do, but I'll leave it as a surprise because unfortunately it didn't happen. Just know we were there from 1-4:30 and the weather ruined my plans.

BUT. I had Chipotle for dinner again so the trip wasn't completely lost. AND. My big day has been rescheduled for August 2 so stay tuned!!!

That night we went out to the Rock Inn for live music and to hang out with friends 

Cora, Jenna, Austin, Me, Ryan, Jeanna, Bryan, & Niek. These guys rock.

Sunday

We planned on doing a long hike today, but since we didn't want to miss the World Cup Final we chose a shorter one. We ate at 7 and got to the Bear Lake Trailhead by 8:10 to do the Bear Lake to Bierstadt Lake trail. It was such a beautiful morning for a hike! Bear Lake is literally the easiest hike you will ever do (it's 256 feet) But it's an amazing lakeview in the morning.

After Bear Lake we took an uphill trail for .4 miles to get on the Bierstadt trail and then walked 1.9 miles to Bierstadt Lake. It was a gorgeous hike. Once you do the .4 and start on the 1.9, it's mostly flat or downhill which made it really relaxing and fast. We reached Bierstadt at 9:30 and hung out for 30 minutes, enjoying the quiet and stillness of the beautiful lake.

This should be in a postcard right?

We were asked to take a group photo, so I asked them to take ours

Here's the fun part. We started walking around the lake looking for the Beirstadt Trailhead trail but didn't walk far enough around and we found the Park and Ride Shuttle trail instead. We made it all the way down the mountain  and reached a fork in the road. One way led to the park and ride, the other led to the Beirstadt trailhead. We figured waiting for a shuttle at the Park & Ride would take much longer and we probably weren't too far from the Beirstadt trail head so we decided to walk there. Turns out it was much farther. (As you can see on the map we went 1.4 miles down the mountain almost to the Park & Ride and then doubled back 1.5 miles all the way to the trail head. We were so mad/confused/laughing hard when we saw that after) So we did around 5.5 miles instead of 3.5-4, but it turned out okay and it was a beautiful walk.

"You are here" = Bierstadt Trailhead

Bierstadt trailhead. Tired.

After we got back we ate lunch and then went into Reush Auditorium to watch the WORLD CUP FINAL! My friend Cora is from Germany and I had been rooting for Germany the whole World Cup (Thomas Mueller. Hello. Marry me) so all of us were super excited when they finally scored in overtime against Argentina! It was an intense game and both sides played well. Cora was soooo pumped and shouting "WELTMEISTER!" which means World Master in German. (How cool does that sound? I've decided I want to be a World Master in a different sense of the word.)

Our group cheering on Germany

After the World Cup we celebrated in Rustic Cafe with icecream shakes and then I was super tired so I took a nap. Later I went to the LT Worship service at 7PM and it was AMAZING. This whole week the LT events have been so encouraging and uplifting. We sang several songs I didn't know but I loved right away and sang lots of songs I knew and loved already. My friend from the Netherlands came with me and isn't religious but I was so excited he came and said he really enjoyed it.

Later I played ERS and BS (card games) with him and my Columbian friends and then a few others who jumped in. We played until 11PM when we were all super tired and called it a night.

So that's week 7. While it may not have been the most eventful week, I spent a lot of time with great friends and had a blast getting to know new people as well.