So, some adventures of late:
Easter was spent with a trip to Edmonton, to pick up a spring/summer staff membe, David, arriving from Switzerland, collection of furniture donated to camp by a couple moving to Prince Edward Island, possibly the worlds fastest trip though Ikea (including lunch, a 'browse' through the displays and purchases made in under an hour) and a visit to MEC. Jonny, David and I joined Ronny (Frontier's site manager) and his extended family (including 15 kids ranging from nearly 2 up to 15) for easter dinner.
We also stopped at the sight of our accident in January in an effort to find my reading glasses which had disappeared into the snow. We found lots of things- LOTS of broken glass and various car parts, a few tools, 1 mitten belonging to a pair that I was given for christmas, my sunglasses AND my reading glasses- 1 lens had popped out but was right next to the frame and a small screw in the frame missing. I went to the optometrist in Rocky Mountain House where they put in a new screw for free, no questions asked! An amazing end to that crazy story!
April and March saw a few key program staff move on to other things, leaving Darcy, Kristen and myself as the only program staff until new staff arrived in spring. We spent 4 days in Canmore at an advanced wilderness first aid course which was really awesome and made me very glad that nothing serious had ever happened while I was programming before. Not that I hope it does now, but i feel much more prepared and like I actually know what to do in an emergency situation. I also now have a class 4 drivers licence, which allows me to drive a bus up to 24 passengers with paying passengers, i.e campers.
I also took on the role of backpacking and caving coordinator. This involves coordinating food for overnight trips in the summer, looking after gear and few other things.
The last week of April was spring staff training and the anniversary of my being in 1 year in Canada.
The lake was still frozen (until mid may!) and a foot of snow remained on the ground at camp. 1 day we slogged through waist deep snow for most of the day in an attempt to go caving.
May and June were crazily busy with school groups and for most of may I was leading almost every programming day I was working, hiking, climbing, rappelling and tyrolean traverse, which is exhausting to say the least.
I celebrated my birthday, once again with one of the biggest groups of the year, and went canoeing on the North Saskatchewan river.
The second weekend in June, Jonny and I went with friends Jared and Rhonda, to Lake Louise to go climbing and out to dinner in Banff to celebrate my birthday.
I was inspired after seeing Claire's photos of their year round garden to try and grow some herbs and veggies in the limited growing season that exists from sometime in may till sometime in september. Hopefully I get a bit of a crop of celery, cucumbers, zucchinis, radishes and some herbs.
This week is summer staff training and the return of some friends from last summer. Summer camps begin on sunday, so preparing for a continuation of busyness, fun and awesome ministry.
Climbing at Lake Louise- note the ice still on the lake in early June!
breaking trail in spring staff training just before the hardest part where crawling on top of the snow was almost easier.
Climbing the via feretta, kind of like a big ladder up the rock face.
Wow! makes me feel a bit like I haven't been doing anything at all! What wonderful adventures you are continuing to have. Awesome photos. Thanks for continuing to post - I know how surprisingly hard it is to keep at it!
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