Getting Paid to Swim, Swing, and Sweat

So, I have my dear, beautiful, awesome friend Sierra to thank for getting me to write this post. Not to say that I haven't loved my job this summer, but it has been a little different than I thought. I would have preferred being able to have some opportunities to plan activities or lead some things that we did as a whole group (to let me practice for being a teacher) but the director did almost all of the instruction and all of the planning. It was still a lot of fun and I got to have a lot of interactions with kids, which I do love.

Some overall basics about the camp: There were 20 to 30 kids every week, ranging in age from 4 to 11. This proved to be very difficult because normally we would only have one 4 year old and one 11, so the one would be lost in an activity or the other would be bored. The camp was held at Dunes West in Mt. Pleasant, which is a very ritzy golf club. So these were all very wealthy families, which was a big difference to my experiences working with the kids in state custody. Honestly those kids were a lot easier to work with and make connections with, probably because they wanted to have a relationship with somebody. Don't get me wrong; these kids were great! Just working with some of their lack of appreciation make entertaining them difficult. This is where we had camp every day!

On to the positives! I can't think of a more chill and laid back summer job, especially here in Charleston.  Every morning we went to the playground and played there. I taught the kids the game Lava (seriously, kids these days) and had lots of fun playing with them. We did arts and crafts most days too and created all kinds of crazy things like puff paint, window clings and bracelets. I am even sporting some nice things that kids made for me during the summer. High quality stuff. Also, we went to the pool every day (and it was a beautiful pool WITH a water slide) and unlike some of my" more matured" coworkers, I went on that slide so many times. :)

Every Wednesday was "Wacky Wednesday" and had some crazy theme to it, ranging from world travel to the Olympics. One week we made countries and had to come up with a flag and a song... ours was a rap, about Pacman throwing up a rainbow. And a leprachaun falling off a cliff. Haha kids are hilarious. Every night when I would pick Rusty up he would ask for the quote of the day. And I always had one, ranging from "My dad is older than the days of the week" to a four year old telling me that his swimsuit has "dynamics that make it so the water runs off and it dries faster. Yeah, I know that word- dynamics." Hahaha.

My commute was long but beautiful. I got to pass over the Cooper River on a huge bridge and then later over the Wando River by a cute little drawbridge. Mt. Pleasant is beautiful, so spending my time there was definitely okay with me. These kids drove me nuts but I loved them too. They were so sweet sometimes and so funny all of the time that I couldn't help it.