fourth of july and soccer camp.

hey, hey, hello from the great state of alaska. last weekend we went into juneau for the fourth of july. i spent entirely too much money but i haven't gone shopping in a long time, so its fine. we went and saw the glacier. it was dirty, which i thought was weird. there was a hike to this waterfall near the glacier and it was supposed to take 45 minutes, we only had 20 minutes so a guy named joe and i power walked/dodged tourists. we made it almost all the way there and back in 25 minutes. it was beautiful. after that we went downtown to shop. there were 4 cruise ships in town so it was ridiculously crowded. it was super weird being around that many people since we hadn't experienced that in awhile. besides the crowds, downtown juneau is pretty cool. after that we went to a place called Jesus' beach house. i think a church owns it and guys live there. it was sweet. it had huge windows overlooking the harbor or bay or something and it has a million crazy stairs down to the beach. they shot the fireworks over the water and it was cool. it was sort of rainy and cloudy and it wasn't all the way dark, so it wasn't the fourth of july that i'm used to, but it was still cool. i'm hoping that i can shoot off some fireworks when i go to the lake in august. (please uncle harry!? :)) we stayed at a church sunday night and then walked in the parade monday morning. we spent more time downtown on monday afternoon and then went back to camp early evening. 
since soccer camp started tuesday and i've never played soccer in my life, a couple girls took me down to the field and taught me a few things so i didn't look like an idiot. soccer camp was really fun. we played soccer a lot. like a ridiculous amount. at the beginning of the week i could sort of keep up with the kids, but by friday they had learned a bunch of fancy little moves and they left me in their dust most of the time. but i learned a lot of actual rules and the campers were more than willing to instruct me and tell me everything i was doing wrong. 
i rode into town with the campers again on friday and they let me go to joanne fabrics to buy more yarn to crochet with. i bought a ton of yarn for 10 bucks. so great. friday night we went back to town for this event called the MAZE. it's this christian illusionist whose goal is to challenge what our reality and absolute truth is. it was cool. he did a bunch of illusions that blew my mind. at the end he presents the gospel and ties everything in. we came back to camp that night and laura and i slept in hammocks under the gazebo or "kazebo" as laura would say, on the beach. i slept absolutely horribly and laura slept like a rock. there were mosquitos flying up my nose all night long and it was only dark for like two hours. around 4 am a raven woke me up while it was loudly pecking at a bag a cereal that we left on the table. 
saturday was another enjoyable day. me, laura and two of the wilderness counselors went out to sourdough, the wilderness camp, to clean up from father/son camp. i felt weird the whole time but i'm not sure why. when we got back, me and laura went back to the hammocks and attempted to have quiet time which was the stupidest idea in the world because we are incapable of being normal or quiet. after dinner laura and i ran to sourdough and beat the tractor trailer full of people there. we thought it was two miles.. apparently it was only 1.3. whoops. a lot of the guys fished and some people played a dysfunctional version of wiffle ball. one thing that i have in common with laura is that we both like to combine things together to eat. so we made several different versions of smores and it was delicious. the salmon are running like crazy in the river, so the boys were catching a fish on practically every cast. it was ridiculous. the threw a lot back but they kept a pretty good amount too. i wasn't a big fan of them smashing the fishes head with rocks to kill it, but i guess it has to die some how. i was going to buy a one day license and go fishing today, but i don't really feel like it, so i'm going to do it next weekend. i want to catch a salmon so bad. 
the guys stayed overnight at sourdough, everyone else took the trailer back and laura and i floated down the river on a piece of styrofoam. it was 10 pm and still light out. it was fun, i'm pretty sure the tide was going out, so the river carried us pretty well. the bugs were terrible. BUTTTTTT, we saw a bear! we were rounding a corner close to the saw mill and i looked over and saw this grizzly bear staring straight at us 50 yards away. it took me a minute to register that it was a bear, but once i did, i quickly alerted laura and we started yelling to scare it away. it stood up on its back legs and i feel like it was sort of large. i got nervous, but then it turned around and ran off. we started singing and paddling really fast. i'm so glad we got to see it, but it was scary. we slept in the hammocks again last night. i brought a sleeping mask and wrapped the hammock all the way around me like a cocoon to avoid the bugs and the sun. it was much better. 
bronco camp is this week and i'm counseling again. they are 10 and 11. i really liked bronco camp last time, so i'm excited. plus, its holiday themed now and not pirates, so i'm excited for the change.
this was really long. lucky you.

peace and blessings.
ko.

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