We are SO ready for the campers!!! Tonight the staff went on a prayer walk around the camp to pray for the summer. There is something so special about this place and these people God has brought together. After an amazing worship service, we headed down to the field for a bonfire where everyone got to hang out and eat s'mores. Here's a taste of all the fun!

10th Annual. . .

Last night was our 10th annual neighborhood picnic and barn dance. We LOVE this night! We had over 100 local neighbors come to camp for a cook out and tours. Every year we get new people and we get the old faithfuls. It is so much fun to host them at camp and hear their stories and to show off our summer home to them!








After the picnic each year, the neighbors leave (most of them) and then we have our barn dance. And last night we danced the night away. . .long past when TAPS should have been!

It was a super night. . .lots of laughing and great fellowship! And tomorrow THE CAMPERS COME

Staff Picture!

Yesterday we headed up to Silverton for the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic (see post below by Luke). It is a tradition that started for this camp family ten years ago! After the race is over, we all head to one of my favorite spots in Southwest Colorado, Andrew's Lake. Here we take our staff picture (and our family picture) and have a picnic before we send our staff out into the community of Durango for a much needed day off. Yesterday was especially fun for me because we celebrated my son's birthday. (It isn't really his birthday. . .more like his unbirthday, but we celebrated anyway! For more details click HERE to head to my family blog.)

Iron Horse Bicycle Classic

Check out a video of our staff day off at the Annual Iron Horse Bicycle Classic---a 50 mile bike race from Durango to Silverton over some crazy mountain passes!

Community Kindness

The Bayfield/Durango community is really pretty great to us. The chuches accept us, the families invite us over, the coffee shops let ALL of us in at once, the stores and restaurants serve us, and the river rafting folks generally share the river with us fairly well...most of the time :) So every year during staff training, we get the chance to give back. I know Nate already posted and I know his pics are 10x better than mine. But I'd still like to share what my group got to do and show you what fun time we had! We went to the Kujath's home. He is the pastor at Pine Valley Foursquare Church in Bayfield. They are the church that housed our staff and campers back in 2002 when we had to evacuate camp due to a wildfire. We sanded their deck, powerwashed their deck and house siding, stained their deck and deck furniture, washed windows inside and out, stained their fence and planted flowers. And that was all before 3:00. With all the big jobs finished, my group decided to stay til five and serve this family a little more... we begged for more work and finished the day vaccuming, cleaning bathrooms and kitchen and washing their cars. The Kujath's have four boys and we had a great time getting to hang out with some of them and playing a few video games :) She fed us great chips and dip and watermelon and brownies and fruity water! It was so much fun to go to the home of someone we didn't even know and to give the time, resources and energy we all possess and use it as a team to get some big things accomplished. We've already heard from a few families who plan on paying it forward and helping someone else who needs it! It was such a great, great day!!!

Yesterday was one of the most incredible days ever during staff week. All the staff signed up in 10 groups and dispersed around Bayfield and Durango to serve the community. The group I was a part of got the opportunity to go to Bayfield and clean the home of an elderly couple, Rex and Pauline Howard. We arrived to their quaint old farm house to find out the couple was about to go to the doctor. Rex has been having some health complications due to an allergic reaction to a medicine he was prescribed. They were a sweet couple who love and care for each other a ton. Rex served with the Navy during WWII and had so many stories. I wish I was able to sit with him and hear his stories for hours. They went to the doctor and we got busy scrubbing every nook and cranny in their home. They are not physically able to get down low or up high and really get things clean. We scrubbed hard for a solid four hours. We cleaned the bathroom, bedrooms, kitchen, living room, changed their sheets for them and even accidentally let a chicken loose (whoops!), but I guess happens on a regular basis. Our group worked so hard, and we had such a great time serving this couple. These are a few photos I made while walking around the farm. Hopefully we get to see Rex and Pauline at the neighborhood picnic this weekend!

Nate

Sugar cookie creations!

I almost forgot to share the highlight of our week in the kitchen! A few of the kids at camp (Dax, Gabby, and Dylan) came to the warming hut for the afternoon. The three of them, Les, their mannies and I all decorated Christmas cookies together for dessert later on that evening. Christmas Cookies?! YES!! Another addition to our themed eating for Aloha Christmas day. They had so much fun with their sprinkles, gobs of frosting, and M&M's. A few of those topppings may or may not have made it to the cookies-We might have managed a bit of taste testing as well ;-)
(Dax's finished product)

Themed eating at Hollywood Night

The past few weeks have been filled with new themed menu items throughout each day. It has been so much fun trying out new Kivu recipes in the kitchen! Each day has a theme such as Mexico, China, Italy, and others. We're excited for campers to get here and take part in enjoying our theme-filled menu!
Along with the themed menu comes parties...A few nights ago, the Kivu staff enjoyed the Red Carpet party with hors d'œuvres and bite-sized desserts. A spread of foods ranging from fresh baked bruschetta with a tomato basil topping, to caramel swirled brownie bites were served to the attendees that night. Here are just a few pictures of the fun-filled event. Enjoy!

Live Performance from The Summer Coming

Last night's dance party was spiced up with a live performance by our very own The Summer Coming. Scott Miller played a few fan favorites for us. A cover of "Don't Stop Believing" and one of his originals, "Always Trust a Pirate".

Needless to say, the Aloha Christmas party is going to be incredible! Mele Kalikimaka!

Mele Kalikimaka from Camp Kivu!

Is it a luau or is it a Christmas celebration? Could it possibly be both? Absolutely! Tonight we have combined two of the coolest things on earth...Christmas and Hawaii. There are hula girls, grass skirts, tacky Hawaiian shirts, leis, tiki torches and flowers. And right beside them are elves, santa hats, Christmas trees, twinkling lights, and fun striped stockings. And....the real crazy people are wearing both at the same time! Here at Kivu we've had Christmas parties and we've had luau type parties, but putting both together has been so fun! When I started this post I heard the bass drum of a Hawaiian dance song, and now I hear a traditional Christmas hymn being sung. It is so fun! For dinner tonight we served pineapple chicken express with coconut milk and curry- delish x 1,000. We also had Hawaiian salad and rolls with sweet honey butter. To top it all of we made sugar cookies and all the staff members decorated them. I made a giant Christmas tree cookie with the leftovers. I think I'll leave the leftover cookies out for Santa in hopes that he'll be stopping by the kitchen tonight with some goodies for my kitchies. Also at the party we had mattress surfing (see pics below for details). It was crazy fun! Don't worry- there were plenty of spotters to catch the surfer if he/she fell! Now we are dancing it up in a special, camp-made tent out in the girls field. I won't go into details about what is going on inside so if any campers out there are reading, you'll still be surprised.

Mele Kalikimaka from Camp Kivu!

Hello everyone! This is my very first blog post. Since today was such a fabulous day it is ideal for my first go-round!! The staff spent a good portion of the day working on camp (painting and building things for parties, planting flowers, killing weeds, etc.). We have so many hard workers around here it is allowing us to fly through our projects! After lunch Andy went through the Kivu guidebook and Tamera did an overview of the staff bible study which will highlight some characters in the Old Testament. I spent a good portion of the afternoon out inviting the neighbors to our 10^th annual “Neighborhood Picnic.” I had the chance to talk to some hilarious people up at Vallecito Lake and, let me tell you, we are going to have some fun together on Sunday! :)

Tonight we practiced a mock “Red Carpet” party that we will be having throughout the summer. Here are some pictures from the night.

I have to stop and shout out to the staff for a second. They are SO MUCH FUN. No dancing was planned, but boy did we have a dance party!! I have already been so blessed by the staff as a whole. I cannot wait to see how the Lord uses each one of them this summer!! I think I speak for us all when I say we are ready to TAKE ONE!

This is my absolute favorite time of year. I arrived May 12th, along with 10 other men, to work hard and get things ready to rock for about 9 days before the staff get here. The staff finally got here on Friday and we have had a ton of fun already. I love seeing camp without any campers, or anyone for that matter, around. I know that sounds a tad bizarre, but you can walk around and literally hear the laughter, conversations, music and really imagine what the Lord is going to do inside these gates between June 1 and August 12. It gets me excited and brings me to my knees every year. I cannot wait for June 1st to get here!

IT' SNOWING

Sharley & I were getting ready this morning and happened to look outside...there's snow falling!!! We were wishing today was our Aloha Christmas party. How fun would it be to have snow to help celebrate! I can't wait for the staff to wake up and see it!

It has been busy around here. Everyone has been having a blast getting things ready for the summer and getting to know the new staff. Campers are coming and we are so excited!!!

Ice Cream Social

So, tonight, the staff members here at Kivu will probably have trouble getting to sleep. No, it's not because the boys will be thinking about all the cute girls they met tonight. And it's not because all the girls will be wondering if he really does think she's cute. It's because in 30 minutes, 100 people just consumed about 15 gallons of ice cream. And here at the Annual Camp Kivu Ice Cream Social, we are not about to be plain vanilla. Jamie Jo hooked us up with the best of the best in ice cream toppings. Here's the lowdown on topping options (most of which I didn't know existed)...but now that we possess them here at Kivu, we are all changed for the better. We had crumbled Andes mints, big chocolate chips, small chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, sprinkles, dark Hershey's syrup, regular Hershey's syrup, malt ball Hershey's syrup, caramel, hot fudge, maraschino cherries, Dr. pepper syrup, root beer syrup, and the crazy coolest...cake batter syrup. So do the math and you'll probably come to the conclusion that each person in camp now has a body full of about 3 cups of sugar. It is such a fun night! Everyone is like a kid in a candy...errr...ice cream shop. I think it's safe to say that we cannot wait til the opening day of camp, when the ice cream will miraculously show back up and fill us with excitement and energy to welcome in our favorite people; the campers!

Here are some pics from our awesome evening!