You bet I used a Demi Lovato song to title this post. Because HERE WE GO AGAIN!
Today's the day! Finally after almost a year, I get to hop on a plane with one of my very favorite friends, Olivia, and head to my very favorite place to see some of our very favorite people all the way across the globe. If you know me or have read my other posts, you would know that I have been going to Latvia since 2010, and this will be my 6th summer going over there. People ask my "why Latvia" and "what do you do there?" I'm not going to get too into it because I have a whole post about my passion for it, but simply put - This country and its people are the definition of beauty and the kids that we work with are absolutely amazing. The next 18 days we will be camp counselors at Camp Hope. This is the 11th year of the camp, but the first year that Olivia and I get to be a part of what goes on in this organization. The first week is teen camp, where I have been assigned eight 16 year olds, and the second week is kids camp, where I will have a group of 7 year olds. We're going to be meeting up with a group of around 40/50 more American/Latvian leaders at the camp on Saturday, so hopefully we can control all these kids! This year is kinda nerve-racking for us, the rest of the group that we're meeting up with from America is traveling from Virginia, and they've been doing Camp Hope since the beginning. It's going to be weird for me and Olivia being the only ones from our Texas group going, but we're way ready for what's to come. There's a lot that's going to be the same about our trip, but there's so much more that is totally changing, even already before we've left! Im saying goodbye to people the same way, taking our normal route through Frankfurt and Helsinki, getting picked up by my crazy Latvian family in Riga, and heading to Vilandes the same way as always. But this year we will only have a day to get ready for camp, and then it's on. We've got a lot of mental and physical preparation to do. 2012 and 2013 camps were just day camps which were still extremely exhausting, taking care of and playing with kids sunup to sundown. Last year we took the kids to a campsite for 4 days, making the days even longer through the night. But this year we have 10 straight days of camp. It's going to be an experience at the least. Pray for my mental sanity and physical abilities considering Latvian children love piggyback rides and they're way too cute to say no...
My family always complain about not hearing from me or knowing what I'm doing these few weeks I'm in Latvia, so Olivia and I thought it could be fun to try to keep everyone updated with a little blog. Not really sure how much we'll have to say, how often we will have internet access to post, or really anything. That's how these trips go though, we get there without much of a plan.. well... the American team doesn't know much of the plan, and our Latvian friends kinda just surprise us with who knows what and we do it. I love it - it's spontaneous and so different than our everyday lives. I mean heck, I get to go back to summer camp... but in a different country! Anyways, I'm going to try to keep updates coming, they'll probably be a bunch of pictures and maybe some stories from the day. Mom and Dad, we hope you appreciate this.
So here we go again! Off to the land of potatoes, dill, rain, more potatoes, and lots of gigantic biting flying bugs. And pelmini of course.
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