Day Two on the Worksites, and we rocked the day! (Which is pretty amazing since everyone was up super late. . . .and I scared them when I was out in the hall putting up decorations for Jen’s birthday. (Honest, I thought they were asleep two and a half hours past lights out. . .what was I thinking?! :) ) We woke everyone up at 6:40 by singing Happy Birthday to Jen. She was so gracious about it. It made me laugh. . .she also bought my fib about why I was in the hall at one in the morning. (That is, until she saw the decorations when she got up.) After breakfast of egg casserole, biscuits, and grits (ewwww), we left for our worksite. We had set up a ‘code word’ of the day, so that every time someone said the word water, we all stopped what we were doing and yelled, “Happy Birthday, Jen!” It didn’t take us very long to get the first yell out. I asked who our ‘hydration officer’ was going to be for the day and Sara asked me what the officer had to do. I answered with, “They had to remind us to get WATER!” and everyone in the van yelled “Happy Birthday Jen!” It was very cute. (Although, by 3pm, I bet she was tired of it. :)) We finished the roof and the shed today. It was literally 10 degrees cooler and the work seemed to go a lot faster. We took a break for lunch, and played the ‘umbrella island’ game. It was fun since not everyone knew how to play. (Have the teens teach you. I don’t want to ruin their fun.) :) I promised the teens that I would never ask them to do something that I wasn’t willing to do myself, so I took a huge leap and climbed up on the roof to praise them for the excellent job they did. I stayed up there long enough to say, Good job, and high-tailed it right back down that ladder. :) It really did look great and I was so proud of each of them for all of their hard work. Matt keeps telling me that they are a ‘great group’ and that it is the first time all summer he hasn’t had to go behind his group to fix their mistakes. (I just laugh because I know how awesome they are! Why doesn’t anyone ever just believe me? Jk) After cleaning up our worksite, we came back to camp to shower and hang out together. We made a “Thank you” card for the 90 year old piano player that plays for us at breakfast after she serves us our meal. (She is sooo cute!) This morning she even played happy birthday for Jen! Caitlin came up with the idea, and after we all signed the card, she hid it in the piano bench so she would find it in the morning. (We really do have a great group of teens!) Pretty soon, some of them decided to go outside and play, so I stayed in and uploaded a few pictures to the blog. It was nice to have a little down time before dinner. Speaking of dinner, when we were waiting in line, Will (Christina's husband and co-director of the site) was talking to me and said, "Lori, back in 2010, after you all left, the staff and I went to a Catholic Mass to see what it was like. We really liked it and still go back occassionally." I thought that was a pretty neat compliment that he thought that highly of our group that he went and checked out a mass. (Of course, this is the same guy that called to tell us what we were going to do for the week and asked me if Erich and John were coming because they were such great workers the last time. . . .what were we? Chopped liver?! jk) I was just excited that he remembered us (in a good way!) After dinner was over, we snuck into the kitchen and Ken: the head chef, helped us get Jen’s birthday cake out of the refrigerator. We put a ‘one’ and a ‘seven’ candle in the cake, lit it, and walked back to our table with the entire group at TeamEffort singing to her. She was cracking up. I’m glad she is such a good sport! After dinner, we had a little bit of time to get our bibles and head to chapel. We started our time with announcements, and Christina (one of the directors) asked where Jen was. They made her get on stage and tell her name, age, and a story about a time when she threw up. (Yuck!) She went along with it, and later told us that when she was asked about a time when she threw up, she wanted to say, “In about 3 seconds from now.” Hehe. After chapel we had our own group meeting, and we spent time with our bibles and devotionals. It was a fun-spirited conversation after that about our day and I was once again amazed at how open and loving they are with each other. Multiple times this trip, I have heard them having theological discussions when no one else was around to tell them too. They are true examples of Christ to others, and our community has many reasons to be proud of them! I’m sure I am missing a ton of things that the teens will want to share with you, so I am going to sign off for now and let them share with you more when you see them. We have another big day (on another roof!) tomorrow. Thanks for praying for us! We have been praying for each of you also! Lots and lots of Blessings!