Base Camp 2 Update

February 6, 2006

Well, the new challenge course that we are building on the Greystone property in now officially called Base Camp 2 (the original Base Camp is at the John Brown campus). For those of you that are still wondering what I do for a living, here are a few more pictures to help you understand. It is going to be close but I think we will have this course completed by the beginning of March. Actually we really don't have much of a choice because we have a group coming out to use it on March 3rd. Talk about pressure!

The view of the lake from the third platform in the circuit. I would say that I am about 20' in the air.


Here are some shots of Jason cutting cable and braiding rope. I know that these pictures make it hard to believe that I do anything at work. Just remember that I had to teach Jason and now I am working on improving my delegating skills ;)












Gary working hard on a platform up high. (pictured right)

I have such a horrible expression on my face in this picture (below) because Jason just tried to cut off the top half of my index finger with the swedger! Just kidding about the finger. You can only blame that expression on bad timing by the photographer.

This (to the right) is what is known as a Burma Bridge. You just walk across on the cable holding onto the ropes on either side.








This (above) is the 2 line Bridge. The first element that we completed at Base Camp 2.

Gary's Angels

January 30, 2006
It is amazing where this job is taking me. Well the latest adventure took me back to Denver. Much of my time there was occupied with the Association of Challenge Course (ACCT) conference. That was the job aspect of my five days in Denver. Don't get me wrong, it was a great learning experience but for me the best part was having the Gary's Angels clan back together again. For those of you who don't know the story, Gary (my current boss) was also my former employer at Indiana Wesleyan University. I worked for him two summers and my last summer I also worked with Rudy and Dawn (who I lived with in this past summer for a bit). Well by the end of the summer we became known as Gary's Angles. Lynette (my roommate in college) later too became apart of the Angel clan. The ACCT Conference brought Gary, Lynette, and me to Denver because of our occupation. Denver just so happened to be the place of residence for Dawn and Rudy. So on Friday night, all of us and Laura (my old housemate) and Chris (Dawn's man) went out for dinner and had hours of laughs! (Let me tell you, with that clan laughter is unavoidable!) Pictured Left to Right: Gary, Lynette, Me, Rudy, Dawn, and Chris.

The Latest Shocking News Update

January 16, 2006
The New Year has brought about two new changes in my life. The first has been an answer to prayer. I was in the market for a new place to live at the end of last year. It was a long trail of people saying “we just filled the spot but you can call this person…” but it finally came to a temporary end. I didn’t find a new place to live but I did find someone that was willing to share my humble abode with me. Thus helping with the cost of rent and making life a bit more interesting. Her name is Sarah and is an undergrad student. This is her last semester so that is the reason this is just a temporary fix. So far all is going well. It took me a while to adjust to someone sleeping in the bed above me.

The Second change is more of a shock. This past Saturday my head lost a little weight as I got 10 inches of my hair chopped off. Here are the before and after pictures to prove it. This isn’t the first time I have done this so I think I handled it rather well. (It is a good way to keep vanity in check.) I donated my hair to a great organization call Locks of Love (http://www.locksoflove.org/). It is a non-profit organization that provides hairpieces to financially disadvantaged children 18 years and younger suffering from long-term medical hair loss.

What a Job

January 15, 2006

Well, I thought I would take this opportunity to give you a little inside look at my job. Currently we are building another ropes course (both high and low) out at our Greystone Facility. Base Camp 2 is its official name. We are still at the beginning stages of construction of the high ropes course. The first stage is clearing. This is quite a long process when you start with the area that we did. (see picture below)

The clearing is pretty much done and we drilled all the holes in the trees to install blots that serve as the connecting points of cable and rope. All of our bolts haven’t come in yet, so to continue moving forward with the project we started construction of the platforms that participants stand on at the beginning and the end of an element.

As the course progresses, I will post more pictures to give you a better understanding of what I do. Hopefully by the end of the week the course will really start to take shape.

Happy New Year

January 3, 2006

Well, after one flight being canceled and another delayed I finally made it back to Arkansas. Two thousand six is already underway and I thought I would take this opportunity to introduce you to the team at the Soderquist Center. To highlight a few people, Don Soderquist (who founded the Center along with his wife) is the older gentlemen sitting in the center of the photo next to his wife Jo. My boss Gary Swyers is in the front row in the white shirt. Andy Wilson (the CEO) is next to me in the front left and Jason Pollack (the grad student that is part of the Experiental Learning team) is 3rd from the left in the back row (with the beard). So now you have some faces to go with the names of the people that I work with. Happy New Year!

Home For Christmas

December 26, 2005
Well this year I got to go home for Christmas. It has been good to be home. One thing about living in Arkansas is that I have been missing the winter weather. So I was happy to hear that Michigan was getting a lot of snow the week before Christmas. Well, unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to enjoy it. The weather warmed up and the snow is melting away. I was hoping to post some pictures of my home town under a beautiful blanket of freshly fallen snow. Well, not this year. That’s okay, there is always next year.
Despite the weather it is always wonderful to spend time with my friends and family at home. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas too!
Merry Christmas!

Snapshots from England

The Classic telephone booth picture. A must have!











Hilary and Lynette on the train to Derbyshire County.


Mark being Mark :)

Lynette and I tried on some helmets in the castle armory. I think they were just a hair to big.

It’s Go to Work with Your Brother-in-Law Day!

November 26, 2005

You might be wondering why I would go on a vacation to England just so that I could go to work with my brother-in-law. Well, if your brother-in-law worked at one of the finest castles in England, I think you would go to work with him too!

Warwick Castle is its name and Lynette and I spent a whole day exploring every nook and cranny that we could. And man did our muscles feel it at the end other day. There was one passage way that took us up and down three towers totaling 530 steps.

The view from the top of the towers was wonderful. The town of Warwick is a cute town that seems to be the perfect size. Lynette and I also got to walk around town a bit and go into some of the shops. For lunch we found, we could not go any where else besides a bakery called Greggs. This place was an ongoing theme throughout our stay in England. They have these things called pasties that cost about 80 pence and range from veggie to ham and cheese. Man they are so good! So filling too and for a little less than a buck sixty you can’t beat it.

An Evening at the Races

Novemeber 25, 2005
On Friday night, it was decided that we would go spend an evening at the races, the greyhound races that is. Neither Lynette nor I had ever been so why not give it a whirl.
I am not much of betting person. Mark likes to have a little fun with it, so every now and then he will place a pound bet on a dog. Well, race 3 came along and the fellows decided to head downstairs to get some food. Mark wanted to place a bet so he gave a pound to Hilary and told her to go and place a bet on Badger Bait (I don’t remember the actual name of the dog so Badger Bait will have to do for now) Hilary had never placed a bet on a dog before so she somehow conned me into going up there with her.

We reached the booth and Hilary said to the man, “I would like to place a bet on Badger Bait.”
“What number is Badger Bait?” the man asked.
“I am not sure,” Hilary replied.
Just glancing at the roster before we walked up, I said, “I believe it is # 3.”
The bet was placed and we walked back to the table. Looking at the program we were struck with horror realizing that I said the wrong number. Badger Bait was # 4. Not knowing what to do, the music started indicating that all bets were closed. The only thing that we could do now is either hope that # 3 wins and pray that # 4 loses.
They were off and # 4 was leading out of the gates. # 6 however was catching up fast and eventually passed dog # 4. By this time we realized that # 3 had no chance so all we could do now is hope that # 4 didn’t win. The race continued with the leader switching back and forth between # 4 and # 6. The suspense was agonizing. The dogs crossed the line, and both Hilary and I were sure #6 had won. Well, the dogs were so tight that they had to do a photo finish to find out the true winner. And the final result, number four won by a stinkin’ nose!
“I can’t believe that just happen!” was all we could think to say. And as those words passed our lips, all we could here was Mark’s approaching voice shouting, “I won! I won! Yes!”
Well the moment of truth came and we confessed the mix up. Knowing that it was my fault, I gave him a pound to replace the one that I lost for him. He was still rather upset by the series of events that I just told you. In the end he might not have won anything but he didn’t loose anything either. So the moral of the story is ….To avoid this from happening to you, refrain from gambling!

A Day of Thanksgiving

November 24, 2005
Thanksgiving is supposed to be a time to reflect on how we have been blessed, a time to spend time with family and friends and fellowship with one another. Thanksgiving originally was celebrated by the Pilgrims that came to the Americas from England seeking religious freedom. The first winter came and many Pilgrims didn’t make it to Spring. Fortunately, the Native Americans came to the aid of the Pilgrims. Because of their help, the Pilgrims had a bountiful harvest that year. A celebration was help where the Pilgrims and their Native American friends.

Well, this Thanksgiving we did our best to represent that first Thanksgiving. We had a little pumpkin soup, turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, green beans, corn, rolls, corn bread, pumpkin pie, apple pie, and lemon cheesecake. Oh wait, according to history books they most likely ate fish, berries, watercress, lobster, dried fruit, clams, venison, and plums. Well, we enjoyed each others company for a good three hours. Shoot. The original Thanksgiving lasted 3 days. Man, maybe we should have done a little more research before the event.

Hold Up! There is one aspect of thanksgiving that we definitely got right. Around the dinner table sat Paul, Jane, Dave, Jeni, Mark, Hilary, Lynette, and me. So if we break this down we have 5 people from England practicing their religious freedom and 3 people from America helping the English folk prepare the food! Oh yeah. And to top it all off, each of us wore an authentic garb representation that was hand crafted by Hilary and me out of top quality construction paper.














I would have to say that this Thanksgiving definitely beat all!

Mr. Darcy, Are You Home?

November 23, 2005
Well, Arkansas has been good and all but it definitely was time for a change of scene. So with the Thanksgiving holiday approaching, I though this would be the perfect opportunity to take a little break from work and take a trip over to jolly ol’ England. I hadn’t seen my sister and brother-in-law in almost a year, so it was high time I made a little hop over the ocean. Well, this time Lynette (my roomie and friend from college) got to be a part of the adventure. (Her first stamp in her passport!)

So we arrived and spent the first couple of days helping Hilary and Mark move in to their new home. If you have ever been to their old kitchen, the one in their new house is like 7 times bigger. I mean you could have a little square dance in there.

Anyway, Hilary, Lynette, and I are all huge fans of Jane Austen so we decided to treat ourselves with a little trip up to Derbyshire County. In the book Pride and Prejudice, this is the county the great estate Pemberley is in which is the home of Mr. Darcy. Derbyshire County is full of many great estates, so in honor of Jane Austen we went and visited one called Chatsworth. To our great luck, this very house was the one used in the latest movie version of Pride and Prejudice. It was used to represent none other than the great estate of Pemberley. Chatsworth is a splendid representation of Pemberley. I could not agree more with the book when Mrs. Gardner say that the house is a “fine house richly furnished. The grounds are delightful. It has some of the best woods in the county.”
Keira Knightley's Dress (who played Elizabeth Bennett) from the movie Pride and Prejudice.

A Whole New World

November 5, 2005

Well it is truly amazing how time flies when you have a job. Yup that is right; I am still a working woman. I have been for over three weeks now. When I first got here, I definitely hit the ground running. Quite honestly, I haven’t stopped running. There have been many groups, programs, course inspections, and training that have been keeping me busy.

So let me bring you into the world of Northwest Arkansas, Siloam Springs, and the Soderquist Center….my new world. My new position as the Experiential Learning Coordinator (fancy title I know) has brought along many firsts. The 1st first is that I have my very own name plate and the 2nd first is that I now have a business card. (pictured to the right)And the 3rd first (and a bit smaller than the other two) is that I have a really nice, shinny gold magnetic name tag. I know these don’t seem like very significant things, but let me tell you when I approached my desk on my first day of work and saw my name plate I was totally thrown off balance.

I don’t have my own office which is just fine by me. I am not that high on the charts and don’t see myself being up there for a long while. I am quite content with my desk space. It is joined with some of the graduate students that work in the Center. There are 10 graduate students (aka Soder Fellows) currently; all of which I have enjoyed working with and hanging out with outside of work. They have been such a blessing by being so welcoming. Working with Mr. Gary Swyers (my old boss from college) again has also made my transition period significantly easier (and full of laughs).

It is funny to think that I have only been here for three weeks. It seems so much longer than that in so many ways. That to me only can signify that this is where I am supposed to be. I definitely feel that I am a part of the Soderquist family. I still have a huge learning curve ahead of me, but that will get smaller with time.

So I thank all of you for your prayers. A few highlights outside the office… I went to Tulsa, Ok of the Oktoberfest with most of the Soder Fellows. It was a lot of fun and think I managed to do the chicken dance about 6 times. Last night, I went to the JBU’s guy basket ball game to witness an interesting tradition. When JBU scores their first basket (that is not a free throw) everyone throws toilet paper on to the court. It definitely is quite the tradition and quite the sight.

The Final Results Are In...

September 29, 2005
Well, I arrived back safely from my interview in Arkansas. The past two days were very busy, but it was all worth it because I am officially no longer unemployed! So in a few weeks I will be like that person in the picture with the helmet and harness on belaying a bunch of people I met earlier that day. Now that is what I call a job! Oh and the best part is that I am going to be sharing this amazing house (check out that great view below) with some of the other staff that work at the Soderquist Center. Can you believe it? No…well I don’t blame you. I am not going to be living there but that is the other facility that the Soderquist Center owns so I get to visit it once and a while. And let me tell you, this place is nothing short of being amazing. I mean the place has two laundry shoots and a bomb shelter! Something that every house needs. Right? Right!

So now I am in the process of finding some housing. Once I get some kind of temporary or more permanent living I will be moving down to Siloam Springs, AR the home of John Brown University. Beautifully located in the northwest region of Arkansas’ Ozarks: just a hop, skip, and a jump from Oklahoma (translation: about 5 miles). Hey if you are ever passing through, just let me know. At first I might find it kind of odd that you are passing through that part of the country but I will welcome you just the same.

Did Someone Hit the Pause Button?

September 20, 2005

So can you guess where I am now? Well, I haven’t made it to Arkansas, yet. Sense August 24th, I have been back in Marion staying with Lynette and having too much fun! “What in the world happened with Arkansas?” you might be asking. Well, it is not out of the picture. Next week I am flying down for an interview (could use some prayer if you think about it). The whole process has been taking longer than I expected but as always, God’s timing is perfect.

Another question that might be running through your brain is “Why didn’t you just stay at home?” Well, let me try to explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum it up. Lynette was short on workers for New Student Orientation training, so I packed everything up and came down to help with the mind set that I would be moving on to Arkansas plus I was going crazy just waiting at home and was in great need of some kind of distraction. A college campus is loaded with distractions and fun times to be had.

Like I said before God’s timing is perfect because if I hadn’t had to do all this waiting I would have missed the mini Kem Three East (where I lived Junior Year) reunion at Ivanhoes (this amazing ice cream place in Upland, IN) where we all got some kind of balloon creation. Plus I have been able to hang with some of my friends from school that haven’t graduated yet (and those that have and are still in the area) and experience an amazing Summit week in chapel and hang out at the coffee shop and pretend like I am a college student without worrying about homework. It is so great. As for Arkansas, I will keep you posted.

Pictured: Back row- L to R: Alicia (yup the same one that I saw in NYC), Heather Smith, Valerie, Amy. Front row - L to R: Lara, Lynette, Ambry, Heather W.

The Natural State

August 15, 2005

Well I am back in Michigan. Besides helping Lynette get settled in to her new place there have been some other things developing. So let’s rewind a bit.

August 2nd, I received an email from an old boss of mine from college, Gary Swyers. He decided to take a position in Arkansas at John Brown University as the Director of Experiential Learning for the Soderquist Center for Leadership and Ethics (hence opening up his old position at IWU so that Lynette could take it). Anyway, in this email he informs me that he is in a position “to hire a full time person to work as a lead facilitator, keeper of the details and overseer of the ropes course. Any interest?”

So that little email started a wild chain of events. I was planning on going back home in the middle of the week but instead I decided to stay at Lynette’s until the weekend. On the 13th, I headed down to Arkansas (had to go through St. Louis so that is why there is a picture of the skyline) to check out JBU and the ropes course. Fortunately for me, Rudy (yup she turned up again) was going to be in Arkansas to get the rest of her stuff and move it to Denver. (Rudy did her graduate work at John Brown. I know, can things be any more twisted?) So I stayed with her and some of her friends while she gave me a tour of the campus and the Soderquist Center. The next day I headed back to Indiana. And today I made it home to see my Aunt Crystal who is visiting from Florida.

The facilities at John Brown are incredible. If you would like to see some pictures or have no idea what a ropes course/challenge course is check out www.soderquist.org/facilities/basecamp/index.asp

Get Moving

August 7, 2005

Well, as I mentioned in my last entry, my roommate Lynette got a job working at IWU. Well because I am still without a job and have some time on my hands, I offered to help her move all of her stuff from to Wisconsin to Marion, IN. All I can say right now is that I am totally exhausted! Let me give you the play-by-play of the last couple of days….

Thursday, August 4th – I drove from home in Michigan down to Marion, IN which is about a 5 hour drive. Once I arrived, I met up with Lynette and we decided our course of action. She had already found a house to rent the day before so without delay, we hopped into her car and drove 5 hours up to Mukwonago, WI. Of course we had to stop at IKEA in Chicago (left) to pick up some stuff for her new place. Luckily Chicago traffic wasn’t too bad so we arrived at her camp house around 9pm.

Friday, August 5th – Woke up nice and early, had a quick breakfast, and got right to work packing. While I was packing, Lynette went and picked up the U-haul truck. Amazingly enough, we had everything packed and in the truck by 3 o’clock. Unable to leave because of hitting Chicago at rush hour, Olen (Lynette’s boss) took us out on the camp boat and Lynette got one last water skiing run in. 6 o’clock we pulled out and headed back to Marion. Well a U-haul truck pulling a car on the back can’t move quite as fast as we would have liked but considering that we made pretty good time. We pulled into the driveway of the Muchmore house (below) at 1:45am thinking of nothing but going to bed.

Saturday, August 6th – Woke up feeling rested but a little sore. No worries because some of the people from Student Development were going to come and help unload the truck at 9am. Well, at 9 no one arrived so we started taking a few things out of the truck while we waited. 9:45 and still no one came, so we decided it was just going to be the two of us. By the end of the day, not only was the truck completely empty but almost all the boxes were unpacked and the house partially decorated.

So now you see why I am totally exhausted today; and, as it turns out, it is Sunday – that wonderful day of rest.

Straight to Hart

July 28, 2005

Well, last night at about 12:30 (so technically you could say today) I got back from a little trip to the west side of the state. Rudy (yup the one that lives in Denver) is vacationing over in Hart, MI with her mom’s side of the family. And what a wild bunch of people they are! I was only with them for two and a half days but they made me feel like a part of the family in no time. I got to spend a day at the beach, eat wonderful food (including some of the best sweet corn I have ever had!), sit around a camp fire and make smores (Rudy thanks for teaching my how to make the perfect smore!), go for a boat ride, go to a soft ball game, eat ice cream and play with some of the cutest kids that ever walked the face of the earth (Logan, Tori, and Austin pictured above). Oh and to top it all off, Rudy’s family loves to play cards. Could I ask for more? Cindy (Rudy’s mom) and I kicked some serious butt playing euchre and I learned a new card game called Polish Poker. Man, life is good.

Side note: While I was there I got a phone call from Lynette (my roommate from college) and she is officially filling Gary Swyers’ old job working at Indiana Wesleyan University (where we went to school) as the Director of the Center for Experiential Learning. You go Girl!