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I was informed that unless you were a member you weren't able to comment on my blog or something like that. I think I changed it, so if you want to comment feel free. I just got on to write this real quick, I will do my best to update everyone later.

Half....Way....Done!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Belated Father's Day

I didn't get a chance to blog last weekend. My 24 hour break just gets away from me somehow!

Anyway, I just wanted to say Happy Father's Day to all those dads, especially my wonderful dad!

-Thank you for always putting up with me when I was younger, and my attitude.

-Thanks for not always just wearing my bottom out, but sitting down and lecturing me like Willie Purtee used to do yall kids.

-Thanks for saying things like "just go with the flow" and "watch your tone Rachel Elizabeth" probably 30,000 times over the course of my life so far.

-Thank you for teaching me to ride a bike in 1st grade down the road to the Kelso's and back.

-Thank you for letting me try every sport I could ever have wanted to including dance, gymnastics, softball, soccer, volleyball, cheerleading...and for paying for them!

-Thank you for taking me to numerous J.O. tournaments pretty much every weekend from Jan-May for 9 years!

-Thank you for actually watching those countless volleyball matches even when I had a bad attitude, or for coming to my school games straight from work in your suit and tie.

-Thank you for always telling me to "police my room" each morning before school, and teaching me to be clean. (I actually tell my kids that every morning here at camp, ha)

-Thank you for teaching me hard work, not only by your words, but by your example.

-Thank you for teaching me and making me mow the yard, rake the leaves, and clean the pool.

-Thank you for building us a playhouse, letting us have dogs, providing us with food, shelter, and a comfy bed to sleep in, toys, games, tv's, everything we ever wanted with little to no thanks in return sometimes.

-Thank you for always bandaging me, and taking care of me through my whiney, accident prone years.

-Thanks for teaming up with mom and making me do stuff like play the violin for 8 years...and for listening to me practice even though I'm sure it wasn't that good!

-Thanks for teaching me about commitment, and that once I start something I'm to finish it and do it to the best of my ability.

-Thanks for teaching me about integrity, and how to do things the honorable and right way...not "playing the politics" or using your name to accomplish things.

-Thanks for letting us play Pretty Pretty Princess with Laura and me, and putting on plastic jewelry.

-Thanks for always saying "I love you, you know that?" every morning and night when I woke up/went to bed.

-Thanks for always saying "you know, there's some kid out there who would give their right arm for _____" because I wasn't always that appreciative of what I had.

-Thanks for saying the "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep..." prayer with me when I was younger and listening to me go through the entire family (cousins and their dogs included) when I'm sure you were dog tired from a day at work.

-Thanks for answering my many questions when I was younger like "what are the yellow striped lines on the road for?" and explaining them to me.

-Thanks for always verbally praising me for when I did good. I think my "words of encouragement" love language is because of you.

-Thanks for being such a great, Godly example to Laur-o and me when mom was sick and after her passing.

-Thanks for loving me during my time of rebellion when I was a teenager.

-Thanks for STILL giving us lectures about being clean, and money management.

-Thanks for your "no news is good news" policy, and letting Laura and me have adventures in life and trusting us.

-Thanks for buying me a white convertible sebring with a black top when I was 15 because that was my dream car I wanted.

-Thanks for always helping me put on my pantyhose before church each Sunday when I was a little kid, I know now that I have to put them on myself how difficult that was.

-Thanks for sitting me on your knee every morning in the bathroom and telling me to say "eee" and "aah" while you helped me brush my teeth....no cavities still :)

-Thanks for always letting me peel your sunburns after we came back from the beach each year.

-Thanks for waking me up gently every morning for the first 17 years of my life even though I was grouchy EVERY single morning...waking up on my own is definitely not as much fun!

-Thank you for rubbing my back and singing Winnie the Pooh to me to help me go to sleep when I was younger...and for waking back up and continuing to rub my back/sing when you fell asleep first.

-Thank you for being protective of us concerning boys when we were in jr. high and high school. Yes, fear of potentially telling you I had a boyfriend kept me from having one sometimes, but I am thankful nonetheless.

-Thank you for driving on all the family vacations we took, and taking the seats out in the van to put the portable tv in there so we could watch movies and lay down.

-Thank you for taking care of Harley half the time, and ALWAYS taking care of Buddy and Rolly even though they were "mine and Laura's" dogs.

-Thank you for somewhat building our house with Papa Willie. I was only 3, so I don't really remember it, but I know you worked hard like you always do.

-Thank you for always being a great example of Christ's love for me and Laura.

-Thank you for always loving my mom and being faithful to her.

-Thank you for showing me the value of family, and that I should always be thankful for them.

-Thank you for being my dad and for all that you've done for me. I am so blessed!

These are some of my favorite pictures over the years with my dad.

This is us eating Laura's 22nd birthday cake. Dad had done something funny for the camera and this was us laughing after.

Our family this past thanksgiving taking Christmas pictures.

The Purtee family eating in Memphis for Laura's 21st birthday.

Dad helped me vote for the first time. Yes, I'm a nerd, and I wanted to document it.

Me, Dad, and his mom (Granny) at my senior sports banquet.

Some of our family at my senior sunday. They came to support me even though I went to a different church than all them.

Laura, Lana, Dad, and me at my senior homecoming game.

Me, Lana, and Dad at homecoming senior year.

My senior homecoming pep rally.

My senior cheer camp. Dad with the video camera, always supporting us and catching every minute of it.

I received an award my junior year in Little Rock. Dad took off work, and went with me for the presentation.

Our family in Memphis eating for mom's birthday my freshman year.

My mom's family at Thanksgiving my freshman year.

This picture is poor quality, but I love it! Dad used to mow the yard with me on his shoulders, and I would fall asleep. Laura popped up in the shot. After carrying kids around on my shoulders here at camp, I now know how annoying and difficult it is to have this dead weight that fidgets and doesn't help hold themselves up.

I wish I had a picture of me on the big wheel tricycle, but this Barbie jeep will do. I used to ride down the drive way on it, and rather than me walking myself up Dad would always push me back up.

I just had to include this picture because I just love it so much. It's mom and dad on a church choir trip I think.

The Purtee children at Christmas 05. Mom and Dad were able to come home from M.D. Anderson in Houston.

Dad and Mom always supported me at my boring, long J.O. tournaments.

Camp Keepers

At camp, we do these things called Camp Keepers. It's when a kid says something either funny, meaningful, outrageous. Basically, they're moments of camp we'd like to keep...hence the name.

Camp Keeper from Week 2:

During the gospel presentation this week, we were talking about Jesus' crucifixion and all that took place. One of my fourth graders said, "Yea and they like hammered nails into his head and stuff too." I think she was confusing the nails in his hands with the crown of thorns on his head. Kids say the darndest things!!!

Another thing from this week that I found amusing:

On Tuesday, I had my FOB (means "feet on bunk", it's basically naptime for the campers) off. When you have FOB off you can go out front, use your phone, get on the computer, etc. I was blogging for a bit, and one of my fellow girl coaches who I don't extremely well asked about my blog and what the web address was. I told her, she then got on it and was looking it over. When she saw the big, main picture of me and Mick she asked, "Oh is that you and your brother?" I laughed, told her it was my boyfriend, and then she felt bad/slightly embarrassed. I told her not to feel bad because we do look alike, and then we laughed about it. Good times!

Week 2=DONE!

"The days go by slow, but the weeks go by fast"-Me. I made up this little proverb/phrase of wisdom. It's been so true here lately. My days are long and slow, but I blink on Opening Day and it's Closing Day!

I can't believe session 2 is over! I had a great week. I had girls who just finished 4th grade, there were 10 of them, and they were awesome! Two of the girls I had last year in my other cabin, and one of them I had her older sister last year also. They were all super sweet! I had a really awesome experience with one of them, Emma. She got sick about Tuesday with a fever, headaches, and ear aches. I'm pretty sure it was sinuses, allergies, and a little virus. I got to spend a lot of time with her in the Med Mound this week (the nurse's station), and it was a really awesome way to get to know her better. She confided a lot of stuff in me, and I was able to comfort her when she was upset. It was just a great example of the type of community God's designed us to live in. I could be her support system for the week (what 10 year old girl in this world doesn't need a support system!), and she got to hear stories about my growing up, how I went through the same things she was, and how I learned from them.

Volleyball was great this week! We had 38 girls so we brought in a girl who normally does soccer for the week. She's doing volleyball 2nd half of the summer so she knows what she's talking about. In our volleyball small groups, 3 of my 6 girls were in my cabin last year. One was also in volleyball last year, and the other 2 were newbies. They were all going into 7th grade except one, she was going into 6th. They were so fun to be around, and hang out with. I love being with the older girls, you get to have semi-adult conversation with them. We thought of some ways to make volleyball more interesting and fun this week learning-wise. It's hard to teach them, I know that's the most boring part! It always was for me. We brought in "coach ramirez" who was one of our coaches dressed up and had this awful Spanish accent. She pretended she knew what she was doing, but was really saying everything opposite and wrong. Then we were able to teach them by showing her the proper way to do things. I thought it went really well.

It poured Tuesday night! I have never heard thunder and lighting like I did that night, it sounded like a war was going on outside. It rained from about 9:30pm to 6am Wednesday morning. I loved it because it helped me go to sleep. I didn't wake up until about 5am that morning, but there were lots of people who barely slept. I guess that's the beauty of being a heavy sleeper :) Because of the storm, Wednesday was a crazy day. Wednesday's schedule is normally different just because we do the gospel presentation that night, so that alters our whole day. We got to sleep in an extra hour because the storm caused electricity problems. It was a great day...stressful, but great!

Today, Saturday, a big group of us came to one girl's ranch in Shiner. Shiner is about an hour 1/2 away from camp so my friend, Kim, and I drove together. The girl we're all staying with, Courtney, is in my covenant group. She's AMAZING! I love being around her and getting to know her. Anyway, she lives on a ranch. I pretty much consider a ranch in Texas to be comparable to a farm in Arkansas. It's a big area of land, they have horses, chickens, and other animals. They raise deer though which is really cool. Their house is HUGE, she has 3 brothers and sisters, and they were all home-schooled growing up. They're a very sweet family. The brother, who is only 1 year younger than me, said "yes ma'am" to me haha. Courtney' mom and dad cooked brisket, scalloped potatoes, bread, yummy salad, and ice cream for us!!!! They won't let us chip in for food costs. They're also letting us use their TWO washers and driers to do our laundry. They're definitely one of those families that uses their resources to love on and bless others. They're wonderful! Anyway, we're starting a giant game of sardines (there's about 20 of us here and they have enough beds for all of us if that tells you anything), so I'm going to go play.

Love everyone dearly :) thanks to those who have been writing and such. I will do my best to continue updating as often as possible! I hope week 3 goes as awesome as this week did. I can't believe it's "hump week" for first halfers. They only coach 5 weeks so week 3 is the midpoint. I can't believe I've been here for 4 weeks, and that I only have 9 weeks left! I'm like 1/4 of the way done. Like I said, "the days go by slow, but the weeks go by fast".

Goodnight to all!

P.S. Pictures to come whenever I get time that I feel like doing it.

Week 2 is in progress!

Hey family and friends,

It is Tuesday of week 2. This week we have girls who just finished the 4th grade. They're AMAZING! Not that my girls last week weren't, but I just have a heart for the younger ones. There are 10 of them, I will take pictures to show. I only have a couple more minutes, I have a break during the girls' nap time. I've been getting some lovely letters in the mail, and writing people back. Thanks SO MUCH to everyone that's been mailing me, it really encourages me. This week I feel rejuvinated more so than last week, which is odd. I kind of had the fire lit up in me again for some reason. Last week was just really weird, I was getting into the swing of things. Now I've pretty much developed this routine (I don't like change, if you didn't already know) so it's been good to get going. Well....I must go now. I will write whenever I get the chance to again. It may be Saturday. Love everybody, miss everybody! Feel free to facebook me, let me know what's going on with everyone, I'm SO out of the loop.

Picture Time!!

These pictures are all out of order, they mostly go from last to first. So start at the bottom and scroll up.

This is my co, Hannah, and I with Kat. She was a camper this first session. She has cerebral palsy, and was able to come to camp for the very first time this week through this organization that a guy, Andrew who also has CP and came to camp, started. It was such a blessing to see her be able to do stuff like the ropes course for the whole time. All the kids were so nice and accepting towards her. They cheered for her when she came up on the closing day video.

This is my volleyball small group girls. There were 31 girls this week, and 6 coaches so we each had about 5 girls. From left to right their names are: Hattie, Blake, Madeleine Ruth, Shannon, and Kali.

This is my batter's box girls before our Dancing Thru the Decades theme night.

This is our whole cabin before the Dancing Thru the Decades theme night.

This is all the coaches from the quad. Kelly, Annie, Kim, Blaire, Courtney, me, Anna, and Hannah.

All us coaches again.

My co and I on County Fair theme night. I found my outfit at Goodwill for $5. Hannah was the county fair queen.

My batter's box girls and I on County Fair theme night. They are from left to right: Emily, Jessi, Bridgette, Riley, and Anna. They're all 11, going into 6th grade, and a lot of fun!

Hannah and I on our first day of camp, so excited to get campers!

Blake and I at the Camp Travis bootscoot.

My friend Josh who goes to Lyon. His girlfriend, Mallory, is my roommate and one of my best friends.

This is my co Hannah Walker!

This is the women's director, Trish. She's from Arkansas and played volleyball at UCA.

This is Erin. She's on leadership. She played volleyball at DBU (Dallas Baptist University) and just graduated. We really bonded the first day she got here. She's an amazing person!

This is Hannah Wright. She's going to be a sophomore at ASU and she's doing first half this summer! I'm so excited for her to work at camp, she's going to be great :)

A group of us at Rio Rio when we went to the San Antonio Riverwalk during Training Week.

This is Kim and Amanda, two of my good volleyball friends. This is our silly picture we took at the San Antonio River Walk.

This is Phillip and Aaron. We went to high school together. Our youth minister, Craig, told us all about T Bar M. I'm so excited we're all getting to work together this summer.

This is my covenant leader, Laura. She's one of my very best friends from last year.

This is my best camp friend, Kim Rohlfs. We were in the same covenant last year, and did volleyball together last year. We're in volleyball together again this year, and I'm so excited for us to build on our relationship.

What a week!!

So sorry it's been so long, we've been in full swing with Training Week and it's been insanity!! We have our first thing at 7:30am, then after our nightly worship and socializing, we get into our cabins around 11 or 11:30. I never thought I would enjoy a 16-hour day so much. This week has been incredibly amazing. I've grown a lot and the campers aren't even here yet.

I'll start sort of from the beginning. It's about to be information overload people! Training Week started last Thursday afternoon. We have what we call covenant groups. It's a person on leadership (someone who typically just graduated/about to graduate college) who is in charge of me, a coach. They put us into groups and we each have a leadership person that is our covenant leader. Mine is Laura Goode. She was a coach last year. She's originally from Florida, but went to OBU so we had that common ground last year of going to school in Arkansas. Then last October, we had a girl’s retreat in Mabank, TX so I drove down and picked her up on the way so we spent the whole weekend together. We bonded real well last summer and have kept in touch over the school year. I was SO excited that she was my covenant leader!!!! There are 9 girls in my covenant. I will have to post pictures as soon as I download them onto my computer. They're all wonderful, sweet girls that I'm SO excited to get to know better. Anyway, throughout the course of the week we all share testimonies with our cov to really get to know one another and form these deep bonds. It's so amazing to see how God can take a person on such a journey over the course of just 5 years or so. We all have very different stories, but it's wild how we struggle with the same types of things. One girl lost her dad a year ago May 20th I believe to a random illness that was totally out of the blue. I told my testimony before she did and talked about mom, and how that played a part (and still does) in shaping me. She came up to me after and told me that she really enjoyed it, that it encouraged her, and was uplifting. I wanted to turn around and see if she was looking at someone else behind me. Me? My story encouraged you? Wow! God is good and can use anyone that's for sure.

Throughout training week, we've been going over our "play book" basically our coach's training book. We've been having cov time every morning, going over our Batter's Box for the kids. Batter's Box is our daily bible studies we do with our kids every morning. We go through them as a covenant to make sure that we don't have any questions and to think of good ways to explain things better, etc. We do hi-ho's (work projects...hi-ho hi-ho it's off to work we go) like painting, spreading mulch, cleaning cabins, etc. Camp is looking SO much better than when we first arrived.

We had a guy who is an EMT, fireman, and police officer come give us a crash course in CPR. His name is Craig (not my old youth minister for those of you who were wondering), and he was HILARIOUS! We had to go over a sexual misconduct course because apparently there was a case that just appeared about a year ago about a camp counselor who had sexually molested multiple children 10 years ago! It was just now surfacing though, what a sad incident for those kids (who are now my age-ish).

We went over a few of our theme nights. Every night at camp we have "theme nights" such as Mission Impossible, Hospital Hoop-la, Pyramid Pandemonium, Dancing through the Decades, Texas County Fair, and there's a couple more that I can't think of. We do lots of fun stuff every night with the kids for whichever theme night it is. We did Mission Impossible which is a big mission that you have to run all across camp and do these missions, get a clue to the next mission, and so on. It's a whole lot of fun! One of the girls in my cov missed a step (it's at night) and sprained her ankle. I had to carry her on my back for the rest of the time. It was a sight (she's about my size, I was wearing camo pants, camo headband, and a black tank top, you get the picture!)

Of course, we've been having a lot of fun as well! From about 9-11 every night (depending on the day) we've been having free time. We play in the gym, have s'mores or slushes or coke floats, and just fellowship with one another. It's a great experience to live in such community with people that are my age, like to have fun, and passionate about having a relationship with Christ (otherwise they wouldn't put themselves through this "torture").

My all time favorite part about training week is finding out our "co's". In a cabin you live with 1 or 2 co-coaches, we call them co's. If you're in a certain cabin you have 2 co's, if you're in another type of cabin you just have 1. We found out last night! They had duct taped one end of a string to a tree and written your name on it. Then it was weaved around, loop-d-looped, over and under ALL the other coach's strings. Then the other end of it was taped to a tree with your co's name on it. It reminded me of Parent Trap when they sort of trash the other cabin and it's an insane amount of string everywhere. My co's name is Hannah Walker. She was a coach last year too. Funny story. Last summer, I was real intimidated by Hannah. I wasn't exactly "miss congeniality" at camp because I was afraid of becoming friends with other boys because I hadn't really made any new guy friends since I'd met Mick the previous August. I was nervous that if I made friends with camp guys, Mick and I would grow apart and I definitely did not want that so I was sure to keep my distance. Anyway, Hannah was one of those girls who I didn't really get to know, but sadly I judged. We worked first half together last year but I don't ever remember having a real conversation with her. It's amazing how this week during Training Week all us returners have in a sense joined together. We've been able to break down some walls (like me and Hannah) and get rid of these preconceived thoughts of who we thought another person was when we really had no clue. So to make a long story longer, Hannah and I got to know one another this week better and turns out we're co's! I'm SO excited to see what God has in store for us. We're both full summer. I'm a volleyball coach first half, and she's a sampler coach first half (sampler is for the youngest kids at camp, they go around to all the different sports because it's hard to teach them just one thing for the whole week yada yada). Then we're both GCD (gym, cheer, dance) coaches for the 2nd half. We're staying in the girls quad which is 5 separate cabins all under one roof. I have no idea why it's called the quad when there's actually 5 cabins. Who knows! Our cabin is called Hickory Creek so we're the "Hick Chicks", catchy I know!

Last night (Friday) we went out to Camp Travis for a boot scoot. Camp Travis is like the older version of Sports Camp which is what I'm at. SC (sports camp) is for kids who just finished 1st-6th grade. CT (camp travis) is for kids who just finished 7th-11th grade. Travis is on a lake so they're more of the typical camp you think of with water sports and what not. Anyway, we went there for a cookout, then a worship time, and a boot scoot. People in Texas go dancin'...like for fun. If you don't know how to two step you're out of the loop. I told them that if a guy came up to Arkansas and asked other guys if they wanted to go "dancing" they would think he was weird most likely. They also wear legitimate cowboy boots here too. I brought some of Laura's fashionable boots down here thinking they would suffice. I asked one of my friends if I should wear them or if they would laugh me outta the place. She said not to wear them haha.

Today has been a good day. I slept in until 9:30! I never thought the day would come that I, Rachel Purtee, would be tickled pink to sleep in until 9:30am. I moved in to my cabin with my co, got all my stuff organized. I went to the laundromat (<-- spelling?) and did laundry. I had an awesome conversation with a lady there. She was hispanic and had an accent so she was hard to understand at times. There was a big group of T Bar M people there, and she saw our tshirts with T Bar M all over them. She asked what T Bar M, etc. We had a cool conversation, and she ended up getting the camp web address and phone number because she wanted to sign up her kids for camp. It was a real neat experience getting to ask her about her kids, and explain what our "mission" was at camp with teaching kids about God as well as sports. It's funny, she lives right down the road from T Bar M and had never heard of it. It's cool how God gives us opportunities.

Tomorrow, campers come!!! I'm VERY excited for our first group to get here. We can have up to 13 campers in our cabin I believe. I'm ready to get into the routine of things and get this first week underway. It's always the best because it's totally new and you begin establishing the flow of the summer. Apparently every few years Texas (or New Braunfels at least) has a real rainy summer. This summer could potentially be one of those or it could be dry as a bone like last summer. In my 5 weeks last year we only had 1 day that it rained, and it only did so for about 10 minutes. I hope this year it doesn't rain tremendously. Then we have to move things inside, you have to find different ways to entertain energetic kids, and it throws everything off. Oh well, if it is we can just make the best of it! I'm also excited to coach volleyball. I love teaching my girls and helping them learn. You always hear those who can't do, teach. I feel that describes me pretty well. I wasn't the most athletic or talented player, but I could absorb the knowledge and I love passing that on. Anyway, I will do my best to update as often as possible. It may be that my only time to write is on Saturdays. Letters are still welcome and greatly appreciated. I'll even write you back if you like.

Whoo Pig Sooie/Howl Yes/Pipers Pipe!

Training Week is coming, Training Week is coming!!

We start Training Week tomorrow around 2:30ish. This means all the coaches will be here and we'll start full swing with hard core prepping for our first campers...which arrive in approximately 11 days!!!! I'm very ready to get into the swing of things and find out who my co-coaches are (the 1 or 2 other coaches I live in a cabin with).

My Arkansas Friends Are Here! Today, Phillip and Aaron arrived (two of my very good friends from high school that go to ASU), Josh arrived (my roommate, Mallory's, boyfriend who goes to Lyon), and others will be arriving later. I must go now because it's about lights out. I was planning on having more time to write tonight, but that's ok. I will be writing more this week.

My Address...for real

I started to put my address on here and accidently hit the Enter key which apparently posts your entry, who knew.

Anyway, my address is:

Rachel Purtee
2549 Hwy 46W
New Braunfels, TX 78132

Here at camp, we're not supposed to have food that's not served in the Chuckwagon (our "mess hall"/cafeteria). This said food is called "Ruckus". I will gladly accept packages that contain Ruckus, and will not tattle on the sender haha. I won't get in trouble, I'll only eat it on the weekends when we're allowed to have it, I'll be a good girl, blah blah blah. Just wanted to add this contact info early on. I also love getting simple letters, cards, etc. Mail time is my favorite time of the day.

My Address.