We are right in the middle of staff training…just staying busy getting ready Summer Camp. I have three great summer staff working for me. Our big goal as a team is to help parents and campers have an inside view of Summer Camp with pictures, video, blog posts, etc. Hopefully it will be a good way to keep people connected to the ranch. Beth is getting registrations and the canteen ready for camp. Any way…camps coming!

It feels like summer! Summer Staff started coming in today for ropes training. It makes it feel like Summer Camp. They bring a lot of energy, the dinning hall is a little more crowded and a little louder. In all truth Summer Camp brings some mixed feeling. It’s an exciting time of the year, there is tons going on, we get to see God working in tons of kids lives. But it also means that there is a lot to do in the next 3 weeks getting ready….and then it is non stop for the next 9 weeks or so. Staff training starts next week, and Summer Camp right after that. We covet your prayers as we prepare for the summer, and for the Ranch, counselors, campers and leadership as we minister to kids for the next 4 months!

ridiculous

We recently went to nomads. It was a good weekend, well post more about it sometime, but i wanted to put up these 3 pictures. This was the first time i had taken pictures of fire spinning…so they came out ok…

For those of you that subscribe to our blog by email, do you get three or four emails every time we post? I think there might be something wrong with the plug in, so im just trying to track it down.

thanks!

I have had several conversation recently about getting older. I guess that part of…well, getting older. My brother just made on offer on a house…that’s kind of a grown up thing to be doing, a lot of our friends have 2 or 3 kids, that’s kind of grown up, i graduated from high school 10 years ago, that’s kind of crazy. The problem is i don’t know what i want to be when i grown up.

We have not posted in a while. But there is a good reason. This is the 200th post on this blog. We thought the 200th post deserved something profound. But we could not think of anything profound. So instead we give you 200 things about us, things we like, or things we find interesting (in no particular order):

1. Our Community Group
2. The Grove Church
3. New Life Ranch
4. The Café on Broadway
5. The Balloon Closet
6. Popcorn made on the stove
7. The Simple Way
8. Warm, not-all-the-way-baked chocolate chip cookies
9. The Big Picture
10. Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me (on NPR)
11. Car Talk (on NPR)
12. This American Life (on NPR)
13. Hulu.com
14. The drama of “Hell’s Kitchen”
15. The awkwardness of “The Office”
16. The quick-wit & dialogue in “Gilmore Girls”
17. Cassharrismusic.com
18. Poolhouseblack.com
19. Sharingseedsofhope.com
20. Poolhousered.com
21. NPR
22. Kiva.org
23. Wood stoves in the winter
24. Coffee shops with both good non-coffee drinks and really strong coffee
25. Baking bread
26. Cooks illustrated
27. Zyrtec
28. Blueberries
29. Fresh blackberries from behind our house
30. Ben’s homemade pie crust
31. Ben’s homemade blackberry cobbler….with fresh blackberries from behind our house.
32. El Taqueria el Rancho
33. The Wooden Spoon
34. Little Bread Company
35. Noodles
36. Sam & Ella’s pizzeria
37. Corn Casserole
38. Tortellini
39. Chacos
40. The fox that lives near our house
41. Feeding the raccoon that lives near our house (with food scraps from our kitchen).
42. Gmail
43. WordPress
44. Radio Lab (on NPR)
45. Leadville, CO
46. Finding new music we love
47. Brendan James
48. Pandora.com
49. Ben Harper
50. Fool For Now
51. The Listener
52. Riding bikes
53. Slate.com
54. French press coffee
55. Seth Godin
56. Orange mochas
57. Books
58. The smell of paperback books
59. Thrift store shopping
60. Collecting coffee mugs on vacation
61. Our friends’ kiddos
62. Our friends
63. Our family
64. Acumen fund
65. Local artists
66. Hiking
67. Empty Bowls
68. Ozark Natural Foods
69. John Brown University
70. Truman State University
71. Dr. Pummill
72. Subaru Outbacks
73. Subaru BRATs (Yes, it’s really in all caps…it’s an achronym!)
74. Mountains
75. Switch
76. The Hiding Place (by Corrie Ten Boom)
77. Cliff Bars
78. Night (by Elie Weisel)
79. The Chronicles of Narnia (by C.S. Lewis)
80. Storms
81. Tornados
82. Cold weather
83. Springtime weather
84. Christmas
85. Big family get-togethers
86. Egg McMuffins
87. Sausage McGriddles
88. Toasted Ravioli
89. Phish
90. Live concerts
91. Fondue (eaten every St. Patty’s Day to celebrate our engagement day & every Valentine’s Day @ our annual Valentine’s Fondue Party)
92. Free meals
93. Potlucks
94. Cass’ barbecue chicken
95. Deedra’s cinnamon jumbles
96. Russ & Cass’ jambalaya
97. Beth’s grandma’s German Potato Salad
98. Cakewrecks
99. Ben’s grandma’s chocolate chip cookies
100. Brandi’s chocolate chip cookies
101. Homemade pizza
102. Etsy.com
103. Wired magazine
104. Portfolio magazine
105. Real Simple magazine
106. Relevant magazine (not the Relevant podcast though)
107. Theysaybuild.com
108. Facebook
109. Twitter.com/poolhouseblack
110. Twitter.com/new_life_ranch
111. Copy editing
112. Apples to Apples
113. Taking pictures
114. Camping
115. S’mores (w/ Reese’s peanut butter cups)
116. Jones’ cream soda
117. Good design
118. Grounds For Change (specifically Sumatra Telong)
119. Pei Wei
120. Cast iron skillets
121. Sewing
122. Making cards
123. Fresh flowers on the kitchen table
124. Dead flowers in vases (this is something Beth reluctantly put on the list…Ben made her b/c it’s something about us…not necessarily something we like…)
125. Fresh Basil
126. Garden-fresh tomatoes
127. Common Grounds pizza sticks
128. Monday Night Football @ the Blair’s
129. Campus Christian Fellowship @ Truman State Univeristy
130. Specialized bikes
131. Dumpster diving
132. Crank Brothers
133. Tipping well
134. The smell of coffee
135. Edwards Photography
136. Bill Bryson
137. Fayetteville Public Library
138. Bagels
139. Aspens
140. Screen Doors
141. Screened in porches
142. Working on project together
143. Chicago
144. The Great Escape video
145. Fair Trade
146. It’s a Wonderful Life
147. Elf
148. Steak and Shake
149. Thedieline.com
150. Clever song lyrics
151. Banana milkshakes
152. Fonts
153. Kennedy Coffee Company
154. Team building
155. Ropes courses
156. Traci Lettellier
157. Sara Swenson
158. Brand New
159. decoys like curves
160. Ottok
161. Photo.net
162. Sweet Greens
163. Truth
164. Love
165. Xmen
166. Star Trek
167. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
168. Acoustic Guitar
169. Les Mes
170. Weddings
171. Wedding cake
172. Smoothies
173. The newspaper
174. Chainlove.com
175. The comics and Parade
176. Get Fuzzy
177. Dilbert
178. Charlie Brown
179. Pottery
180. Michel Gondry
181. Blue pens
182. Sharpies
183. Lucky Charms
184. Brown
185. Laptops
186. Beth’s iPod
187. Graduating
188. Cooking
189. The smell of cut grass
190. Snow
191. Jose Gonzalez
192. Folk music
193. Eastpak
194. Toaster Ovens
195. Hobos (hot outstanding baked outstanding)
196. Post-its
197. Barefoot
198. Coupons
199. Waterproof shoes
200. Sweatshirt blankets

Why so many food things? We’ll return to our irregularly scheduled blogging.