Lake Yale camp video

wake up kids!!! take me out to the ball game video

About the Camp

We never really talked about the camp - just about where it was. Well in case you forgot - we went to a camp called lake yale, and its AWEOSME. There were sweet hotel style rooms, a really nice chapel with a sound and lighting system allready set up, and a HUGE lake. We went with taffs old chuch - south biscane, taff was an intern there for a while - he pretty much just cleaned toilets and hungo out.




Here is a picture of the students at the camp. There where like 100-200 kids there, i think. They were all super cool kids, we all felt so at home. The basic program for the day was...

wake up
breakfast
morning session (high school)
morning session (childrens)
group time
lunch
rec game
free time
dinner
night sesh high school
night sesh childrens
sleep.

It was pretty much like that all the days except wednesday

So ya, pretty fun, SUPER crazy, and awesomly Jesus.

7sweaty fashions8

Sexy Fashions!

Ok... so on friday, we stopped at wall mart after practice because we knew we were gonna be playin kill ball at camp - and saw the most unbelievably sweet uniforms a team could ever wear. Shimmering neon orange shorts with a see through tank top with an awesome green strike down the side - unreal

Check us out,

Were super hot ninja machines.

HOLY COW, ITS FRIDAY.

We left camp today - and had the most intresting ride home. It was like 90 out when we woke up, then we got in the bus and it started a light rain, then 10 minutes later it was like 95 and sunny, then a few more miles down the road, there was TONS of rain, then a bit further, the thunder and lighting came, then a bit further, and it started to massively hail, like CHUNKS on the windsheild, it was insane! Then like a mile further, then clouds were gone and i think we passed 100 outside.

Ate at McDonalds for lunch today - i dont care what anybody says, McDonalds is delicious, especially after a long week of camp food... but thats nothing compared to what was waiting for us at the taff house....


MORE CHICKED ADOBOE!

it was like a feast! oh my goodness, it was sooooo good. Today is taffs dads birthday - so we finished it off with a delicious ice cream cake and now were callin it an early night.


Cant believe were leaving.

We have got a long road ahead of us - we had 4 hours of driving today, like 3 or 4 to the airport tomorrow, then fly to atlanta for like and hour or so, then bounce back over to LAX in like 4 or 5... plus dont forget the massive waiting and stuff at the airport. We are hopin to get home by 2 AM sunday, (our fligh isnt even till 5 tomorrow... pm) so that means we all get like 3 hours... then we have to be at church again for hume.



its gonna be a LONG day.



Sweaty (stinkin wiped out) fashions.

Day... thursday.

We didnt really do a ton today... or maybe were all just so wiped out that we dont even remember. Woke up at the normal time, played in the morning - opened up with Boston.

We unveiled our great uniforms later today (pictures to come... stay tuned for more details) They were playing this narley game where everyone stands on a slippin slide and basically fights to the death, it was awesome... up until people started getting hurt and crying and stuf... pretty painful game - i tell you what.

We played our very last night session today, and it was SOOOO cool. Ryan started us off by circling everyone up in the room with the cross at the very center - and he talked all about the plans for their ministy and where the youth wants to take their group (youth group... huh. it all makes sense now) We kept singin songs and played 2 extra songs then got an encore, it was INSANE! Their love for Christ EXPLODED last night, they all got out of their chairs and came up the the front and were all jumpin around and screamin and dancing and stuff. In the bridge of one song - the words are just "stir it up in our hearts Lord, a passion for Your name" And taff stopped singing and they kept going and going and going until we finally had to just force it into the next song, they were just SOO on fire (which worked out good, because the next song was undegnified, then dancing genereation, my glorious, and blesses be after that).

It was an amazing night, were all super bummed though, we had to pack up our gear and its almost time to say goodbye!



el fashiones de sweatimingo.

Day 7 - Wednesday

I dont know about the rest of everyone else in the band, but i think today was by far my favorite, moslty because we FINALLY got some sleep. Taff told us not to wake up, that he would do the morning session all by himself, so we all slept in till like 11 (oh, and when i say all, i mean everybody... except bo, duh.) We all (minus Bo, again) went out to do some laundry then ate lunch at awesome Sonny's, and met this cool waitress naimed NASA, heather for short.

We decided that Bo deserved a name that cool - so the old Bo is no more, and now...


NASA - The Space Cadet.

Then we went to wall mart and bought a candle and a costume for ryan... ill talk about both of those later.

We got back to church, hung out for a bit - then started mad practice for the worship night we were planning. We took all the chairs from the room and cleaned the whole stage off, and covered every light on our instruments with tape (the only tape we had was white...... so we colored it with a sharpee and then put it on... im sure there was some better way to do that - but what ever.) Logan found this sweet cross and some bricks and we set up a whole comunion area in front of the cross.

By the time the students got there, all the lights were already off and we were playin a song on stage. It was a really mellow atmosphere - made complete with dills sweet lighting. Taff gave us five songs to play, and we only ended up playing two out of the five and then just played a bunch of other random songs - it was totally spirit led, God was moving huge in the room. After our set, ryan said some stuff and showed a clip from passion of the Christ, then gave the kids a chance to accept Christ, and like a whole handful of kids did - it was absolutely amazing!!

Then Taff sat in the back with his guitar and sang some more songs, and we took the Lords supper, it was sweet. All the students went off to have group time, but we all stayed behing and kept singing songs for like, i dunno it felt like hours. I think it was the greatest worship expreriance in my entire life, we just kept singing, and shouting, and praying and singing. Gosh - it was unbeliveable, it seems like one of those outer body experiances - i can still picture myself sitting in front of the room holding the cracker and cup in hands, just staring at the cross.

Wow.

After we finished... (this is a random turn of events.. i know, but....) we went back to taffs room and played marco polo.


Now i know what your thinking, Marco polo, in a room? Thats absurd!!


Yes.


Yes it is. Thats why its so much fun. We managed to knock a TV and shelf over, and suffocate Bo... i mean NASA with a matress, it was AWESOME.


Ok... thats it for the weds. Next Day!

s*w*e*a*t*yf.a.s.h.i.o.n.s.

Day 6, Tuesday

I know what your thinking, "your crazy sweaty fash, today is friday!"

Ya well... we've been really busy all week... so shut it.

Just playing... but seriously, its been absolutely nuts. Lets recall back to tuesday, shall we?

We woke up today at the usual 7 o'clock, and headed straight to practice - missed yet another meal. We played How To Save a Life as an opener today, it was really funny, we pulled the whole thing together in about five minutes. Taff was like, hey, you guys can do an opener today if you want, and david suggested it, which is good cause the whole song is piano mostly. We ran through it half a time then kids started coming inside, so we had to stop... and we totally pulled it off during service - awesome.

This rad dude gary today gave us probaly the greatest gift you could ever give somebody...

car keys.

We FINALLY had a way to get around other then a stinkin charter bus. We drove into town today and had lunch at sunny's (delish, by the way). Then we went to this place called save-a-lot... or save-tons, or something like that. It was all these obscure brand names that never sell of groceries and stuff, i didnt see a single name i recognized, which was great cause we got a whole shopping cart of food for like 10 bucks.

Once again --- delish.

Well, we came back again later and played one of our kids sets. Oh my goodness those are insane - each of us has like 30 girlfriends now, thats just what happens when your in a band and have facial hair.

Later we played for high school, it was cool, but you could definantly tell how tired we all were.


Thats Tuesday, lets talk about the next day


.:Sweaty-Fashions:.

Day 4

Lets see... day four, what is that - sunday? Well, lets see if we can remember back that far.

So we woke up SUPER early today, like 5:45, 6ish so that we could all take showers, pack, and get to church by 7. It was a mad rush all morning , made possible only by our delish spam and rice breakfast.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Did you know that there are 767mg of sodium and 3% of your daily value of iron in one can of spam?

Well... now you know.

Anyways, we got to church and played 2 sets, one at 9, one at 11. The 9 o'clock was kinda rough, cause thats when all the old (and i mean like grey hair and hearing aids old) people come, so we had to tone down everything a ton... but then 11:15 is when all the students come, so it was super loud and crazy and awesome.

We then spent the next forty five minutes or so getting everything into a little tiny trailer - including a whole drumset, keyboard, bass amps, and most importantly, and awesomely huge sub. Then we got on the bus and started driving.... slash - sleeping. Bo slept the whole way here, and the rest of us where kinda on and off in incriments.

Well, we finally got to camp, and it was AWESOME!



[This is the kinda housing we stayed at, like i said - it was quite fancy. The other ones are just some random shots around camp, its a super sweet place]

So we played a night set for the highschoolers, it was really sweet.

Ok.. sunday is finally over.

Looong day.

SWEATYfashions

Day 5 - Monday.

Today was a great day. The housing here is super fancy, its like a hotel in the middle of the woods - so we slept pretty good. Taff got his own room (his is like a suite - way across the camp with the other adults.) David and Logan have a room together, Dill got his own, an Matty, Carson, and Bo all are sharing.

We didnt end up having time to go to breakfast, we just woke up and started playing. We did our morning set and it was super awesome. It was pretty fun, we got all stoked for rec time (they were playing kenjabe) and we went out to play... but us being the so-cali musicians we are got super hot and all started sweating like 30 seconds into the game, so we just went back to our rooms and took some nice cold showers.

We met back up again at like 5, practiced for the kids set a bit, and then.... the stampede.

You know how sometimes it just starts raining, like out of no where, and then all the sudden its gone?

The kids were kinda like that... excpet for they didnt go away. They were INSANE. Carson invited kids to come clap on stage, and seriously the ENTIRE room of kids ran on stage and filled up the whole thing, and just like clapped to an empy room, it was nuts.

The kids session went over by like 20 minutes, so we didnt have any time to rehearse for the youth set, but it was still pretty good. The theme for the teaching this week is called "vertical," its all about how to stop living a flat life that isnt going anywhere and getting off the ground so we can start climbin up to God, basically.

This crazy guy was speakin, named ryan - but well talk about him later.

After the set, we stayed for a while and practiced and got to sleep by like 1.

Crazy? This is just the first day.

Sweatyfashions.

Sorry for the lack of updates... we have literally been going non-stop for the last 3 days.



I'll try to take advantage of free time tomorrow to write like 10 update blogs.




[[[SwEATy FasHiOnS]]]

Gosh, its already the third day, it feels like we just got here.

Most of the jetlag is gone by now, we woke up today at like 10:30 ish, most of us on our own. We found that the best way to wake up is a morning swim, so we kinda just slup out of bed and jump in the pool, its awesome.

After our delicious rice and eggs breakfast, we got in the van and headed for the church, where we spent the next 5 hours non-stop practicing, until this giant lightning bolt hit some phone line or something and all the power went out in the church, like 30 minutes before service. It was crazy, we had to re-do all of our sound settings and lots of the moniters stopped working.

Madness, but good madness. It was kind of humbeling - that for once we dont have everything handed to us and had to do a lot of work together, as a team or esle the service wouldnt go though.
We played our sweet set (My glorious, Blessed Be the Name, Jesus Paid it All, and Divine). IT was so flippin awesome, the pastor actually introduced us as "sweaty fashions." We got some of the most akward stares of our life when our name came up on the screen. It was sweet.

Then went home where we feasted on probably some of the best steak shish-ka-bobs in our entire lifes. Mamma and Pappa Taff are the greatest chefs ever. They made like 300 servings, and we ate it all.

Now its gettin late, probably time to go to sleep or something.

[SF]

So... taff woke us up today pretty early - cause he wants us to get used to the time change. Whatever. After that we had a sweet time in our first-ever Florida pool. It was cold and provided a nice relaxation time for us. We played games like Submarine and 1/2 marco polo. After the pool, it was time to hit the road for some serious Cracker Barrel food. They serve breakfast all day, have rocking chairs for sale outside, and have their own little store. Those my friends are the ingredients for a great restaurant. We ate our full, went back to Taffy's house to gather up stuff, and then w

e were off to church to practice for 6 hours....practice went very well and we were tired by the end. All of us.

This is us sitting on the sweet rocking chairs at cracker barrel.

So we went to the mall to look around and snack on some food. We got some good pics on Dillon's camera and Machew got confronted by the cop in the mall. He took the video camera in there and basically the guy grabbed him on the shoulders without warning and told him to get his self and his camera out of there and into the car. So we all obeyed and got out there. When we arrived back at the house, we had a unsurpassable prize waiting for us......CHICKEN ADOBO. Made by Mr. Tafalla himself.(Taffy's dad) We watched baseball while we ate and life was good. Carson, David, Logan, and Matty went in the pool after that while Dillon and Beau stayed inside and were on computers. A good night was spent and we all went to bed satisfied.

We hope you all had a great day down there in the OC.

SF. Out.

So its our second day here now... and after all 49ish hours we have been here... this is the first real free time we have had to make the blog and everything. We have had lots of fun (and done tons of work), eaten DELISHicous food (chik fil-a, Chicken Tenders, Cracker Barrel, Sonny's, Chicken Adobo, and probably like ten other varieties of chicken.)

I know what your thinking... "holy crud! Thats tons of chicken... and what the heck is chicken adobo?"

Well lemme tell you about it.

its awesome.


enough said.

Well anyways, back to the trip. We had a lovely 5:32 minute flight yesterday - complete with fiesta colored seating, awesome in flight games, satellite TV, yummy crackers and cheese, flippin 5 dollar movies, and the always cute flight attendents. (Bo scored huuuge, he got to sit in the back next to 2 ladies.)

Well - now that you have something to be jealous of (unless you're one of our moms.. or alanna) you can at least know that you have one thing Bo doesn't.

Or.... Bo has another thing you dont... i guess.

Humidity. And lots of it.

You guys werent lying when you told us how hot it is here, its crazy! It was raining when we got to the airport... but still like ten bozillion degrees outside.

Bo-golly gosh darnit... this sure is getting long! We'll keep you posted daily to let you know how things are going!


SF.