Hi everyone! Last week was swim camp. Instead of doing 10 lessons a day we changed it up and provided a camp for children ages 7-14 years of age. 2 of the days we had days at the pool with a lot of games planned for the kids to do. On the other three days we went to the world's second largest aquarium, the beach, and a water park. The aquarium was amazing. There were a lot of really neat things there and the kids really enjoyed it. The beach was alright, but two of the kids got stung by jelly fish while they were swimming. Swim camp was a nice break from swimming lessons, but lessons started back up again today for the 3rd session. This past weekend we all wanted to relax after being so busy with swim lessons so we stayed on Camp Foster for the weekend. On Saturday we woke up early and went to a zip lining course. The zip lining course was really beautiful. It was in the middle of the forest and if you were up high enough you could see the ocean right beside the forest. It was amazing. Friday night our Project Coordinators had planned a "mandatory fun" event for all of the counselors. We all got dressed up in war paint and had a dodge ball tournament along with a bunch of different relays. It was a lot of fun. We only have a month left in Okinawa! Even though I am having a lot of fun, I am ready to get back and meet my nephew and see the rest of my family!

Hi everyone! Sorry it has been so long since my last post. I have been so drained of all my energy with teaching swim lessons. Since the last time I updated I have completed my scuba open water diving certification. It was a long process with 4 ocean dives and many tests, but I did it! It was a really neat experience being so deep in the ocean and being able to breathe. I saw many neat fish and enjoyed every second I was down below.
We are half way through our second session of swim lessons. I really like the new batch of kids we have this session. I was given some older levels besides preschool and parent-child this time around, and I really like the age of kids I work with. They all enjoy swimming and listen to me when I talk. It is a change from preschool. They never listen when I talk and they constantly jump off the table they are to stand on so they can touch. I have had to make many rescues because they think they can touch the bottom, when they cannot. Other than that, I do enjoy teaching lessons and it has given me a good idea of what teaching will be like.
Over the 4th I went camping with some friends in Okuma. The base will rent out 12 person tents for 10 bucks. It is really cheap to do and we had a lot of fun. We saw some fireworks but they only lasted for about 10 seconds, not as fun as I hoped.
This weekend it is one of the boy's birthdays so we are taking a ferry to an island and camping on the beach all weekend. We are going to bring snorkeling stuff and snorkel while we are there as well. It should be fun!
Hope everyone has a great week, I will try to be better about updating!

Calvin Russell Kensinger

Congratulations Brooke and Jesse! My nephew was finally born, healthy and handsome. Name is still being decided on! I am so anxious to get back home and hold the little guy. Lessons went by pretty fast this week. They were so tiring on all of us especially with the sun. For the most part, most of my kids are well behaved. There are a couple of kids who have horrible adhd, though. It is tough teaching those kids because they literally never listen. After lessons on Friday night the lifeguards I work with and I went out for dinner at Coco’s Curry. I realized quickly I do not like curry. Afterward we walked back to base. On our way back some guy was saying some pretty profane things to us, so my roommate walked up to him and he realized he was a foot shorter than her. Instead of stopping, he decided to throw his fist back and tried to start a fight with her. His buddy pulled him back and then a couple of other guys that were watching started yelling at him for being disrespectful to women. Not too much longer a brawl broke out between 10-12 guys. It was pretty scary, we ran away from it so we did not get involved.
This morning we had to wake up and volunteer at a race on Camp Schwab. We were supposed to lifeguard during the race, but they had too many volunteers, so we watched instead. My boss, Ashley, decided to race in it since we didn’t have to volunteer. She ended up getting first place in the 750m swim. It was pretty neat.
During the day we started our scuba certification and IT WAS AWESOME. It was so cool to sit on the bottom of the pool for 20-30 minutes. Our instructor is amazing, we go over to her house to take quizzes and tests. Our first ocean dive is tomorrow. I am so anxious to start diving in the ocean. I am a little nervous about having a panic attack while I am 35-40 feet under water, so hope for the best!
There is a HUGE softball tournament going on Camp Foster this week and weekend so Camp Adventure decided they were going to make us ALL move out of the barracks. We have to pack up everything, including food, water, clothes…EVERYTHING. It is going to be such a pain in the butt since we all just got settled in. Then after a week they are moving us back on Foster. We will be staying at Camp Kinser while the softball teams are here, so every day we have to commute 40 minutes to work at back…not excited about that. Hope everyone had a good weekend!

First day of lessons

Yesterday was our first day of swimming lessons. I taught 10 lessons today ranging from parent-child swim a and b, pre-school level 1 and 2, and learn to swim level 1. I was so tired at the end of the day. The sun really drains you over here. I was really nervous to teach the parent-child class because I wasn't sure how adults would take instruction from a 21 year-old, but it went very well. All of the parents were very kind and there is some really cute infants and babies in the class. I think I sang "The Wheels on the Bus," 45 times yesterday. A few of the kids were very timid about getting in the water. I had about 4 criers through out the day. The pool is at least 3 feet deep in all areas so it is hard with the pre-school aged classes because they have to go on top of thing called "top docks," which are like a table in the pool. 4 of the kids jumped off of them while I was teaching yesterday and started sinking to the bottom. A little scary.
I have always been known to get a little color through out the summer, but this time I have turned into a different race almost and it has only been day 1 of being out in the sun. The last two days have been black flag days but since the kids are in water, the lessons still continue.

Okuma, Japan

I had an amazing day yesterday. We left Camp Foster at 7:15 and headed to Okuma (another base on Okinawa). Okuma was one of the most beautiful places I have ever been in my life. For the first few hours we had to do team building activities with all 60 of us camp counselors. It was a lot of fun and we did it along side the beautiful ocean. Afterward we went and signed up for some activities to do throughout the day. My roommate Kristine and I signed up for kayaking and banana boating. We first went kayaking. I had never done this before but it was so much fun. We tried going through a really small cave while we were doing it and Kristine's oar fell off of the kayak and she jumped in to get it and the coral reef below us cut up her legs. Then I looked above and around me and there were crabs the size of my head crawling all around me. I HATE crabs so I freaked out. It was not funny at the time, but now whenever I think about it I crack up. The ocean at Okuma was the clearest ocean I have ever seen. After Kayaking we went banana boating. Banana boating is a really long inflatable that gets pulled behind a boat. It can hold anywhere from 8-10 people. We got 10 girls to go with us and we had a blast. It is hard to hold onto the inflatable and you get pulled in all directions. I was towards the front of the banana and my swimsuit bottoms fell down multiple times. I was glad it was all girls in my group! There was so many fun things to do in Okuma, but we did not have time to do all of them yesterday so we are going back to celebrate my friend Austin's birthday in the middle of July. On the drive back there were so many pretty things to see. When we got home we all went off base to get dinner. We went to a restaurant called Dragon. We sat at the tables where you have to sit on the ground to eat. The food was the best Okinawan food I have had so far while being here.

We start out swim lessons tomorrow! Wish me luck!

Yesterday we had a conditioning day for lifeguarding. First they made us swim 500 meters and then we had to do a bunch of drills. Afterward we went over mock lessons and learned different songs we will be singing. After swimming we finished up our lesson plans and relaxed the rest of the night. Today we had an in service day for the pool. It was run by the pool managers and staff. We went through all of the rescues. We then had training over sexual harassment and we had a class over the Japanese culture. We learned how to bow to different people and also learned a little bit of Japanese. My roommate and I then walked to the commissary. We decided to walk home and on our way home a lady stopped and insisted that she drive us back to the barracks. This lady was a marine and so was her husband. She was 6 months pregnant with two children and her husband was currently stationed in Afghanistan. I cannot imagine going through pregnancy, having two children, being employed, and not have my husband around. This lady was so friendly and thanked us for helping families like hers on the island. The people of Okinawa are so friendly. I had asked a lady in the bathroom at Macaroni Grill last week and by the end of the conversation she had given me her number and told me she would love to have me and some of the staff over sometime for dinner or just shopping dates.
Camp Adventure surprised us and bought us a bus for the weekend to go to Ukoma. It is a little resort about 2.5 hours away that has banana boating, jet skis, snorkeling, and kayaking. It is super cheap and should be a lot of fun. It is really nice that Camp A is doing this for us because getting around the island has been really difficult. The public transportation is not widely used and is expensive and none of us have cars to get around. We walk between 3-4 miles every day to get around. The Green Line runs from base to base around the Island, but our base pass does not include all of the bases (unlike previous years) so we cannot ride the green line to many places. Luckily, the base I am stationed on has many things to do right off the base so it has not been much of a problem yet. Tomorrow is our last day of orientation and then we get to start working with the children next Monday. I am so excited to meet the little kiddos and be able to meet a lot of the parents. Next Saturday (if my sister does not go into labor any earlier) I will be an aunt again of my very first nephew! I am so excited for my sister, Jesse, and Peyton. I will be very homesick when the baby comes. It is sad to think I won’t be able to meet my nephew until it is almost 3 months old, but thank god for skype! Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Hi everyone!
Sorry I have been very busy the last couple of days. Saturday my friends and I went to the last song and then headed to Gate 2 on Kadena Air Force Base. It was...interesting to say the least. Since we have a strict curfew we were all home by one. On Sunday we all relaxed and spent the day at the beach. We then went to a restaurant near the beach for dinner. The restaurant served American food with a little twist. For dessert they would put a french toast stick (just one) on the side of your plate. There were geckos on the walls and I wanted to throw up a little bit while I was eating. When I went to pay the store clerk I only had my debit card, he told me he would be right back and ran off with my card for 5-10 minutes. I was not sure what he was doing, but I was hoping he was not getting some sweet stuff on ebay. Monday we had a lot of training ranging from mandatory child abuse training to different types of diseases. It was not exciting since I have received most of the training through education at UNI. Today we had our first day in the water. We had to swim a 500 and then we learned a bunch of fun games to play with our kids during lessons. We got to play all of them and we all had a lot of fun. We are allowed to get the classes at the Marine's gym for free so tonight we took a Zumba class. It was one of the most fun things I have done in a long time. The teacher was very energetic and even came up to dance on me at one point in the class. It was a pretty intense workout as well. Hope everyone is having a good week!