Leadership Trips

Our leaders left on the 22nd (don't worry, only for 3 days!) to do AESOP trips similar to the ones they'll be leading in order to master the skills they'll need to know once you guys are here! They emerged today from their trips confident in their ability to light their camping stoves, cook pasta to perfection, set up tents and tarps in mere minutes, and challenge y'all to games of wah, pterodactyl, entourage, and more.

Dinnertime!

We can't believe you're all be coming in TWO days!! We hope you are as pumped as we are. So pack everything up, break in your boots, and get ready to kick off the best 4 years of your life with some of the best people around. 

Get excited!!

                                                  

The leaders are here!

Our leaders arrived this past Sunday for Leadership Week, where they'll learn everything they need to know to make your AESOP the best one yet. We're half way through the week and our leaders have already become wilderness first aid certified, sorted all the food and gear they'll need for their trips, completed canoe rescue and safety, taken skills courses to know what's what with maps, ropes, tents, and stoves, learned their trip itineraries, and planned lots of fun and games for you guys. Don't worry though, it's not ALL work. Although they've been working from 8am to 7pm every day, we've made group trips to the Rollerdrome and challenged them with a mind blowing scavenger hunt. This past weekend was also the end of the annual balloon festival! If you ever have an opportunity to see it you won't regret it!

All the leaders in Commons

Checking all of the tents

Moving all the gear upstairs!

All 96 leaders and 5 coordinators rockin' out at the Rollerdrome

Who's Hungry?

Hey guys! Before all 343 of you get here we have to do some serious preparation, including a giant run to BJs to get food for everyone. We spent over $4000 buying oatmeal, granola bars, pasta and everything else you'll be eating when you go out on your trips. We got some strange looks and pretty awesome comments. You can be the judge of which is the best:

"You bring breakfast, I'll bring lunch!"

"I wanna come to your party!"

"Hungry?"

"I'll get the drinks!"

Most of all, people were super friendly and really excited to learn about what we were up to. Now that we've bought all the food, it's safety stored away and will be sorted this upcoming week with our leaders. We can't wait to meet you all in a week, 

Bring your appetite!

Josh, Allie, Katie, Bryan, James

Josh taking all the Annie's Mac n' Cheese he can find 

Getting all the buns for the BBQ

All loaded up!

3,072 packets of oatmeal, 2,175 Nature Valley Bars and a lot of peanut butter

Here we gooooooo!

Howdy y'all,

After a lonely beginning of August, our lovely assistants finally made their way onto campus this past Monday to join us in our preparation efforts. While we have been firming up reservation confirmations and lining up Commons catering orders to feed all 343 AESOPers and 96 trip leaders for four days, they have been incredibly busy finishing the gear move from the gear attic to our brand spanking new gear spaces in Chase Hall. With that under wraps, Katie, James, and Bryan have begun the leg work for some of the other logistical details that make the trips run smoothly, including itinerary fine-tuning and map-copying, so that when our leaders show up here on Sunday (three days away!) for leadership week, they're roaring and ready to go. Amidst meetings galore and phone call madness, we are slowly crossing items of our own to-do list and are feeling pretty ready for the invasion of our leaders. Wilderness First Aid training, Van Certification class, leadership trips, Coordinator chats, camping skill sessions, and van caravans are just a few of the many things we have planned for next week... all in preparation for you guys to come on the 26th!

It hasn't been all work, however. Last night, we made it over to Freeport to eat lots of homemade pizza at Josh's house. It was capped off with a spin on some mopeds (pictured below are Bryan and Allie grinning ear to ear post moped race), some golden retriever loving, and chocolate chip squares- all of the things that AESOP is truly fueled on.

Stay tuned, more to come soon...

AESOP love forever,

Josh and Allie

Working hard or hardly work, guys?

Sleeping bags up the wazoo and a happy Bryan

A rare sight: a clean and empty gear attic

Katie, Bryan, and James sorting some med kit supplies!

We took a break last night to visit Josh's house over yonder in Freeport, which almost always comes along with homemade pizza and a whirl on some mopeds.

Katie and James ironing out the details for trip itineraries and making copies of all the maps for the trip folders.

Allie crushing it in the new AESOP office...

...and Josh pretending to.