These are the days

A group of CILT girls decided to make it Overall Friday--I support that. And they took the initiative to lead a flagpole song--I support that too.

We decided to have a different accent for each meal of the day. Breakfast was Caveman. Me want oatmeal. Me need brown sugar now. Where deer come from? Me shoot deer.

We made our bi-weekly trip to the St. E nursing home to visit with the residents for the last time this summer. I love that they know who we are right when we arrive and that they expect our camp songs.

We sang iPod shuffle songs all the way back to Camp T--we're really good at Taylor Swift, Train, The Fray and Avril Lavigne.

I love when people like Arielle, Morph, Tera and Emily belt it out. That's commitment.

We came back to play Running Charades in Main Field.

I love watching them act out the words so enthusiastically and freaking out when their team can't figure it out.

We had Team Morph, the Prancing Unicorns, Lions, Tigers and Bears and the Purple Honey Badgers. We're creative.

I was reading my girls the Puppies chapter last night and already this group is becoming a new set of Puppies. I love their creativity and weirdness, their bravery and wisdom, their loyalty and friendship. They're becoming the main characters of this season of my life.

When I think back on this summer I'll think of all the CILT girls of 2012--of them wearing overalls, telling stories of the Tippy, peeing their pants from laughing, staying up late talking on the porch, sharing snacks, wearing their neon hats backwards and playing with their adopted cabin campers.

I love that I get to spend my summer with groups like this-- that I get to hang out with these awesome kids who want to grow during their two weeks here.

I get to work with counselors that have become some of my best friends. Arielle and Jamie just get me so well and I love spending all day with them everyday. Annie is one of my favorite people and I'm so thankful that I get to live in the Longhouse this summer with her.

I love watching the CILT girls form close knit friendships while they're here.

I'm lucky to get to work with people I've been friends with for years and with people that I just got to know this summer.

I love that everyday I get to see CILTs like Emily, Day Camp counselors like Maeve and Sarah and Rachel, camp kids like Bryn, all the members of my family and co-counselors like Kata. These are the days.

Someone asked me today where heaven is. I said that it doesn't have a specific address but if it did it would be pretty close to Camp Tecumseh.

This summer I love getting to work with Rachel, Maddie and Maeve the weeks that they're here for Day Camp. They were Session 3 CILTs last summer and now such awesome counselors.

I've loved having Bri here the past two weeks and getting to see her whenever I can overlap with the Pathfinders.

I love seeing Raiona around camp with her all her sass and spunk. Linsey came to visit campfire, oh how I have missed this girl.

Lily, Emily and Molly came to visit and it was so fun to have all of us reunited. These people were Camp Tecumseh to me for so many summers, the counselors I spent nights off and weekends with and their cabins were the ones I hung out with all afternoon.

We got to sing our new CILT cheer that is SO AWESOME for all of camp. We had special performances of The Cat Came Back by Cubby and Tribute by Thomas Needham and Zach Clark.

Old friends got the honor of passing out four year bandannas and my favorite moment was when Scarlet ran up to get hers and attacked Emily, her counselor last summer, in a giant hug.

Saturday morning I didn't have to say good-bye to any of the CILTs since they'll be here next week, but I did have to say good-bye to so many kids I've loved spending time with in the past two weeks. I'm going to miss turtling with Sarah and talking about her day, getting hugs from Scar and hanging out with her, having Alice find me in a crowd and being buddies at the Lake. Yes, I'm a CILT counselor but these kids are such a huge part of my summer too.

I worked this weekend which means about twenty other counselors and I stayed at camp to be with the 140ish stay over campers that will be here week 6 too. We got to have an extra long rest hour and I slept so well. Then there was questionable weather approaching so we went to Kampen to watch Hook. During a regular week we aren't around screens at all so it's extra fun to get to watch a movie over the weekend, especially one as great as Hook.

We did a lot of other fun things this weekend too but the general theme was that I was just so happy to be with all of these kids. I love getting to know them all better which makes me want to hang out with them more which makes me get to know them better which makes me want to hang out with them more. It's a good cycle. I'm so glad our time is only half way up.