The Grand FInale: SESSION 3!!!!

Today marks the start of the third and final CILT session of the summer. I'm always excited for a new group of kids to arrive but I don't know if I've ever been this pumped since my very first year as a counselor. This session is different because I already have connections with so may different campers in this group.

This session holds siblings of old campers, girls I had in my cabin during their Blazer summers, old hip-hop campers, one old student, siblings of staff members, friends of friends and kids I've just known for years. I have such high expectations for the next two weeks and am so ready to get started.

We had some really great surprises too. Emily Kupres, a CILT from last summer, was here to drop off her sister and I ran across the field to hug her. Mo, from Session 1 this summer, is here to work with the equestrians for two weeks. She is phenomenal and I'm so excited that she has this opportunity. We also got to see Prince Henry and Emily Ennis as they passed through, so many reunions!

This group of girls already has so much enthusiasm and is pumped for this experience after hearing so much about it.

I'm glad we've got Jamie back with us after her family vacation last week.

We did speed-friend-making in the Party Room before dinner. The pairs talked about a question for two minutes before sliding over and meeting the next person for two minutes.

In CILTs your cabin doesn't really matter too much because we always function as a large team of 40. You're only really split into cabins when you're asleep. But just because we could, we took cabin photos tonight.

Jamie and Abnaki

Ellyn, Choctaw and me

Alex and the Brova bros

Smooney and the girls of Hopi

We dressed up as "Who's Not Waldo?" for opening campfire with masking tape stripes and black glasses. Everything got put together in about 10 minutes and I'm pretty proud of the finished, uniform look.

The Waldo CILTs of Session 3 2013 ladies and gentlemen.

Maggie was attacked by the CILT girls who love her lots right away at flagpole. I love that she knows so many of them this session and that she'll be around this week.

Mags is one of my favorite people in the world and I'm so glad we get to share camp together this summer. I also love that Claire is her partner and that she is consistently awesome i.e. in the back of this picture.

Maggie introduced me to Katlyn during closing campfire when she was in her cabin last summer. The three of us were friends and then later Katlyn introduced us to Emily. The four of us have been friends this year and talked just about everyday about how excited we were for Katlyn and Emily to get to CILTs.

I'm beyond excited that we're all here in real life together.

There is a huge group of girls all from the same area of Chicago this session. Some of them I've know for almost six years and other friends in the group I'm just getting to know well. They're so lucky to share this with a group of their best friends.

Jackie Welch is finally a CILT-- I've know this family for years but this is the first time I got to have one of the sisters as a camper. I'm so glad Olivia Benz has arrived for her three week stay. I love this kid and her creativity, gumption and spunk.

Annie, Mags and Sar are all back together again! Annie was away last week, Mags is gone next week and I'll be away week 8, thus we've got to be really pumped whenever we're all here at the same time. I love these friends and think the world of them.

Emily Dignan and Maeve are here for DC again this week. These rock stars make me so excited every time I see them.

Little Sarah is here again this week. She's so good at coming and finding me in a crowd.
I can't tell you what it means to me to have Maddie as a CILT in my cabin. I had her in Choctaw for her first two summers as a camper and can still vividly remember the adventures we had together those weeks.

Team CILT is all back together. CILTs is such a strange world for us-- partners work differently, we get three giant groups of kids, we're together ALL the time, we never sleep or have porch time, our schedule is different than the rest of camp and we are knitted so close together by the end of all of this. I'm so thankful for Smooncat, JZ, Alex, Elly and Irene.

My mom is here for Quilt Camp the next couple days up at the TLC. I love when she can sneak away to come visit and say hi. I know she is so glad to have Quilt Camp so she can keep coming back to Tecumseh too.

The CILT counselors led "Little Cabin In the Woods" tonight. Alex's facial expressions are the best. The quarter of the audience in front of him is so lucky and they end up laughing the whole song. Lucy Welch and her cousin Abby (who was at Michindoh with me a couple weeks ago) are here this week! These girls are two of my favorites and I wish they were in the Riv so I could see them more often.

We hung out back in the Longhouse with all the girls until the start of devotions. It's already so fun just to be there with all of them and see new friendships slowly start to be made. After devotions, veteran-CILT-talks and initiation we made it back to the cabins to sleep in their bunks for the first time. Great things are going to be gone all over the place and I can't wait to experience it all.