Monday, July 21, 2014

"I have cash. Jarn gave me $25 for winning Buffalo Queen."

Being a regular resident counselor means that I know get to teach clinics. Luckily, I'm teaching two of my favorites: Advanced Friendship Bracelets and Country Line Dancing.

I get to teach FAB (Fearless Advanced Braceleters) with Linsey and the coolest group of kids you ever did meet. I already knew Kate, Lily, Gabi, Charlotte, Meg, Avery and Finton and now I get to know the rest of the campers. Today we taught them how to make the hardcore and they showed us their skills with the V. 


Hadley, the youngest of Hendricks sisters, is here this week and is magically in both of my clinics. I'm so pumped that I'll get to hang out with her so much every day. Did you know that today is Meow Monday? I'm not sure how much I'll get to wear this shirt back in Indy so I'm going to live it up while I'm here.

I get to teach Country Line Dancing with Molly and Becca and TEN campers. That's a record breaking  number for CLD and we're thrilled about the potential of this group. We already did the banana peel and the cotton eyed joe this morning.


During 3rd clinic I get Parent Letter writing time since this week I have to write all 10 Choctaw CILT PLs from Session 3 and 5 Choctaw Blazer girls PLs for this week. That's a lot of letters but it sure is easier with a clinic period every day.

It's time consuming for sure, but other than that I love writing these letters. Today I wrote about Shanz the Rapper and it was fun to be able to reflect back on her time at camp and try to sum up everything she did, what I observed and how I think she grew during this time. I know that parents love these letters, but by the time kids are CILTs I think they're the ones who really look forward to these letters and hang on to them for years.


I spotted Arie as soon as clinics finished and soon all of our campers gravitated over to us. We're not used to that since usually our CILTs disperse to find their kids during this time. It's pretty fun being a Blazer counselor.


I'm so excited to hang out with Addi, Gabi and Lily more this week. They LOVE Camp T and have had some of my very best friends as counselors-- I know that Annie and Chrissy wish they could be here with them.


Today at lunch in Choctaw we played a fun game that Ellyn made up. We had to talk without including the letter "S" in any word. It got tricky to talk when we wanted people to hand over food or drink and we couldn't talk


I was a watcher during pool time today and got to ref all of the boys play Water Polo the whole time. Meanwhile my girls were al over on the diving boards, shallow end, slides and rope traverse.


Then all of the Longhouse ladies, Hopi and Choctaw, went to the mud pit together. Here's what we looked like before jumping into the stuff.


Then we all went nuts rolling and slipping the mud all over ourselves and each other.




Nothing screams summer and no parents quite like a mud hike. When else can you get totally covered and gross like this?


Everyone did a fabulous job of getting completely covered.




We hiked through the whole Oak Forest to get to the lake where we washed off in the shallow end. When we got back home again we had some great compliments waiting for us on doors. This one's my favorite.


During Trading Post time I sat with my homies Hadley and Kylie and chatted all about life. We looked at all the friendship bracelets on my backpack, talked about cheer and HSE people and talked about what our cabins did all day. Some of my favorite memories of being a camper here are of becoming friends with counselors that weren't officially mine. Now I love getting to do the same thing for girls like these two.


After dinner the Choctaw gang and the rest of the Blazers headed to the OT to learn the Blazer cheer and then the Women of the River cheer. We screamed and danced and are ready to do it at lunch tomorrow. Then we planned a special cabin talent for the Blazer girl talent show.



When it was Choctaw's turn they did the cup song rhythm and then changed the words to be about Tecumseh.

We're all living in Choctaw cabin
2 cans of pop stop for the way
And I sure do love my camp counselors
And devotions every day

At Camp T, at Camp T
The extra blob time sure is sweet
And we just can't wait for hobo dinners
And we're being 3rd all the time


Tonight we got to sleep out on the Day Camp Pavilion with our friends from Menominee and Oneida. We spread out our sleeping backs, did devotions together and then fell asleep under the stars. Our 10:40 bed time was hands down the earliest one I've had all summer long.

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