Overlap: "I will come up there and eat you!"

It's EMILY SWANTON'S BIRTHDAY! We sang Happy Birthday last night, decorated her bunk and then had a donut party at breakfast this morning. We certainly love this girl and feel honored she spent her birthday with all of us.

This morning the CILT counselors were in charge of chapel. It'll most likely be my only one of the summer so I was so excited. We've been working on this one for a couple weeks.

Chapel Playlist: My Lighthouse, My Jesus My Savior, Keep Our Eyes Open, Courageous, Servant Song, Relentless.

We based our skit off of the Kid President video A Letter To A Person On Their First Day Here and changed the script to be all about Camp Tecumseh. I'll post the whole script in another post soon.

I got to give the wrap up after the skit, "Growing up I got to be a camper at Tecumseh for a week every summer. I would count down the days until I moved into my cabin, met my cabin mates and counselors. Now as a counselor, I get to be here for the whole summer. And the same thing is true now as it was when I was your age. Tecumseh is my favorite place in the whole world.

One of the reasons that I think this place is so special is because we experience life to the full here. And that's something that God wants for us, that he designed us for. Jesus said to his followers, 'I have come that you might have and enjoy life, that you might have it abundantly, to the full, till it overflows.' I love that. Isn't that so cool? God wants to be such a part of our lives that they're overflowing with Him.

When I'm at home life is good too-- I go to school, I watch Netflix, I see my friends. But I think that God designed us for life to the full like we experience here at camp. And we get to help each other do that. Let's all work together to keep doing things from the skit: sing and dance and laugh a lot, be 3rd and give people high 5s, try new things even when it's scary, forgive other people when they mess up. We can pay attention to all the amazing things going on around us so at the end of the day we have so many highs that we can't just pick one. And let's keep reminding our friends that we're so glad they're here.

I'm so excited for us to live life to the full together here. Just like practicing a sport or an instrument, the more we practice, the better we'll get. And I hope that when we go home we'll be so good at living life to the full that we'll teach our families and our friends about it too. And when we all do that we can make the rest of the world a little bit more like Tecumseh.

Getting to watch chapel from on stage is such a cool thing. I saw CILTies dancing, friends from different villages hugging, counselors holding kid's hands or giving them hugs, people smiling while they sang and so much laughter. It's one of my favorite views each summer.

Today the CILTs shadowed Day Camp for the last time of the summer--it's always one of the very best days of the session. Lucy and Rachel shadowed Gaby and Maggie, a pair of Session 3 girls from last summer.

I love watching counselors greet the kids on the bus with so much enthusiasm.

Liz reunited with her friend Melissa and I was so happy to find Bryn and Shay. So many hugs.

Everyone headed to chapel at the DC Pavilion. I loved watching these little guys play Rock, Paper, Scissors over and over again.

THERE IS JUST SO MUCH LOVE AND FUN AND FRIENDSHIP AND JOY GOING ON AT ONCE!

Gi and Lauren...

Cara and Emily...

Avery and Kevin...

Isabelle and Katie Wills...

Alli Kenney aka Day Camp's biggest fan...

Maggie Danaher has kids falling off of her...

Will Fair and Lucy...

Screaming Toes is the most fun.

The Black Hole is wild, especially when you get to get muddy at the bottom of it.

Alli and I are such fans of Sofia, Julia and Katie G.

I was so happy to run into Blazer girls Wylie and Olivia on their way from Hip Hop to the pool. They're both spilling over with enthusiasm and smiles all the time.

Next Alli and I headed to Ft. Disco to meet up with the Blazers to play tag and eat lunch.

LOOK AT THIS CICADA WE FOUND THAT JUST CAME OUT OF IT'S SHELL!

I don't think I've ever gotten so much positive feedback from a chapel as we did today. Mike Lang told us that he wanted to help us make it into a video, just like Kid President. He and Kayla came and got the CILT counselors from the pool so we could go film each segment. We started in the Pine Forest to film all of Tim's parts of the script.

In the words of Tim, "This is the most extensive photo shoot I've ever been part of." Kayla and Mike both had cameras, we did multiple takes and it was just so cool. I filmed my parts in Choctaw, Allie was in Riverview and Liz was up at the Richard G Lake. I can't wait to see the finished product.

I made it back to Day Camp just in time for pick up. Julia made a new best friend in her trail group, I stinking love Katie Giovani.

All of these girls-- Maggie, Sofia, Lauren, Julia, Jill, Katie G, Lilly-- all kept telling me that they just had so much fun today. Day Camp is awesome.

Bridget was nervous at the start of the morning, but totally beaming and spilling with stories when I saw her at the end of the day. I love seeing Mad Cav, one of my YL girls, be a counselor with all of these Tecumseh friends.