"Wow- your arms are really slimy."

We welcomed Tecumseh Tuesday in with a Chopstick Challenge-- no utensils, just chopsticks all day long. These kids are embracing the challenge. 

Just the crew, casually strolling into chapel this morning.

Two of the best moments of the day:
1- Seeing all of this year's Day Camp staff when they came to chapel. Most of them arrived yesterday and a huge percentage of them are my past campers. One of the best parts of my job is getting to see them become part of the Tecumseh staff. They're spilling over with excitement right now and I have all the faith in the world in them.
2- As the CILTs walked all the way up to the TLC, they sang together the whole way. I LOVE when there is a spirit of unity and everybody has bought in to what we're doing. People were belting out the words, dancing as they walked and just so Tecumseh-kind-of-happy.

We spent our morning at The Leadership Center doing group team-building activities. We started with the spinner wheels and then moved to the Keypad Challenge.

It's clear that this session has loads of potential-- as we're watching them learn to work as a unit we're seeing so many strong, valuable qualities shine through. We're only going to go up from here.

The grand finale for the TLC morning is always at the 12 foot wall. The CILTs lift and pull one another up and over the wall one by one. So much trust comes out in this activity when people are pushed straight out of their comfort zones.

Truth: I'm ecstatic about working with these four counselors this summer. Grace, Katie, Sean and Mike love these kids and are each pumped about how they can build up and coach these kids. I'm having so much fun getting to see them with our campers after so much build up before this. These CILTies and I are so lucky to be with this crew.

It's a common misconception that the walk between villages is a bad thing-- this walk is actually one of my favorite parts of Tecumseh transit. I'm so thankful for the conversations that happen under the canopy of these leaves.

We made it back down to the Riv just in time to hang out with our campers before lunch. I love seeing CILTs run up to their kids-- so excited to see them and hear about their mornings.

Pool time was very exciting:
We went down the VORTEX slide-- we're going to contact VORTEX and try to get a sponsorship going.
Jamie ZJ came to swim time and we hooked her up with some noodles and kickboards because JAMIE IS HAVING A BABY.
The entire pool got out of the water half way through for a water break.
I taught Ellyn to "dive"!!!
It started raining while we were in the pool and we seized the opportunity to break out singing, "IT'S LIKE RAIN ON YOUR WEDDING DAY!" and "FEEL THE RAIN ON YOUR SKIN, NO ONE ELSE CAN FEEL IT FOR YOU!"

Lucky for us, this is the afternoon that all of the CILTs hang out in the Party Room to do Human Barometer Phase 1, talk through Purpose Statements and nail down the CILT cheer so we can start performing it tomorrow.

Honorable Mention Blog Title:

"So are you all on a team or something?" "Oh yeah, big meet tomorrow-- carb loading."