Yesterday was oodles of fun, as we embarked on the second half of our Canteen on the Fly world tour… well, it wasn’t quite a global tour, but we definitely felt like superstars, arriving in time to chat with our camp friends and families, and then rushing off to make it to our next stop on time. With yesterday’s unexpected warm and sunny weather, seeing camp friends on such a beautiful day gave us all the feeling that camp is just so much closer.
Me, Taylor, and Nicole having Canteen on the Fly!
This is one of my favorite times of the year (other than June, of course, when camp is in full swing) because I FINALLY get to start excavating the large Tupperware containers of spring clothing from storage, and incorporating some of my favorite spring pieces back into the mix. I’m also very excited to see the new trends for summer, and to stock up on plenty of Blue and Gold apparel.
I’ve included some of my favorite campy craft projects on this blog before, and in keeping with the trend, here’s a camp creation from Group Leader Ricki Kahn created, and let me share with all of you:
Ricki's Creative Camp Collage!
Enjoy this week of beautiful sunshine, and think camp!
Over the weekend I got to spend some time with Becky Jacobson and Karen Sharir, and they told me all about their recent artistic collaboration…
Becky J had to write a “Collaborative Recipe Poem”, meaning she had to write a poem with a partner, and the poem had to read like a recipe. Becky asked Karen to assist her with the creative piece, and the result is nothing short of masterful. The girls drew inspiration from the movie, Wet Hot American Summer (a camp counselor favorite!) and I laughed out loud the first time I read it. If you know the WHAS movie, you will be surprised to see just how many references the girls were able to squeeze in to their poem…
Recipe for a Wet Hot American Summer
Cleanse Arty the beekeeper and set aside,
Barbecue a crowned class B dungeon master –
let simmer in a thin sauce of hygienic products.
Add some arts and farts and crafts.
Dice up a talent show and be sure to leave the baggage and attitude at the door,
Because we don’t need it.
Fry it in a pan of “fondue with cheddar.”
Juice the deepest thoughts from your gournal.
Then take some “hey” from before and add it to the mix,
Throw in some dance belts, lycras, et.al. seriously.
Take Arty and his fake summer romance that didn’t even happen,
and spread evenly throughout the hundreds of colored markers.
Add One cup of determination to get McKinley loved.
Blend everything together in one huge piece of the space station coming towards Earth.
Before you put it all in the oven make sure to get the lower camp kids out of the ropes course,
I meant to tell you about that yesterday.
Toss it in the oven and make it your beeswax to get it out at 9:30 to see what it has blossomed into.
If you follow the directions exactly, almost all of your campers should make it out in one piece,
except for the few who are lepers.
But this tastes like burger so I don’t like it anymore.
Have you ever used a camp joke, or the general theme of camp, as inspiration for an assignment or creative piece? If so, email it to me at cara@canadensis.com and I’ll be sure to post it for everyone to enjoy!
Other than the usual weekend dinner with camp friends, life has been business as usual, only it seems that the days are flying by faster than ever, and I truly feel as though I’m going to wake up tomorrow and be leaving for Pre-Camp. I have been coming up with some crazy ideas for camp activities and craft projects over the last few weeks, so I’m really excited to start working on translating my ideas into reality as this month goes on. Here’s one project that Karen and I will be starting:
Recycled Artwork!
This piece is made entirely of recycled materials, mostly magazines and old canvases, and it’s going to be so cool to create our own!
Well, I hope everyone is excited for the arrival of a new month, another month closer to camp, and that all of our Philadelphia/Cherry Hill area campers and friends will be coming out to join us for Canteen on the Fly this Sunday!
Well, as promised, here are a few more unnatural siblings for your enjoyment:
Brian Stern:
Robin Hasson:
Nurse Betty:
Brian Krug:
“Camp Mom” Steph:
There you have it! Another edition of Unnatural Siblings, celebrity edition. Keep checking back, and feel free to send camp unnatural celebrity sibling requests to cara@canadensis.com!
Well, for anyone who uses Facebook on a regular basis, you know that the current phase sweeping the social networking site is this “celebrity lookalike” trend. In honor of this Doppelganger obsession, I’ve decided to use the MyHeritage website, to come up with some of our staff’s celebrity twins!
Jason Calabretta:
Cara Corradetti:
ERIC FORTI:
Will Armon:
Rachel Bachman:
Sam Ginsburg:
(Sam’s is my personal favorite!)
So there you have it! Unnatural siblings on a whole new level! Maybe I’ll do some more tomorrow…
Well, it’s only Tuesday and already I feel as though this week is flying by. I spent yesterday out of the office at Shippensburg University, where I tabled at the school’s job fair. The best part of the trip was getting to catch up with Austin Cromartie, who came by the job fair and kept me company at the table. I’m sure I don’t have to say that we talked about camp (duh), and got to share some other fun stories as well. When I went to Shippensburg last year, it was on a terrible snowy day, and I hardly got a chance to see the campus and walk around, but yesterday was bright and sunny, which made the day a lot more enjoyable.
And no blog post would be complete without an update of my weekend dinners with friends! This weekend I was excited to see my usual dining crew (Karen Sharir, Dani Corradetti, and Rebecca Waxman), and we were all even more excited to add Guest of Honor Bryan LaFave to our dinner club! Bryan is in town rehearsing for his upcoming tour, and it was so exciting to get to hear about his rehearsals, and plans for the tour. Here are a few pictures from dinner:
Bryan and Dani - Representing the Music Man!
Dinner Club!
Bryan and Karen taking the train back to the city.
Of course the biggest event of this week is this season’s premier of LOST!!! Jason Calabretta and I are avid Lost watchers, discussers, theorizers, etc. We are both in a vortex of anticipation for tonight’s big event, and I cannot wait for the season to unfold, and for ALL the answers of the past few years to be revealed! If you are a Lost fan, I hope you’ll share your ideas and theories with JCal and I, and if you are not yet a Lost fan, I highly recommend watching all the seasons, getting caught up, and watching the series finale with us.
I’ve also got some extra curricular activities this week (aka, the other things I do in my life that aren’t camp related), and my week i ridiculously busy! I’ve got an Alumni dinner meeting with my Sorority in King of Prussia, and some volunteer work at the High School to keep me busy before I leave on Sunday for a week of hiring on the road. I’ll be blogging from the road, so stay tuned for all the updates!
Text message of the day:
“Thought you would love: The course number for psych is 1835. Where is the two?!?!” ~Dani Corradetti, on her course selection codes.
As always, it’s been an eventful week. Pam and Brian are getting ready to take off on the first part of our staff hiring road-trip, and I’m gearing up for a one day extravaganza of hiring at Shippensburg, all day on Monday. After a long and lonely week in the office, Pam and I will reunite and drive up north, for a few days of recruiting in Vermont. I’m really looking forward to going on the road and meeting some potential staff members. Although our counselor positions have filled up VERY quickly this year, there are still come positions we are looking to fill, and I can’t wait to put it at together when we return from the trips!
Over the weekend, with Becky J and Dani in tow, we took a mini-trip to New Jersey to meet up with Brooke Appelbaum in East Brunswick. We had a little bit of a wait before we could claim our table at Bensi, so we made a stop at one of my favorite shops, Anthropologie. While I wanted to buy everything in the store (especially the BLUE AND GOLD dish sets!), Dani and I fell in love with their beautiful jeweled hair barrettes, and had to choose a variety to bring home. Every clip was made with a different selection of stones and gems, so each one was unique! I think this could make for a very cool art shack project, especially if we first make our own beads in glass fusion! Definitely something to think about…
Maybe a great project for the art shack?!
After our quick shopping excursion, we sat down for a yummy Italian dinner at Bensi. While the food was OUTSTANDING, our waiter was terrible! We had to ask for refills, and then waited forever for him to bring them to us. Even though the service was disappointing, the company definitely made up for it; I loved getting to spend time with Brooke before she went back to Ithaca. Many of my camp nights off are spent with Brooke and our friends, at Star Pizza or the “BK Lounge” (Our fancy name for Burger King), just talking about camp and having fun, so it was good to feel as though, just for a few hours, it was summer all over again. I can’t wait for anothe r season of late night snacks with everyone in 2010! Of course, we were having SO much fun, I totally neglected to take pictures, but I did take a video of Becky J laughing so hard that she couldn’t catch her breath, so perhaps I’ll post that later!
Finally, it’s been a VERY stressful few weeks in the Corradetti house, with Dani’s auditions for North Penn High School’s production of Thouroughly Modern Millie. I’m VERY excited to report that after days of grueling auditions and call-backs, Dani has been cast as Millie! So, I’m sure from now until May our house is going to be a wild rehearsal studio, since Dani has lots of songs to sing, scenes to memorize, and dances to learn (which means I’ll be taking on the role of full time piano accompanist…) If you’d like tickets to come out and see the show, you can email me at cara@canadensis.com and I’ll get you all the details!
Dani is really excited to wear the red dress...
Speaking of Musical Theatre Stars, Bryan LaFave arrives in Philadelphia TODAY, to begin rehearsals for his National Tour of Beauty and the Beast: A Musical Fairytale. I’ve already made plans to see him this weekend for a grand dinner, and I promise to take my camera along and post pictures and updates on the blog! I am beyond excited to get to see Bryan, since the last time I saw him was at camp this past summer!!!
Well, that’s all for now folks. I’ve got to get back to preparing travel folders for Brian and Pam, so that they’ll have directions, hotel confirmations, contact information, and parking instructions, all organized and easily accessible when they hit the road. Have a good rest of the week, Friday is almost here!
So after my last “sneak peak” picture post, I knew I should follow up with a story as to how I found myself in Philadelphia with Camp Friends! The story begins on Friday night, as I sat on my couch, texting back and forth with Karen Sharir. She asked if I could come into the city and meet her for lunch the next afternoon, and of course I said yes! So the next day I found myself on the train headed to the Reading Terminal Market, where Karen requested we meet. It seemed odd that Karen had so carefully planned out such an impromptu lunch, but since I love hanging out with Karen, I was just excited to see her. So we walked around the market, trying to decide what to eat for lunch, when all of a sudden I was face to face with Levi Smathers. For those of you who don’t know, Levi lives in Louisiana, so it was VERY unusual to see him in Philly! For a minute I wasn’t exactly sure what was going on, but as soon as I turned around to see Karen laughing hysterically, I knew that they had planned this! Levi flew in to spend the three day weekend visiting with Karen in the city, and they thought they’d surprise me at lunch. So we decided on some salads and sandwiches and found a table in the corner where we sat and talked about life since post-camp. It was so nice to get to catch up with them both, and I couldn’t believe that Levi’s bangs are longer than mine.
As we were walking around the terminal after our lunch, we got the next surprise of the day. There, at a table in the center of the market, was Tim Penrod!!! Tim was in town for a soccer coaches convention, and the look on his face when he saw the three of us was absolutely priceless! We exchanged hugs, and decided that we needed to meet up later that evening.
I hopped on the train back home after we walked around the city for a bit, and promised to call Karen and Levi so we could all hang out later. I had already made plans to hang out with one of my favorite friends, Mr. Adam Scharfberg, and since we were ALL Canadensis people, it worked out perfectly for Adam and I to drive into the city to see our friends. We picked up Karen and Levi, and searched for a parking spot for what seemed like forever. Finally, we decided to just valet the car so we could get to a restaurant already! We called Tim Penrod, who brought a few of his soccer friends along, and took over a huge booth in the back of the restaurant. Here are a few selected photos:
Karen and Adam
It took a while to get a normal picture out of Levi...
Karen was so surprised to see Tim!
We stayed out very late, catching up and laughing about camp times (they are the greatest, after all!). Finally we decided to call it a night and head back to the car. Little did we know that the valet was off duty, so when we got back to the spot where we had left my car, it was parked on the street with a note in the dashboard. The note had the address and phone number of the location where we could pick up my keys. It was like our own little version of National Treasure!
Karen and I wonder: "Dude, Where's my Keys?"
We finally got my keys back and everyone got home safe and sound. It’s always fun to plan a weekend with camp friends, but it’s the unexpected events that make for the funniest of memories!
Nothing like a weekend full of camp to kick off the New Year!
In my last post I mentioned that we were heading out on Friday night to see counselors Steve Scott and Ethan Cohen’s band The Spelling Tree release their long awaited EP. There were SO many Canadensis friends who came out to support the guys, and see each other, and I tried to take as many pictures as possible. The little coffee shop was SO crowded, it was hard to move, and although we attempted to take an all camp picture after the boys finished their set, we could hardly make our way through the crowds to each other! Here are the few pictures I was able to take during the show:
Rachel and I enjoy our Chai Lattes!
Becky, Danielle, Dani, Liz, and Rachel, visit with Steve before he takes the stage!
SAM SIGHTING!
Saturday morning found Rachel Bachman and I up with the sun and getting ready to make the trip out to New Brunswick for the Leadership Staff Winter Meeting. A fabulous time was had by all, and when all was said and done we were more excited than ever for summer to arrive! We had a fun and delicious dinner, and luckily Camp Mom Steph had her camera in hand at the dinner table:
Pam and I ALMOST won the Newly Staff game... we'll get them next time!
Forti, Stern, Unger, and Groundhog!
After an amazing day of camp talk on Saturday, we woke up on Sunday and headed off to the Camp Reunion! This must have been the biggest turn out in reunion history, because the bowling alley was PACKED with Canadensis campers, staff, and families! At one point Groundhog handed over his camera and let me take pictures for the website, but here are a few I captured on my own camera:
Becky, Rebecca, Karen, and Hannah
L-R: Rachel, Brittany, Brooke, Hannah, Becky, Cara, Karen, and Rebecca, all having a blast at the reunion!
In other news, I thought I would share a fast fact with you all. For anyone who doesn’t know, my mom works for QVC… you know, the channel where you tune in and can buy thing by calling in. One of the companies my mom represents on air is a TOY company, which is exciting for Dani and I, because that means we get to see all the samples, and a lot of the time she lets us help her prepare for her airings. Recently my mom was on air with a children’s pop-up tent, which we got to practice putting together in our family room at home. Here are some pictures from my adventures in the tent:
Me and my puppies, Leo and Bella, hanging out in the princess fort!
That's my mom on QVC!
Here she is selling the princess fort, one of my favorite items she's had on air.
Well, that’s all for now! Tonight we’ll be at the sixers game- I can’t wait to see all the camp families in the Canadensis section!
