I’ve been privately protesting the cold temperatures for a few weeks now.  I’ve been wearing lighter jackets (or none at all), and although it means I end up freezing sometimes, at least it helps me to feel like warmer temperatures on the their way.  I listened to the weather reports this morning, and by Monday it’s supposed to be 82 degrees in Philly!  Plus, camp is less than 80 days away – and I heard reports from Eric, Matt and Neil who were up at camp yesterday, and they said the lake is already thawed out.  To me, that means we can officially say GOODBYE WINTER!

In order to celebrate the passing of winter, I just wanted to post this photo of Brian that was taken at camp in February when you could walk straight across the frozen lake.  Brian is always starting fun games (or in this case, trouble!) and I caught him in the act of throwing a snowball.  Maybe I’ll get him back next year…

This past weekend was New Camper Bowling – which is a time when we bring all of the incoming campers in grades K-4th together to get to meet and make new camp friends.  It was such an excellent day, and we had nearly 100 kids come through!  Many great photos will be posted in the coming weeks, but here are a few of my favorites…

Some of the “Bunk 2” girls

Some of the Junior Boys for 2011

Last week I got to meet an AWESOME new camper who will be coming to Canadensis for the first time this summer, and will be staring as a Lower Senior Girl. Remy is currently in 7th grade at Masterman, which is one of the best magnet schools in Philadelphia. She is super involved with activities around school, she’s been elected to student council every year, and next year she is planning to run for President of the school! Before the election heats up, she is focused on the upcoming talent show, where she’ll be performing a dance to the Lady Gaga and Beyonce song “Telephone”. She’s also a total athlete who is on the track team and can run a mile in just over six minutes, and she also plays a lot of volleyball.

In her free time (it is impressive that she has any extra time!), she is an excellent big sister to her 18-month old Theresa, and she loves to bake! As you can see above, she makes decorative cakes like you would see on TV, and she’s even made a wedding cake before! While I was over, she gave me an awesome recipe for “Oreo stuffed chocolate chip” cookies, which sounds amazing, so we will have to make them with Jojo in cooking this summer!

Remy is so excited for camp, she can’t wait to try waterskiing, beach volleyball, archery, glass fusion, and many more activities. Please help me welcome Remy to the Canadensis Family!!

New Camper Bowling was awesome. Thanks to all of our new families/campers who were able to make it to north Brunswick, NJ and spend a few hours with us. We had such a great time getting to know many of our new campers and putting faces to the names! Everyone participated in Name Bingo, which allowed us to find out some unique things about people, like their dog’s names, which campers will be celebrating their birthdays at camp, and who has flown on an airplane in the past year, to name a few. Of course I was able to contribute to a few of the clues! Some of the groups also participated in a new game that I called Dance Introductions and each camper had to come up with a short dance to introduce themselves with. Assistant Director Pam now has to remember all of these dances for the first day of camp as the campers come off of the bus!

Of course not all of our new campers were able to join us, as some had Hebrew School and sports games and we have some campers from Florida who were enjoying the warm, sunny, beach weather (who could blame them!). So, we are looking forward to meeting with them as well up at camp and having the greatest summer with our new juniors and lower inters!! If Sunday was any indication as to their excitement about camp, then we are in for a blast.

In other news, I must make a PUBLIC APOLOGY TO CAMP MOM STEPHANIE, who was inadvertently left off of last week’s blog. I mentioned all of the staff who would be coming to New Camper Bowling and in a moment of tiredness (or jetlag, perhaps), I totally forgot about Steph. How could I do such a thing? I am so sorry Steph! Thanks for spending your day with the new campers and helping the parents begin to plan for a much quieter/boring summer back at home, while their kids are having the time of their lives!

While we are on the subject of Camp Mom, you might ask what does she do at camp? Well Steph is absolutely amazing for so many kids, especially if they are having a sad moment.Between helping out with the kids who have food allergies or have alternate meal requests, helping out in our health center, cookies and milk on the back deck with our younger divisions, cutting fingernails (ever wonder who does that at camp!), helping out with our camper phone calls, calling parents as needed, being a mentor to many of our staff, assisting during cleanup of the cabins, amongst TONS of other responsibilities, how does she have time to have fun at camp? Well, Steph can be found on the tennis courts playing a game with campers, up in the arts center working alongside them making projects, or anywhere out and about on camp with a camera taking pictures for all of the parents to see what camp is like! So, thanks Steph for all you do and sorry once more for leaving your name out of last week’s blog.

Matt Unger and I are headed up to camp on Thursday and we will be checking on many of the winter projects, which should be wrapping up soon. The water is also going to be turned on any day now, once the snow melts! So, alot going on at camp to get ready for Summer 2011.

There has been so much stuff going on both personally and in “Canadensis world”, so I plan to blog every day this week!

It’s been a while since I’ve had a creative outlet, but luckily, a lot of my friends have been celebrating Mitzvahs lately, and I’ve had excuses to get crafty!!!! In October I will be a bridesmaid for a close Philly friend, and at her recent bridal shower, each of the guests were assigned a month of the year, and we got to buy a gift for the couple that fit the theme of the month. Luckily, I got assigned June (which is clearly my favorite month because camp starts!), so I fought the urge to get her a crazy creek camping chair, and I got her and her hubby-to-be a nice set of beach towels. I got to decorate the outside of the box, and here’s what it looked like…

I can’t wait for June!!  Also, another Philly friend has recently welcomed the arrival of her first child, and it’s an adorable boy!  She and her husband will be excellent parents, and he has already been such a sweet and calm baby boy, with super cute expressions to match.  Since Sammy is the first born, the date of his birth is extra special, because not only is it his birthday, but it’s also the day my friends became parents!  So, I put together a framed calendar page for them…and another frame with a owl in it (because that is the theme of his nursery).  I also had a neighbor that gave birth to a boy recently, so I framed a calendar page for her too, check it out below!

I’m so excited for New Camper bowling!  We have such FABULOUS new campers coming to Canadensis this summer, and on Sunday it will be the first chance for them to meet each other.  This means that summer 2011 is coming quick!

At New Camper Bowling, we will be selling some of our Canadensis Cares “Care Wear”, which helps us raise money to send more kids to camp.  We have blankets, sweatshirts, baseball hats and much more.  Check out this super cute poster that Cara made about Care Wear, and be sure to check out the Care Wear table during New Camper Bowling!