Checkout the photo above…I’m on a home visit with Jordyn, a current 4th grader who will be attending Canadensis for the first time this summer as a Lower Inter!  I love going to visit new campers and getting to know them better, and on my home visit with Jordyn, she gave me a gracious tour of their home…just like I gave her a tour of camp when she came to visit this summer!

She has been going to West Hills Day Camp for 7 years, and she is super excited for overnight camp.  She loves to dance during the year, and is very dedicated – on the weekends her practices last for nearly 5 hours!  She is excited for all the activities at camp, especially gymnastics, glass fusion, ceramics, archery, swimming and water-skiing.  She is already a good snow-skier, so I’m sure she’ll have no trouble skiing around Lake Lenape this summer.  She is a big sister to her brother Darren, and she plans to write him (along with her parents!) many letters this summer.  She just had a birthday, and she got to celebrate it three times with different friends and family members…how cool?

Jordyn got an extra special ride in Aunt Terri’s Pink Golf Cart when she came up this summer, and she’s hoping to get a few more this summer!  She said that her friends would describe her as “funny, caring and a good friend” – and I think her bunk mates this summer will be lucky to have her!

My next stop was at Frankie’s house.  Frankie is a current 3rd grader that recently moved from NYC to the Northshore of LI.  I got to know Frankie when she came up to Canadensis last summer for the Tour & More Weekend.  She was at camp for one night, and if she could have stayed for the full summer, she would have been ready to move in!  Frankie will be a Junior this summer, and she already knows a ton about camp because her cousins Scott, Rebecca, Rachel & Jessica are part of the Canadensis family too.

Frankie was at Hebrew School when I got to her house, and she said it was “good”, so clearly she has more fun at Hebrew School than I used to!  We looked through the camp photo album, and she is so excited about the activities at camp this summer.   She can’t wait for woodworking, and she is excited to have a chance to climb on “The Summit” this summer.  The Summit is a huge inflatable toy on our lake that has a climbing wall on one side, and a slide on the other side – Frankie got to go Banana Boating during the Tour & More lake party, but she’s looking forward to being able to do even more.  As we were saying good night, she grabbed her bag FULL of books, which is her own personal traveling “library” – she loves to read.

When Frankie lived in Manhattan, she shared a bedroom with little sister Ruby, which is great preparation for when she shares a bunk with 8-10 other girls this summer!

This is a picture of little sister Ruby, who is currently in Kindergarten – but has tons of energy and excitement for camp!

A few nights prior, I also got to spend some time with Ally, a current 4th grader who will be a new Lower Inter this summer.   She has attended the Tour & More Weekend at camp in 2010, and she is so excited for overnight camp!  I’ve never met a more active girl in my life…she will play everything and try anything!  Some of her favorites include soccer, sports and biking…when I was at her house she was even asking her mom if she could play football!  Her biggest complaint about day camp was that there wasn’t much to do when she got home, so we’ll be keeping her super busy with the fun Evening Activities at Canadensis!  Everyone at camp has a lot of people that are looking out for them, but in Ally’s case she will also have a whole bunk of “big sisters”.  These girls are friends with her big sister, and they will be helping to make sure she has the best summer ever!

It was a fun night of home visits on Long Island, and on Sunday I gave a tour of camp to new campers Lauren & Morgan from Connecticut!  Next week I’ll be heading to Maryland & West Chester NY, and many more locations in the months ahead – looking forward to it!

Don’t these pictures just make you want to be at camp right now???

Hello Canadensis!

This blog comes to you after a few days away from the office as Jaime and I headed down to New Orleans after Thanksgiving for a mini vacation.  We flew out on Friday and just returned yesterday.  It was an amazing trip!  First off, I had never been to New Orleans before, so we had a lot planned for our 6 days in the Big Easy.

We had a great time doing a little bit of everything.  On Saturday, we took an air boat tour of the swamps and got up close to a few alligators.  That was just incredible!  I even got to hold a baby alligator.  On Sunday morning, we ate breakfast at Cafe DuMonde, which is famous for their beignets (French doughnuts…delicious) and then headed over to the Riverwalk for some shopping.  That evening, we went to City Park for the “Celebration of the Oaks,” which has an entire section of the park lit up for the holiday season.  Very cool to walk through at night.  On Monday, we took a 6-mile bike tour of the city, which really gave us some wonderful insight to this terrific city, from its culturally rich roots in jazz all the way through the rebuilding of the levees after Hurricane Katrina.  Later that day, we headed back to our hotel because it was also Gameday!  That’s right, one reason we chose New Orleans as our vacation destination was because my beloved New York Giants were playing the Saints on Monday Night Football.  And, for an added bonus, the Giants were actually staying in our hotel.  So, we waited in the lobby for an hour or so to see the players leaving for the game and wish them good luck.  Turns out, they needed more than luck.  Other highlights of our trip included seeing two New Orleans music musts in guitar player Walter “Wolfman” Washington and the Rebirth Brass Band, shopping down Magazine Street (a lot of cool little shops) and eating some great Nawlins cuisine from charbroiled oysters to smoked duck to cochon de lait (a fancy kind of pulled pork).  Here are some pictures from our trip…

Right before Thanksgiving, I got to continue a great tradition.  For the past five years on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, I meet up with legendary Canadensis Alumni Jared “Groundhog” Katzman for dinner.  Our dinners are always a good time as we talk about camp for most of it.  Groundhog is doing great in Boulder, CO as he teaches technology and is an IT Director at a private school in Colorado.  Groundhog is once again looking to take time off this summer to visit camp and see everyone.  Here is a pic…

If you didn’t see it yet on our Facebook page, the Summer 2011 Video Yearbook DVD has arrived!  We will be mailing it out shortly, but here is a look at the cover and DVD disc…

Speaking of Facebook, it’s great to see more than 1800 likes on the site.  How quickly can we get to 2000?  What do you want to see on our Facebook site?  Let us know!  And, don’t forget Jason Calabretta’s new camp project called “Your Three Words.”  Take a picture of yourself with the three words you use to describe Camp Canadensis.  That’s right!  Only three words.

Well, that’s all the blogging for now.  More next week.

Until then.  Have a great day!

-Brian