Alix working hard during Rope Burn!

Name: Alix Steerman
Years at Camp: 8
Hobbies When You’re at Home: sports, art and hanging out with friends!
Secret Talent: Some people know me for my unique dance moves.
Favorite Camp Activity: Soccer, because who doesn’t love those rare occasions when you’re playing world cup after its rained and you go to kick the ball but wipeout instead.
Funny Camp Memory: My bunk forced me to be the star of our MTV night, multiple times, they were both equally embarrassing.
Advice for a First Time Camper: Don’t be nervous! Your camp friends will become your sisters/brothers no matter how weird they seem at first.
Something You Learned at Camp: Always be sure to photo bomb camp mom’s pictures, they make for some great entertainment for when you’re home over the winter.
I never leave for camp without my… color war face paint because one of the best parts of color war is going all out and painting your whole face.
If I could have any job in the world it would be… to be a lawyer.
My favorite place I’ve traveled is… the little shed under the dining hall where you can get toilet paper, if you’re lucky you can find some magnificent things in there.
One thing my campers will learn about me is… I love to have fun! Also I give great piggy back rides, just ask Lauren Grama.
One fun fact about me is… in 4th grade I watched the Scripps Spelling Bee and went out and bought a dictionary and started studying the words as if I was going to compete in the next one, luckily that phase only lasted a few days.

Name: Melissa Goldstein  

Years at Camp: 7 years!

Hobbies When You’re at Home: Hanging out with my friends and I am in a lot of clubs for school.

Secret Talent: I used to be a really good singer. I had a solo in chorus once.  I wish I could still sing like that but I can’t! But that won’t stop me from doing Canadensis Acapella.

Favorite Camp Activity: Cooking and Zumba             

Funny Camp Memory: Last summer I was at the hydration station with Carly Lieberman and there wasn’t a lot of ice left so she leaned all the way into the machine and as she was getting ice a new layer of ice fell on her head! It was the funniest thing!

Advice for a First Time Camper: I know this is what everyone will tell you but you really have to go into everything with an open mind and try everything.  You never know what you like unless you try it and you will never be able to do most of these things anywhere else but camp so don’t be afraid to try new things!

Something You Learned at Camp: (that you couldn’t learn anywhere else) The friendships that you create in camp will last a lifetime.  The bonds that are formed with your bunkmates and other friends in camp will never be broken and camp friends are the best friends!

I never leave for camp without my… Color war stuff!

If I could have any job in the world it would be…Being able to work with celebrities and going shopping with them.

My favorite place I’ve traveled is… China!

One thing my campers will learn about me is… I love to have fun and I always try to make the best out of every situation!

One fun fact about me is… I go to the same high school that Amanda Miller went to!

Melissa stops to catch up with her sister, Ally, at fruit on the fly!

Last weekend was the 10-mile race I’ve been training for, and Carli Forti’s 1st Birthday Party!  It was great, and next weekend (Brian’s Camp Wedding!) is going to be awesome too!  I wanted to share some photos, and let you know to expect the Camp Canadensis Social Media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Blogs) to be all abuzz with updates from Brian & Jaime’s celebration soon!

My friends Katie & Jay came into Philly for the Broad Street Run.  Jay works at Camp KenMont/KenWood in Connecticut, and in the picture above Katie and I are both rocking our camp swag!  She’s an amazing runner, former collegiate athlete and it was incredible to have her expertise and advise right before and after the 10-Mile Broad Street Run.  Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would finish the race in under 2 hours, but I did it in 1:57:31 – a major accomplishment for a novice runner like myself.  I set a goal, and it felt great to achieve it!  I hope many of you start thinking about goals you want to achieve at camp this summer, anything is possible!There were 40,000 runners, and it was a perfectly beautiful day in Philly.  It turns out that after the run, the picture you see above of me at the finish line was randomly picked and used in a Philly Magazine blog.  My friend spotted it and shared it with me, so cool!  Maybe it’s because they liked my Camp Canadensis t-shirt?  (Of course I had to run with something to show my Canadensis spirit!!)

There wasn’t much time to rest after the race, because a year ago Miss Carli Forti was born!  It was time to celebrate this amazing little girl that has brought so much love and fun into the world!  She had a great party with music, games, and of course cake!  I got crafty and made her the birthday card above, it’s actually a “pop-up” card, and when you open it a birthday cake springs out!  Just a reminder, you can learn how to make awesome cards and envelopes like this by signing up for the Stationery Making elective!  (Keep an eye out for a blog post coming soon with a programming preview of all the new stuff at camp to try!)

There were so many camp friends at the party!  In the picture above is Sam, Dani, Cara and JCal.  But, I’m not the only one who got to see camp friends this weekend…

There was a camp friends gathering in NYC, and I got some adorable photos that I wanted to share with you!  Bailey, Julie and Jordan are all in 4th grade, and are going to be Lower Inter Girls at camp this summer.  They enjoyed spending time together, and it looks like they got to enjoy some milkshakes and Baked By Melissa cupcakes…could there be anything better than camp friends and sweet treats?

I am “burning the midnight oil” sitting in my office at camp. Matt Unger is in the Operations Office as well. It’s dark out (the area lights aren’t all on yet) and there are no basketballs banging into my office wall. I also don’t hear the CIT’s making phone calls home, the health center isn’t calling my desk to remind campers of bedtime meds, and the Upper Seniors aren’t outside walking back from the Senior Canteen! Can you tell I am feeling nostalgic and miss all of you? Head Chef David arrived at camp today and we just spent several hours talking about _____ (CAMP of course)! Additional kitchen staff arrive tomorrow and our first wave of precamp staff arrive Wednesday! Wow, where did the time go?

Camp itself looks great! We have been very busy with all of our winter projects and can’t wait to show them off to all of you. The paving project has been completed and the roads have never looked better! Might sound a little silly, but it’s definitely noticeable in front of the HQ and Dining Hall areas. Bob is putting the finishing touches on new landscaping to the right of the dining hall, leading down towards the amphitheater. Jimmy is finishing up the cabins in girls camp and they look awesome. Down by the lake, I just ordered 2 trucks full of sand! At the pool, the waterslides are in the process of being installed. Both blue and yellow tubes are up and we are just waiting for the stairs to get attached. Really, really impressive. A lot of our athletic courts and fields have been getting a facelift and we can’t wait for you to see it!

This weekend Carli turns 1! Can you believe it? Last summer she was carried all around camp…this summer she will be crawling through camp! It’s impossible to “baby proof” the amphitheatre steps, so we are going to rely on all of you to help Carli up and down the stairs this summer. Robin and I are so excited to reintroduce her to all of her brothers and sisters up here at camp.

Carli says hi!

Hope everyone is doing well and counting the days until camp…I know I am!

On a recent sunny day, Eric and I got to visit a great new family in Dresher, PA with two siblings heading to Camp Canadensis for the first time this summer!  We had so much to learn about this awesome brother/sister duo, it took two of us!  Here’s what you need to know about these new campers:

Landon is a current 3rd grader, who will be an Upper Junior Boy this summer.  He’s a big fan of the Philly sports teams, so expect to hear him cheering loudly at Morning Line Up if the Phillies are winning!  He not only likes to watch sports, but he likes to play them too.  He’s on a travel baseball team, plays hockey, and pretty much likes every sport there is!  He knows how to roller blade, so maybe he’ll join our CHL Roller Hockey league this summer!  We talked a bit about food, and he was excited to know we serve lox & bagels every Sunday morning.  We can’t wait for him to try our Canadensis hamburgers, and let us know if they are even better than his favorite one from Texas Roadhouse!  He’s already thinking about which sweet treats he’ll want from the canteen, and he can’t wait for Hershey’s bars!  He plans to write lots of letters home, and to friends at other camps – and he will definitely be excited for the inter-camp games this summer!  His favorite color is blue, so hopefully he is on the blue team when Color War breaks this year!

Rayla is a current 1st grader, and she will be a Lower Junior Girl this summer.  She’s full of energy and ready for the nonstop action at camp!  While we were over she showed off her gymnastics skills with tumbles and splits – we’ll make sure she keeps practicing in our gymnastics facility this summer.  She is really silly, and fun!  She sang us a pig song, and did a dance she learned from her Kindergarten play…maybe she’ll try out for our camp show this summer?   She’s very comfortable on stage, and even did a gymnastics performance in her school talent show.  She loves yogurt and was happy to hear we have it on our breakfast bar every morning – and she loves cookies & cream ice cream so she’ll try to be the cleanest bunk this summer and win ice cream parties!  She is really excited for the new waterslides at camp (they are being put up right now, and they are HUGE!).  Before we left, she showed off her t-shirt folding skills, and did a great job!

I also spent some time with Jordyn, a current 4th grader who will be a Lower Inter Girl, returning to camp for summer #2!  She lives in Lafayette Hill, PA and she’s about the happiest person you will ever meet!  Here’s what Jordyn’s been up to this year:

She’s been super busy on the weekends.  In just one weekend she played in a soccer game, a softball game, went to a swim party, AND a party at Benihana -she also went to Hebrew School a few dozen other things!  She is a super picky eater, but tried and liked new things at camp last year, like strawberries and grapes.  She is also one of our Gluten Free campers, and if you were lucky enough to stop by her bunk of Visiting Day last summer, you would have been able to enjoy the amazingly yummy GF cookie cake her mom made, it was huge!  She showed me how to play a new game called “stack the states”, which was super cool because I love geography!  (Really…I really love US geography!)

Name: Steven Shoemaker

Years at Camp: 4

 Hobbies When You’re at Home: Knitting, Reading, and playing Go Fish!

 Secret Talent: It’s a Mystery!

 Favorite Camp Activity: Hiking!

 Funny Camp Memory: Too many to say but I guess Upper Senior summer when I “ accidentally” pushed Geo and Jesse in the lake!

 Advice for a First Time Camper: Be yourself that’s all there it to it!

 Something You Learned at Camp:  How to sing Canacapella!

 I never leave for camp without my… Binky!?

 If I could have any job in the world it would be… Ha, me getting a job, good one!

 My favorite place I’ve traveled is… Israel.

 One thing my campers will learn about me is… I will always make them laugh!

Name: Matthew Siegel
Years at Camp: 4
Hobbies When You’re at Home: Camp and hanging with friends
Secret Talent: I can fly
Favorite Camp Activity: Everything
Advice for a First Time Camper: Try all activities at camp
Something You Learned at Camp: How to sleep without air conditioning
I never leave for camp without my… Phone
If I could have any job in the world it would be… Soccer player
My favorite place I’ve traveled is… Haiti
One thing my campers will learn about me is…  I like to play sports
One fun fact about me is… I dragged my brother to sleep away camp with me when I was 8 and my brother was 12

Check out the adorable photo above…it’s from the Tour & More in the summer 2011.  That was the first time Kylie got to spend a night at camp, and she cannot wait to join us for the full summer in 2013!  Kylie is now a current 3rd grader, and will be a Junior Girl at camp this summer.  She lives in Plymouth Meeting, PA and here’s what you need to know about this awesome new camper…

• She has tons of energy, she was doing cartwheels and splits in the house, but she doesn’t even do gymnastics as an after school activity!
• She does a TON of dancing after school, it’s her favorite thing to do!  She goes to dance class three days a week, and she is on a dance competition team.
• She’s pumped for the inter-camp dance competitions this summer.  We are planning to host one at our camp, and travel to another camp as well!
• She hopes to be on the blue team during Color War…maybe she knows the blue team has won for the past two years?
• For her electives, she will probably choose to do gymnastics, dance and glass fusion…the last will be a mystery!
• She’s going to stay in the dance elective for the entire summer and change the other two.  I’ll see her in the programming office each week and help her swap her schedule!
• Kylie also takes piano lessons and goes to Hebrew School, she’s busy almost every night!
• She’s working on riding her bike before camp, she’ll be ready to hit our trails by June!
• Her favorite food is chocolate!  She likes chocolate covered everything!!  She got to try cooking when she was at camp two years ago, and can’t wait to go back!
• Just like me, she doesn’t like to fly…we talked about how it’s scary, but worth it when you get to sit on the beach in Florida!
• She loves Justin Bieber!
• She got to decorate her room (except the paint color…it’s blue but she’d like it to be aqua!), and she hung up all these cool vinyl stickers.  I can’t wait to see what she does with her camp bunk.
• At Kylie’s house they have “Salad Sunday” where the whole family gets to create their own salad from a big selection of veggies. She’s going to help teach her bunk mates how to eat and enjoy lots of salad bar items!
• She wants to have really nice counselors this summer, and we can guarantee that!

My next stop was across the street…Kylie & Ashton live on the same block!!  Ashton is a current 2nd grader, and will be a Lower Junior Boy at camp this summer.  He got a chance to spend the night at camp and do a ton of activities last summer when he came up for the Tour & More weekend (see the photo above).  He lives in Plymouth Meeting, PA and here’s what you need to know about this great new camper…

• He loves the game  Tchoukball!  Have you ever heard of it??  It’s something he learned to play at school, and it’s a really awesome.  It’s sort of like handball, and you can learn more about it here – maybe we’ll play at camp?!

• He takes a trip to the Outer Banks with his family every year.  He loves to hang out on the beach, dig huge holes and then wait for it to be filled up by the ocean, like a swimming pool.
• He loves to play sports, and he’s very athletic.
• He also likes cheering for the Philadelphia sports teams, so expect to see a smile on his face when the Phillies winning scores are announced at morning line-up this summer!
• One of his favorite sports he learned at day camp was archery.  He even has his own bow now, and knows how to safely use it (ie, not in his driveway!).  He can’t wait to do archery at camp, and will probably choose it as an elective.
• Ashton has an indoor Ping Pong table in the house, he is the ping pong champ of his family!
• He’d done a few campouts before, a few years ago a tradition was started in his backyard.  He camped out, made s’mores with his dad and had lots of friends come over.  Now they do it every year and call it “Occupy Ashton”.
• Truth be told, he’s not excited for MTV night (our bunk vs bunk music video evening activity) because he doesn’t like to sing and dance…but it’s so popular at camp, maybe he’ll like it?!
• He definitely plans to sign up for basketball elective, and spend time on the court during free play.
• He’s always been on the gold team for Color War at his day camp, so he wants to be on the blue team this year!
• He sometimes goes by the name “Ash”, and he does really well in school.

I also got to hang out with Ashton’s older brother Max, who is a current 5th grader and will be an Upper Inter Boy this summer.  It will be his third year at camp, and he’s been seeing a lot of his bunk this year, including recently at a sleepover party.  He specifically wore a Camp Canadensis shirt for his visit…he loves camp!  He also goes by the nickname “Witty”, and he told me we need to plan a good overnight in 2013 for the Upper Inter Boys, unfortunately they’ve had bad weather two years in a row!

Over in Livingston, NJ, I got to spend some time with Amanda, a current 2nd grader who will be a Lower Junior Girl at camp.  She also did the Tour & More Weekend at camp last year (photo above), and .  Here’s what you need to know about this fun new addition to camp…

• Her favorite TV shows are Dance Moms and Cupcake Wars – she can’t wait to have her room redone so she can get a TV in there!
• She goes to dance classes once a week.  If she has enough time, she would like to be on the competition team like her big sister.
• She is super busy with soccer!  She loves that sport, and she had even played a game outside the day before I came over (it had been realllly cold!)!
• I went over to visit on a snowy day in March, and she told me about the storm when they lost power and the whole family slept downstairs in the basement – she said it was sorta fun to camp out down there together!
• Her favorite ice cream flavor is coconut.  She had it once when she went to Mexico on a family vacation.  She hopes they will have it at the Casino Movie theater – it’s a trip that every Canadensis camper goes on, and they have sooooo many ice cream flavors to choose from!
• Her second favorite ice cream is mint chocolate chip (they’ll definitely have that!).
• Her soccer team name is the “Lady Leopards”.
• She gets to sleep in a Blue and Gold room every night at home!  The ceiling is painted like the sky, and it helps her fall asleep.
• She’s excited for the overnight camping trip!
• Amanda has never gone on a upside down roller coaster before, but she can’t wait to try it at Dorney Park!
• She got to do cooking as her elective during Tour & More last summer.  This year, she is going to choose gymnastics and maybe tennis as electives.
• She told me she didn’t like vegetables at all…but it turns out she does like carrots and broccoli…and that’s a really good start!
• For Halloween this year, she dressed up as a lady from “Monster High”.  Because of the Sandy Storm, they didn’t get to go house to house, but they went car to car and called in “trunk or treating” – very creative!
• She had a couple of requests for the summer: she wanted to make sure her counselors would all be girls (yes!), that they all be nice (yes!) and she hopes she can have a middle bed so she can have friends on each side.
• Amanda is both is a little sister and a big sister – baby Sloan (not pictured) and her like to do gymnastics together.

Her older sister Ashley is currently in 5th grade and will be an Upper Inter Girl this summer.  It will be her second season at camp and we can’t wait to have her back!  She has been really busy at school…I could barely tear her away from her homework!  She told me a little bit about her dance classes, and about the camp friends she’s been seeing at sleepovers.

February and March were full of trips, but now that it’s April I’m getting to spend some quality time back home in Philly – I love Philly in the Spring!!  I’ve been training the Broad Street 10-mile run on May 5th, it’s the largest 10-mile run in the country, more than 40,000 runners!!  I’ll be wearing a Camp Canadensis shirt, so maybe I’ll find some camp alumni along the way.  The picture below was taken a few weeks ago in Rittenhouse Square, one of the best parks in Philly.  Annie (the dog) and I loved hanging out with camp friends!

2012 Staff Members: Rachel Waxman (Evening Activities), Mel Taube (Photography) and Sam Ginsburg (Operations/Annie’s favorite baby sitter)

One of the highlights of the camp “off season” each year is the American Camp Association Tri-State Conference in nearby Atlantic City.  There are so many wonderful aspects to this large gathering of camp professionals.  We get to attend courses that help make each summer better and better – plus we find great resources in the exhibit hall!  Here are some photos from Tri-State 2013…

Jim Cain is my favorite presenter and Author, Eric won his new book of games by spinning a wheel!

How fun is this lycra tube??  A fun idea for small group games from Jim Cain!

For the first time this year, they offered an early morning 5K run on the Atlantic City Boardwalk.  It was good training for my 10-mile run!  Dave came to cheer me on despite the early start time and freezing temps!

We start planning out the gear and shirts we are going to order for camp each year…we love working with Kenn at Mr Dees Tees, and seeing the new shirt colors and designs!

A trip to London to hire International Staff took me a lot further from home, but it was a wonderful trip!  We travel with Camp America, and we are one of nearly 40 camps that participate in a “job fair”.  In one day, we have the chance to meet nearly 800 staff members – my mission is to find the best ones, and I’m so excited for you to meet them this summer!

Shane Dell and Bethany Freer are returning UK Staff Members, they were amazing help at the job fair, and we can’t wait to have them back at camp in 2013!!Former Group Leader, Lauren Berry is from Australia, but has been living in London for the past two years…it was SO wonderful seeing some of London with her!Even though this was my 5th trip to London, I’ll never get tired of taking “cheesy” London pictures with my friend Julie.