Hello Canadensis…

Technically, the Camp Canadensis Winter Office is closed for the Holiday Season. However, since I predominantly work out of my home office in New Jersey, it is “technically” hard to actually close your office. So, I guess you could call today a day when I just did an office pop in. There were a few calls I needed to make and e-mails I had to return as well as some items I just wanted to take care of before the break. Plus, I wanted to say hello to all of you in Canadensis Cyberspace!

I am sitting here in my office with our Camp Dog, Millie. For those that don’t know, Millie is the dog of our new Senior Boys Head Counselor Brian Stern. Brian is away on a trip to the Galapagos with Webmaster Jared “Groundhog” Katzman. Brian asked if I could watch Millie for a bit and I, of course, couldn’t refuse being with Millie. In fact, we just got back from a walk, which I think tuckered her out. She is now sleeping on my floor. Here is a pic…

I am taking care of Millie while Brian Stern is away on vacation. Here is Millie taking a nap on my floor as I type this.

By the way, I can’t stop talking about the movie Avatar, which I saw last night.  I loved it!  First, you have to see it in the Digital 3-D format because that was definitely half of what made it so amazing!  The new 3-D technology that was developed for this film is awesome!  There are definitely times when you truly feel like you are in the movie!  The story is a real good one, too.  When I left the theater, I was already thinking about when I might be able to see it again.  If you haven’t seen it yet, try to get to a theater over the holiday break as you will not be disappointed.

For all those that celebrate Christmas, I want to wish you and your families a wonderful holidays.  I also hope that Santa delivers all you had hoped for this year!  As for me, Christmas Day has always meant the same thing each year.  On this day, my friends and I see three movies and eat Chinese Food and Diner food.  That’s right, three movies!  On our movie agenda so far is The Blind Side and Up In The Air.  From what I have heard and read about so far, both movies should be really good.

What was good was getting to see more of our camp families this week.  On Tuesday, I got to meet new camper and 2010 Junior Girl Amanda Burger at their home in Fanwood, NJ.  Amanda is really excited for her upcoming summer at Canadensis and making a whole bunch of new friends and also can’t wait for all the activities in our Art Center like Glass Fusion, Ceramics and Art Shack.  She is also pumped for Gymnastics.  When at home, Amanda is involved in Musical Theater classes and she really likes to sing.  In fact, she even recently performed a song from Hairspray at the resort she was staying at while on a recent vacation.  She is also involved with ballet classes, piano lessons and soccer.  Here is a picture…

Me and 2010 Junior Girl Amanda Burger.

On Wednesday, I drove to Westchester County, NY to see some more campers.  First, I went to Scarsdale to see new camper and 2010 Lower Inter Girl Jordana Kaller.  These days, Jordana is busy with a number of different activities.  First, she is a flyer on her town’s cheerleading team which competes in several competitions each year.  In the next few weeks, she will begin rehearsals for her school play, The Sound of Music.  On top of that, her basketball season just recently got underway.  She also takes tennis lessons and goes ice skating.  In the spring, she will be playing baseball.  This summer, she can’t wait for all the stuff there is to do on Lake Lenape like the Banana Boat, Triple Dare and the Summit as well as activities such as Color War and Carnival Day!

While hanging out at Jordana’s house, we got a visit from 2010 Lower Inter Girl Sydney Goldman, who will be returning to camp for her second summer.  Sydney and Jordana live near each other and are even in the same class at school together.  Sydney told me all the stuff that she has been up to as well.  She is also a flyer on the cheerleading team and she, too, will be in the school production of The Sound of Music.  Sydney devotes a lot of her time to singing, acting and dancing as well as basketball and ice skating.  She recently got together with some of her bunkmates over the Thanksgiving break.  Me, Jordana and Sydney spent a lot of time talking about camp and even watched the 2009 Video Yearbook together.  Here is a shot of the three of us…

Me with 2010 Lower Inter Girls Jordana Kaller (left) and Sydney Goldman. We had a great day talking about camp, eating lunch and wathing camp videos.

After that, I made my way to Briarcliff Manor to see 2010 Upper Inter Girl Emily Kilman and her sister Samantha.  Emily, who will be joining us at camp for her second year, had a lot of great things to report in my visit.  In November, she starred as Willy Wonka in the local theater’s production of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.  In fact, Emily showed me a clip of the performance and I must say how impressed I was at how good she was up there on stage!  Way to go, Emily!  Currently, she is playing basketball and her team is off to a 4-0 start.  She was also really excited to tell me that her bunkmate Nicole Zibelman will be coming up this weekend to visit.  At the same time, she was excited that in a few weeks, she will see all her bunkmates at the upcoming reunion.  In the spring, Emily will be busy with Softball and Lacrosse.  In 2010, she was also thrilled to tell me that she will be seeing the show Wicked on Broadway twice!  This summer, she really can’t wait for the trip to Dorney Park and riding the Thunder Hawk rollercoaster as well as reuniting with the girls from 2009’s Bunk 5.  As for sister Samantha, who will be a future Canadensis camper in 2011, she has been busy, too.  She was also in Willy Wonka as a Sophie, a squirrel and an Oompa Loompa.  Samantha is also involved in a number of sports including soccer, lacrosse, basketball and baseball.  Here is a picture…

Me with 2010 Upper Inter Girl Emily Kilman (left) and future Canadensis camper Samantha Kilman.

Well, that’s all for now.  I hope everyone will have at least a few days off to enjoy time with family and friends.  As for me, I am really looking forward to Sunday and the final Giants game being played at Giants Stadium.  Having had season tickets for the past 12 years and even going to many games before that, I have had a lot of memorable afternoon and evenings in that stadium and a lot of great times with friends at our amazing tailgate.  As always, if you are at the game on Sunday, be sure to stop by Lot 5F for some good food and saying farewell to what my friends and I have appropriately called “The Mecca.”  Hopefully, the G-Men can also pull out a victory in their last game at the stadium, too, and keep their season alive.

The last Giants game at Giants Stadium will be played this Sunday.

Have a great remainder to your holiday weekend everyone!  Oh, Millie just woke up!  Say hello, Millie…

Millie wakes up from her nap.

Until next blog…Happy Holidays…Brian

Good Morning Everybody and it’s a great morning because today is the last day that the office is open until the New Year! On Friday, I am headed down to FL to spend some time with Robin and her family. While I am down there, I will be interviewing a nurse for our health center, meeting with new camper Leah Otner and her family, having dinner with Roy, Lisa, Danielle, and Matt Faden, seeing Harold our camp baker and his wife Phyllis, and also meeting with a few prospective families who are interested in Canadensis! So, it’s half vacation, half work but the work part is all fun work! Robin and I also have lots to do in terms of wedding planning, so my guess is we will have a busy week. But, the busy week is in FLORIDA in hopefully sunny, warm weather, so I have no complaints there!

We are really busy in the office planning all of these Canadensis get-togethers. From the Summer 2009 Reunion on Sunday, Jan 10 to the Sixers game on Wednesday, Jan 13 to the Knicks Game on Tuesday, Feb 9, plus our Canadensis Canteens on the Fly (dates to be announced soon!) we truly are everywhere and can’t wait to see all of our camp families at some or all of these events! If you are unsure of what I am talking about, email me for more info on these community events.

Otherwise, Aunt Terri took a trip up to camp to check on a few things and so I wanted to paste the pictures here. Hope you all have a great break from school and enjoy your vacations if you do go away! Please email in pictures as usual of you/your family in Canadensis shirts so that we can post them on the blog and include them in future Canadensis Couriers.

New ceiling in the dining hall!! The wires hanging down are for the brand-new sound system we will be installing!

New bear in the grove. See the little baby bear further down in the tree. There are more surprises in the grove as well!!

Well unlike usual storms, Philly got slammed with 23 inches of snow, while Canadensis got a measly 4 inches! But, I am not complaining, as the less snow at camp the better, as more work will get done without all the snow to contend with. For all of you that enjoyed the weekend snowstorm, please see the post below. If you played in the snow, had a snowball fight, made a snowman, etc. please email editor@canadensis.com with your picture of the fun in the snow! We will feature your pictures right here in future blogs as well as in the Canadensis Courier.

Sorry I didn’t blog for a few days. Between the holiday card being posted on the website as well as the latest edition of the Today Show, things have been busy! If you haven’t seen it already, please login to the Canadensis Media Room on www.canadensis.com and view the Today Show as well as the Holiday Card. The Holiday video features all of the administrative staff and a special surprise at the end…(OK, I will tell you…it’s Robin and me at the end in front of a bazillion menorahs at my mom’s house!) So, Happy Holidays to everyone and enjoy the videos.

This past Thursday was exciting in the office as staff member Peter Tarnoff stopped by before headed to Steamboat Springs, CO for a ski trip with his sister Liz (from ceramics) and friend Hannah Race (girl’s general counselor). I have spoken with Pete since arriving in Steamboat and he is having an amazing time snowboarding the slopes!! Pete dropped off his contract in our office, which means he will be back for yet another Summer!!

After his visit, I headed to Long Island to continue visiting camper homes. It took me over 3 hours and 45 minutes to drive there. Along the way, I passed 2 separate tractor trailers flipped over as well as a few accidents. The drive should have taken me 2 hours or so, it was horrible! I was over 1.5 hours late to my first appointment and I felt so bad. Fortunately, the families completely understood and took it in stride. My first stop was camper Logan Katz and her brother Brent Katz who will be a new camper this summer! Brent is really excited for camp, obviously. We watched a new promotional DVD that Jaycal had created for us and it is about 7 minutes of nonstop fun. From activities to evening activities to special event days to friendships, the video captures all that Canadensis has to offer. Brent is excited for pretty much all of the activities that Canadensis has to offer and is looking forward to a great summer at camp. Logan is doing well and is also excited to return to Canadensis for her third summer of fun. They are both doing well in school. While I was there, I also got to meet her younger brother, who is so cute and was wearing those little footie pajamas, which I wish they made for adults. But, that’s a story for another day.

Brent & Logan Katz and Me!!

After leaving the Katz house, I went to visit the Portnoy boys! Ben, Jacob, and Matthew Portnoy are all campers at Canadensis. I remember when Ben was coming for his first summer, with his younger brothers in tow at the Open House and how excited he was to join the Canadensis Family! Now he is in his fifth year and moving to Senior side. His younger brothers are both at camp, and they are a FUN family. For Chanukah, they received a number of Wii games, which they showed me, including Tony Hawk (no I didn’t attempt to skateboard), High School Musical Sing Along (no I didn’t sing HSM, but I was secretly wanting to – JUST KIDDING!), and many more! Matthew is going to be Danny in Grease (the main lead character) and practiced some of his lines with me! He knows all of the choreography as well, and I am sure he will do an amazing job…just don’t break a leg literally Matthew as that wouldn’t be fun at camp!

Here is Matt Portnoy with his ziptie chain (something which we could really use at camp!)

After showing me the Wii games and Matthew singing his lines, I checked out their rooms, which are awesome. Of course they are great rooms, but what makes them awesome is that they have Canadensis stuff all over each of them!

Me and The Portnoy Boys!

Jacob's bunk picture displayed prominently on his wall

A picture displayed from Lauren Gadol's Bat Mitzvah, with Aunt Terri on the left!

Friday was a pretty normal day in the office! Counselor Erica Carey stopped by for lunch and to discuss the COALS Program. COALS is the Canadensis Outdoor Adventure Living Skills Program at Canadensis. Erica will be once again returning as a COALS staff member and has great improvements for this already successful program, including new and fun activities to offer during the COALS period and awesome enhancements to the overnight program! It was great to see her and then head out around 6PM for a weekend of SNOW! Just before leaving, this email was sent out. If anyone wants to join in the fun at the Sixers Game/Matisyahu concert, please email me at eric@canadensis.com. We have had an overwhelming response between 6PM Friday night and today, Sunday. Tickets are limited, so be sure to email me if you want to join Canadensis for this exciting event.

Come join us at a Philadelphia 76ers game vs. the New York Knicks and a postgame concert featuring Matisyahu on January 13, 2010 at the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia! The Sixers will be celebrating Jewish Heritage Night and are offering discounted tickets of $25.00 per person. Our directors and winter office staff will be there cheering on the Sixers or the Knicks (some of us are from Philly and some from NJ/NY!). We would love for our camp families to come join us, see your camp friends, and enjoy a basketball game/concert. Be sure to wear your Canadensis shirts and show off your Canadensis pride!

We have reserved a section at Center Court in the Mezzanine for Camp Canadensis so that we can all sit together. After the game, we will all go down to the Lower Level and enjoy a postgame concert featuring Grammy nominated recording artist Matisyahu. There will be special booths and food stands setup on the concourse and it is sure to be a fun event! In addition to the game and concert, with this special $25 ticket deal you will receive a Sixers t-shirt in Hebrew! For more details, see the attached PDF flyer.

If you are interested in attending, please email eric@canadensis.com with the number of tickets you would like for your family and we will reserve seats for you. Seating is limited, so please respond ASAP.

We hope to see as many camp families as possible!

And finally, if you made it this far in the post, KUDOS TO YOU! This afternoon, a few of us camp staff people (11 to be exact!) got together for lunch at CHAMPPS in King of Prussia. It’s always fun seeing camp people and today was an absolute blast. Thanks to all who came out for lunch. Afterward, I stopped by the Waxman/Cook family home for a quick impromptu visit with campers Matt Cook and Rachel Hannah Cook! See the picture below!

Rob Cook (their dad) said something hilarious for us to chuckle like this!

That’s all for now. Hope to see alot of you in the coming weeks at the Summer 2009 Reunion and the Sixers Game/Matisyahu Concert!!!

Hey Canadensis,

I hope everyone is enjoying the SNOW STORM we are getting right now! Send in your snow pictures to editor@canadensis.com and we’ll post them on the blog! If anybody wants to make a Canadensis Snowman take a picture and send it!!! Be creative, have fun and stay warm!!

The office has been WILD this week. I think the holiday spirit has made everyone a bit more excited than usual. Earlier this week I went out to dinner with Karen Sharir, Matt Unger, Eric Forti, and Dani Corradetti in Philly. We had a delicious Italian dinner, and I don’t think I need to tell you what we talked about the whole time… CAMP!

Today was an especially wonderful Friday because we got a visit from one of my very best buddies, Erica Carey! Erica and I go way back, for those of you who don’t know, we were co-counselors in 2007 (Shout out to our girls, Charley, Olivia, Dani, and Carly!), and in 2006 Erica was Lieutenant and I was Counselor Captain of BLUE GREASED LIGHTNIN’ (Karen, Feigin, and Pete – love you guys!). We all went out to lunch together and got to hear all about Erica’s fabulous semester abroad, traveling from country to country, and meeting so many influential scholars. We did lots and lots of laughing (Unger and Forti are ALWAYS making me giggle) and it was SO good to spend time with her!

I hope everyone’s ready for a snowy weekend! Stay inside, keep warm, and have fun!!!

Hello Canadensis…

Last week, we made the announcement that our new Boys Head Counselors for Summer 2010 will Brian Stern for Senior Boys and Will Armon for Lower Boys.  And whereas we are excited for Brian and Will in these new roles and welcome them, it also means that some staff will not be back for Summer 2010.  After eight summers at camp, Ken Ricken will not be returning to camp.  Ken e-mailed me a few weeks ago and asked if he could guest blog so that he could say goodbye to everyone.  I thought this was a terrific idea.  So, here is Ken:

Ken with Audrey, Dan and Greg. All four received their 8-year jackets in Summer '09. Thanks for everything Ken!

Hello all. Sorry I didn’t post yesterday, but I along with Aunt Terri left the office in the afternoon to drive up to north Jersey and have dinner with an alumnus and her son. Heidi Skolnick and her son Bradley are good friends of Canadensis. The past 2 summers they have come to visit and hopefully Bradley will be a camper real soon! We went to a great Italian restaurant in Englewood and enjoyed great conversation. Heidi is a Today Show Guest from time to time on her topic of expertise- nutrition. She is also in the process of writing a book, so she is quite busy. As many of you know, I have an affinity for the Today Show and so we talked about some of the ins and outs of the show, which of course I absolutely love to hear.

When we got back last night to the Plymouth Meeting Office around 8:45PM, I had to run in to use the bathroom. We have an alarm system and since I never open in the morning (our office opens at 8AM, and I start at 9AM!), I have never had to turn off the alarm. Well, what a disaster that was and after 5 minutes of trying to push random buttons (yes I knew the correct code), I sort of set off the alarm, or tripped it, and felt horrible. I waited a little while and the police didn’t show up, so I went to Shoprite to do some food shopping and I guess when I got back, I missed the police. Oh well…it got some laughs and chuckles this morning from the others in our office!

Today was a great day! Matt and Cara sent out postcards to some of our prospective families and we had some great laughs throughout the process. Then Aunt Terri came with an afternoon snack for each of us- McDonald’s diet coke floats. She invented it after finding out from Robin that the ice cream is “supposedly” only 3 weight watcher points, including the cone. So, if we put it in diet coke, maybe it’s only 2? I have to admit, it was great tasting, except for the ice they stuck in there! So, go to McDonalds, order a coke float, but make sure you specify no ice. They may look at you like you have 10 heads, but tell them to fill the cup halfway with soda and then put ice cream on top. It’s good, I promise.

Terri also replaced the “stolen/missing” peanut butter filled candy cane today, since Matt went to camp yesterday and picked up more. Except, I opened my mouth and told Robin about the candy cane and once again, there goes mine. Robin now wants it and there is me without my PB filled candy cane…poor ME, haha.

Tonight, I went to see the Burstein Family (Lindsey and Michael) and their dad Billy. Some of you may recall Dr. Burstein who was the camp doctor the week after visiting day. Billy is also an alumni of Canadensis and it was great to catch up with them. The kids are doing great and when asked are you returning to camp, the answer was YES! They loved the wristbands I dropped off and will hopefully be at the reunion.

Next, I went to see the Steinman Family. Jack and Max are both doing great. Max will be coming to camp for the first time (lower inter boy) and is into sports, arts and crafts a little, some water activities, you get the point! He is definitely an all-around kind of boy, but very into soccer. He currently plays on a travel Philly Soccer team and is looking forward to playing on the soccer intercamp team representing Canadensis! I had a great time seeing both of them and talking “camp.”

Tomorrow is actually a quiet day (as of now) and I will be hopefully be coming home and cooking dinner, after being on the road the last 2 nights! Thursday, I am headed out to L.I. again to see a few families. If you want me to stop by Thursday, or anytime, email me- eric@canadensis.com and I will try my best. I would love to drop in and say hello!!

Sorry no pictures today, but hopefully I will remember that my cell phone which does everything under the sun, also has a camera on it and I should USE it to take pics! On a final note, Sam Ginsburg is back in town for a month, so I am excited and looking forward to seeing him soon. While I am doing shout-outs, Will Armon (Lower boys HC and YES HE IS STILL MY CO-ANCHOR ON TODAY!!!) will be here in less than a month for our winter leadership meeting/reunion weekend! I can’t wait to see him and all of you!!!!