Thanksgiving has finally arrived! For those of you who follow my blog, you know how I look forward to all the festivities surrounding Thanksgiving, and my belief that once it arrives life should be nothing but nonstop celebrations until after the Camp Reunion in January. Dani and I stayed up late last night baking cookies for our Concert Choir Party tonight, so here’s a few pictures from our funny night:

Dani was napping, but Leo said "Wake Up!"

Once he got her awake, Leo insisted on learning how to make cookies...

This was only ONE set of cookies... we made over 200!

We still have lots to do before the party tonight, but I’ll be sure to post some pictures next week. Although I have a firm stance on NOT leaving my house on Black Friday (too crazy for me!) I will venture out to have dinner with some of my favorite camp friends who are home from college for Thanksgiving Break! This is the longest we have gone without some sort of camp dinner so it’s easy to see how excited we are to see each other. We might even play some Mah Jongg…

It was great seeing so many of you at Canteen on the Fly! For those of you who missed out, here’s a look at the cool tee shirts you saw me, Pam, Robin, and Aunt Terri wearing:

We Love Ice Cream!

I made mine on this cool Peace Sign Tee, while Pam’s got printed on a neat two tone tie dyed shirt. Robin went with a classic gray tee, and Aunt Terri chose a lovely white long sleeved swing tee. We looked pretty awesome, if I do day so myself…

…anyways, I hope everyone has a happy and healthy Thanksgiving, surrounded by all the family (and camp friends!) you love.

What a weekend I had! It started Saturday with our final 3 Canteen on the Fly events. We traveled to Goodnoe Farm in Buck’s County, Pennsylvania, Ray’s Diner in Plymouth Meeting and to TCBY in Cherry Hill, NJ. It was a great day and a lot of fun seeing new and returning campers come out for some ICE CREAM!

After Canteen on the Fly we all headed over to Justin Liebman’s house where BUNK 6 was having a Reunion. Below are a bunch of photos from their reunion. They even had their own t-shirts made up for the Reunion! It was great seeing all the boys of Bunk 6! Shout out to Andy, Sam, Ryan, Justin, Eric, Zach, Jonathan and Bradley!

Then on Sunday, Myself and Matt Unger  headed down to our nations capital, Washington DC to visit JCal and Sam Ginsburg. We had such a great day exploring the city and eating! Please watch the new Today Show from November 21st if you haven’t already to hear more about our trip and Canteen on the Fly.

Sorry for the short post but more coming soon.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

-Eric

Check out this cool Time-Lapse video shot from the tech booth the day of the Color War Sing!

Tomorrow the Camp Canadensis winter office will be attending a full day seminar, so I won’t be able to stick to my usual Wednesday blogging routine!  I just wanted to say a quick “hello” to all my faithful readers (if there are any…) and tell you that I’ll be back with an awesome blog post next Wednesday right before Thanksgiving!

To hold you over until then, enjoy this photo from Canteen on the Fly last weekend!  It was INCREDIBLE to see so many new and old Canadensis families, and we are looking to part two this Saturday in Bucks County, Norristown and Cherry Hill!

Here is a photo of me, Cara and Robin rocking our ADORABLE Canteen on the Fly shirts that Cara made!!  Yes, she made them using the screen printing machine from the art room at camp – super impressive!

Just a few days ago I was sitting at the table with my mom and looking over our calendars for the rest of the year and realizing just how quickly the rest of this year is going to speed past. Dani’s fall drama, Witness for the Prosecution, is only two weeks away from opening night, I’ve got weekends filled with glorious Canteen on the Fly events, and my mom’s QVC schedule will have her up at all hours of the day and night! Once again hitting the family calendar is the Concert Choir Thanksgiving Eve party, for which we spent some time last night starting to discuss the details, which may involve me spending two days baking dozens of cookies… anyone want to come over and pretend like we’re cooking at camp?

We realized that this past weekend would be the ONLY weekend between now and the end of the year when one of us didn’t already have plans. So, we made the official decision to take our weekend of opportunity and make the trek up to Syracuse University, to see camp friends and check out the campus. The drive was only about 4 hours and we armed ourselves with extra large coffees and snack bars in the car. When we finally arrived in Syracuse we were greeted by a very excited Rebecca Waxman, who graciously let us stay with her for the evening! We unloaded our duffels into her super cute dorm room, and quickly got ready to go out to dinner. We returned to the parking lot as Rachel Dender and Brittany Kahane jumped out of the car to greet us. After lots of hugs we loaded our cars and drove off in to town. We had a reservation for Habachi and had a delightful time snacking on sushi appetizers as our entrees were grilled right in front of us.

Girls Night Out in 'Cuse

After dinner we went to the Carousel Mall to see “Due Date”. The Carousel Mall is the SAME mall we visited while on the Super Senior/CIT College Tour this summer. As soon as we stepped inside I was overwhelmed with memories from the trip, specifically the hours we spent in that very mall, searching for the perfect gift for our “Bigs” or “Littles”. We had great seats for the movie, and it was quite funny, although by the time it was over I was definitely exhausted! We drove back to campus, parked my car, and took off on foot to explore the campus.

Posing!

Once our fabulous walking tour commenced it was definitely time for bed! We rolled out our sleepover mats (some very famous Camp Celebs have enjoyed the infamous sleeping mats when visiting our family!) and had long life chats until we fell asleep. In the morning we woke up and met Brittany for breakfast in the dining hall. The girls told us all about school and their big plans for the rest of the semester, and we also made some plans to get together over breaks, and perhaps take a trip to visit some other camp friends!

Yum Yum!

Often times we hear from prospective families who learned about Camp Canadensis because they have family members that have already attended camp, and that got me thinking…

I was lucky enough to grow up at an overnight camp with my sister and some of my cousins, and by going to camp together, we became more than family…we became camp friends.  We knew the same color war songs, laughed at the same camp jokes, and yes…sometimes we even shared some of our contraband candy that had been sneaked in a letter from home.  Instead of my parents only getting three phone calls home, they would strategically plan our phone calls so that they were hearing from me or my sister almost every week!  (My phone calls were never that great because whenever I’d pick up the phone I immediately had to use the bathroom, but that’s a story for another time…)

For relatives that live miles apart, attending the same sleepaway camp is also a way to bring families together.  Visiting Day in July can turn into a family reunion picnic on our beautiful Lake Lenape!  Moms, Dads, Aunts, Uncles, Grandparents and younger siblings all in attendance.  In 2009, I had one of the best weekends of my life when I threw a family reunion at camp, after the summer had ended.  I’m lucky that my extended family is fun bunch of people, and they were all excited for the opportunity to eat camp food, make s’mores, play sports and tie-dye!

Below is a photo of me with some of my female cousins at the Family Reunion campfire…

Just in case any of them read this and don’t like the photo, I thought I’d include this next photo too because they are all beautiful women who grew up loving their overnight camp experience…

These next few photos were taken during Visiting Day at camp in 2010, and are just some of the many wonderful familes we have at Camp Canadensis.

Right around this time last year, I moved onto the  small block in Center-City Philadelphia where I live.  My home needed a lot of renovation, but before that got started – I threw a party and had my friends over to help me demolish the place.  Guests included camp celebrities like Karen Sharir, Matt Unger (Munger) and Eric Forti.   Since the kitchen was getting completely ripped out, we had some fun spray painting the walls with Canadensis spirit!

Just in case you are wondering…my kitchen looks more like this now…

On my small little block, I have the nicest neighbors!  One of my neighbors hosts a pumpkin carving contest every Halloween…and I found out about it too late last year, so I only had time to carve an apple!  This year, I decided to take it seriously -but this was my first time carving a pumpkin! Maybe I had carved a pumpkin when I was younger – but it probably happened while I was in the single digits (meaning under age 10) and I barely remember it!

On the day of the contest, I went to Johnson’s Farm in Medford, NJ (it is a seriously adorable “pick your own farm” – it might end up being a Camp Canadensis field trip location in the future!) and I picked out a pumpkin…but I still didn’t have a design idea!  After getting it home, I started to clean it up and scoop out the insides – which resulted in a delicious snack once my roasted pumpkin seeds (with sea-salt and garlic powder) were ready!  The party was only two hours away, and I still had no idea what to carve on my pumpkin, so I just started digging in, and this is what I ended up with…

I call it my “Starry Eyed Pumpkin”.  Carving a pumpkin was much harder than I thought – but it was also so much fun!  I’m already looking forward to trying it again next year.  Being at camp, we are exposed to so many new and interesting things – it’s where I first tried water-skiing, camping, glass fusion…and the list goes on and on!  Even though my first time carving a pumpkin wasn’t at camp – it reminded me a lot of the satisfaction I get when I try something new during the summer.  Maybe we can add a carving contest to our Camp Canadensis Halloween celebration in 2011?!

My neighbors all carved awesome pumpkins as well – take a look at a few of the best!

This is a skull with Jell-O Brains!

This was the winner, and my favorite!  It’s an adorable duck…

Elmo was so cute!  When he wasn’t glowing, you could see he was covered in red glitter!

Finally, we had some spookiness on the block – someone carved Frankenstein!

I hope everyone had a safe and fabulous Halloween! My weekend was definitely full of festive fall fun, and I managed to work a bit of Canadensis spirit into my plans…

Friday night I left the office and drove straight to King of Prussia to meet up with some friends, and we all got in my car and drove off to our sorority’s hayride event. We drove all the way out to Media, PA to an orchard where 28 of us rode through the orchard at night for a not-so-haunted hayride, which was nice, because I do NOT like anything remotely frighting! After our hayride we were dropped off at a campfire, complete with a table covered in sticks, graham crackers, chocolate, and marshmallows… can you guess what that was for? Clearly it was S’MORES time!!! One of the girls commented on how well I made my s’more, using the graham crackers to take the mallow off the stick, avoiding the gooey mess everyone was accumulating on their fingers. I guess that’s just a sign of a properly trained camper!

Nom, Nom, Nom...

On Sunday Dani and I headed to NYC to spend Halloween doing what we love most, seeing a musical! We arrived in town early to meet the wonderful Emma Cohen for lunch! It was so good to see Emma, and of course we talked about camp.

Emma and Dani outside the Theatre

After a lovely lunch we made our way to the theatre where we had 2nd row seats for Avenue Q. I saw Avenue Q back when it first came to Broadway, but this was Dani’s first time seeing the show in New York, so it was great to see her reaction. The cast was super, and there were lots of people in Halloween attire in the theatre. After the show we made our way back to Penn Station to start the trek home, and we noticed so many more people starting to dress up for the holiday. By the time we hopped the train home we had seen a large group of zombies, plenty of princesses, and everything in between. We made it home just in time to see the last of the Trick-or-Treaters come by the door.

So now it’s November, which brings us another month closer to the return of the camp season! I’m looking forward to fires in the fireplace and playing with puppies in the snow. My dogs are white so it’s really funny to watch them try to run around the yard. They’re also completely obsessed and curious about fire, so I’ll be sharing some very funny video of my little Leo running through the house and barking at the fireplace.

Well, that’s it for now! I’ll leave you all with this picture of Matt, very excited to receive a package he ordered online…

Matt hearts his new High School Musical clock!

Happy Halloween from all of us at the Winter Office!!

So, what are you going to be for Halloween?? If you pop on over to Brian and Pam’s blogs you will see tons of photos from our Summer Halloween celebration this past summer, so go have a look and make sure you come back to my blog.

Welcome back. This past week, I heard from Meg Mucatel who told me she was going to be one of the 3 Blind Mice at school for “costume day”. That’s a great idea Meg. I can see it now- me, Armon, and Ginsburg…wonderful!

Otherwise, things are going well in the office. Pam worked long and hard on finding a new location for Reunion 2011 and while I am not ready to let out the secret just yet, it’s going to be at a fun, new location and I think everyone will really enjoy the activities this place has to offer. Speaking of reunions, how about Canteen on the Fly, which is in just a few weeks. We hope to see as many of you as possible and hopefully you can bring a friend or two who might even be interested in coming to camp! It’s going to be loads of fun, we have a special giveaway for everyone who shows up, and of course who could pass up Ice Cream. I think the best location is NYC- Ben & Jerry’s, but I have to say Goodnoe Farms in Newtown, PA was also terrific.

Short blog for today before the weekend, but enjoy the following JibJab, which of course was produced by our very own Jcal. It seems these JibJabs have become an annual tradition now on Halloween- ENJOY and have fun trick or treating!

Click Here for a Special Halloween Greeting!