Canadensis Alumni Adam Scharfberg with NBC’s Jimmy Fallon yesterday in New York City

Just wanted to share this photo of my wife and Girls Head Counselor Robin at the Glee concert this past week!

I’ve worn many hats in my camping career – I think it’s a really important aspect of the job.  I feel like I am able to instruct campers in sports, arts, and adventure activities in a pinch.  I could even lead a pretty great soccer activity…and I bet you wouldn’t even know that it’s my most dreaded sport!

There are three main “campy skills” that I feel I’m lacking and I’m hoping to acquire them over time…

1.  I do not have a loud voice – I really can’t be heard in a crowd.  If I try to raise my voice too much, I can lose it, so it’s best to not even try!  I feel like I can overcome this by learning how to make the REALLY LOUD whistle sound using my fingers, so it is my goal to learn how to do that this summer.

2.  I can’t play the guitar – I took lessons a few years back, and I even learned a few Beatles songs, but nowadays, if you can’t play Taylor Swift at a campfire, you can’t really call yourself a song leader.   This is definitely one of my goals for the fall – at camp in 2012, I’ll be making the rounds with my guitar, and we can have TSwift sing-alongs all night!

3.  I’ve never been a lifeguard – It’s pretty hard to believe that I’ve spent 27 years at summer camps and never been lifeguard certified!  I plan to take the course at some point in my career (I want to know if I can pass the test!).  It’s a long shot, but maybe I’ll even be able to take the course this summer with our Super Senior (9th grade) and Counselor-In-Training (CIT’s, 10th grade) campers.  It’s an option we provide these oldest campers.  It’s very cool that they don’t miss out on any of the summer fun, but for an additional $200, they can end the summer being a certified Lifeguard for the next two years!  See the above picture of our 2010 Lifeguard Graduates!

I had a feeling that someone has been reading my blog, and his name is Alex!  He was at camp yesterday for the Open House program, which welcomes all our families to come up for a day of camp fun before the actual season starts.  As we were talking, he mentioned that he saw the projects that we are making in Fabric Art this year, and when I asked how, he said that he reads my blog!!   It was super exciting for me, so I wanted to dedicate this post to him.  Alex is returning to camp this summer, and will be an Upper Inter Boy.  While at camp, he’s often seen in our Camp Shows and he can also be found making awesome projects in Glass Fusion.  Can’t wait to see him around camp in a few weeks!

I have been SUPER PUMPED about our arts and crafts program overall the summer.  I’ve had several conversations with Carrie, who is the Arts and Crafts Director…Marty, who is the Woodshop Director…Katie, who is the Ceramics Director…Jesse, who is the Glass Fusion Director, and Drew, who is the Photography Director!  Each one of them is creative, artistic, and ready to have a magical summer up at camp.

The final art director who wasn’t mentioned above is Ida, and she is the director of our *new* Fabric Arts program.  We are both up at camp now, so we spent some time together today talking about project ideas and going through supplies for the summer.  Her ideas are FANTASTIC, and the projects and skills taught this summer will “knock your socks off”…literally!!  Ida has a plan to do a sock monkey project, so you might literally loose your socks in Fabric Art!

She had some samples of projects she wants to make this summer, and it got me SO excited!  I took a photo and posted it above.  The top left is an embroidery project, the top right is an applique, and the bottom is my favorite project idea so far…a sleep mask!!  We are going to be sooooo crafty this summer, I can’t wait!

Last night, while in the office, I had a little fun celebrating the end of The Oprah Winfrey Show…take a look at the video below of me pretending to welcome guests onto Canadensis Today in the Oprah voice!

Camp isn’t just my career, it’s also my hobby!  I love everything about overnight camping, but most of the industry centers around NYC, and I live in the Philadelphia area.  Last year, I banded together with some other friends who live in the Philly area and work at camps, and we decided to start an organization called PAYCE (Philly Area Young Camp Enthusiasts).  We started planning monthly events for camp professionals in the Philly area, and two years later we now have a great group of around 40 professionals that come together to learn from each other.

This past week, we had our last PAYCE event before camp, and we took tours of several Poconos area camps.  We had a great turn out of 25 people, and we went to see four camps total.  We visited Canadensis for lunch and a quick tour, everyone was impressed with our eight passenger go-karts, the lake, amphitheater and arts and crafts room.  It was a super fun day, and got us all so excited for camp!  Picture above, you can see Eric, myself, and Karen from Canadensis, with our PAYCE friends Rachel, Anna, Gary and Johnny.

Today marks the 1 month until Summer 2011! We are so excited for all of you to get here.

I arrived at camp this afternoon, and when I walked into the camp office I was greeted by “Happy Birthday’s” from my fabulous co-workers, and I noticed that my desk has been decorated with a sign and streamers by Jason “JCal” Calabretta – he is the absolute best!!  At dinner, I got to meet a bunch of our new staff for 2011, and I got to enjoy the delicious cake pictured above (sadly, it took me three attempts to blow out the candles).  Today is my 30th birthday, so I’m getting old…well at least by camp standards!

I’ve heard from so many amazing friends, family, campers and counselors today – it’s so nice to hear from people that you’ve might have lost touch with during the year.  There were so many special memories from this bday weekend (my dearest friends even arranged for us to make s’mores on my driveway in Philadelphia!!) – but one of my favorites was this picture emailed by my friends Suzy and Gary.  They live in New Orleans (my adopted home town) and their boys Evan and David are getting bigger every time I see a picture of them…and this one was just so cute!  In last year’s bday photo, they were in the tub…haha!

I had a great evening this week with some of the lovely Camp Canadensis Senior Girls of 2011.  Pictured above, Remy will be a new Lower Senior, and Mel, Elizabeth (E-beth) and Alix will all be back for their 6th summers as Upper Seniors.  We drove around the Villinova, PA area in circles for a while – but while on the car ride the girls discussed their favorite camp activities and stories, and they even caught me up on some basic pop-culture things I don’t know now that I’m old.  Apparently, there is a song called “Friday” by Rebecca Black, that everyone in the free wold has heard of besides me!  I just watched the video on YouTube, pretty hilarious.

While enjoying our ice cream at Hopes Cookies, we relived some of the best memories from 2010, including the 3-day trip to Lake Placid that all the Lower Seniors go on.  We explained some of the best camp traditions, including Color War and Sing, Prom, and so much more.  Now it’s only 36 days til new camp memories begin!