Last week I got to meet an AWESOME new camper who will be coming to Canadensis for the first time this summer, and will be staring as a Lower Senior Girl. Remy is currently in 7th grade at Masterman, which is one of the best magnet schools in Philadelphia. She is super involved with activities around school, she’s been elected to student council every year, and next year she is planning to run for President of the school! Before the election heats up, she is focused on the upcoming talent show, where she’ll be performing a dance to the Lady Gaga and Beyonce song “Telephone”. She’s also a total athlete who is on the track team and can run a mile in just over six minutes, and she also plays a lot of volleyball.

In her free time (it is impressive that she has any extra time!), she is an excellent big sister to her 18-month old Theresa, and she loves to bake! As you can see above, she makes decorative cakes like you would see on TV, and she’s even made a wedding cake before! While I was over, she gave me an awesome recipe for “Oreo stuffed chocolate chip” cookies, which sounds amazing, so we will have to make them with Jojo in cooking this summer!

Remy is so excited for camp, she can’t wait to try waterskiing, beach volleyball, archery, glass fusion, and many more activities. Please help me welcome Remy to the Canadensis Family!!

New Camper Bowling was awesome. Thanks to all of our new families/campers who were able to make it to north Brunswick, NJ and spend a few hours with us. We had such a great time getting to know many of our new campers and putting faces to the names! Everyone participated in Name Bingo, which allowed us to find out some unique things about people, like their dog’s names, which campers will be celebrating their birthdays at camp, and who has flown on an airplane in the past year, to name a few. Of course I was able to contribute to a few of the clues! Some of the groups also participated in a new game that I called Dance Introductions and each camper had to come up with a short dance to introduce themselves with. Assistant Director Pam now has to remember all of these dances for the first day of camp as the campers come off of the bus!

Of course not all of our new campers were able to join us, as some had Hebrew School and sports games and we have some campers from Florida who were enjoying the warm, sunny, beach weather (who could blame them!). So, we are looking forward to meeting with them as well up at camp and having the greatest summer with our new juniors and lower inters!! If Sunday was any indication as to their excitement about camp, then we are in for a blast.

In other news, I must make a PUBLIC APOLOGY TO CAMP MOM STEPHANIE, who was inadvertently left off of last week’s blog. I mentioned all of the staff who would be coming to New Camper Bowling and in a moment of tiredness (or jetlag, perhaps), I totally forgot about Steph. How could I do such a thing? I am so sorry Steph! Thanks for spending your day with the new campers and helping the parents begin to plan for a much quieter/boring summer back at home, while their kids are having the time of their lives!

Camp Mom Steph can be seen on the right

While we are on the subject of Camp Mom, you might ask what does she do at camp? Well Steph is absolutely amazing for so many kids, especially if they are having a sad moment.Between helping out with the kids who have food allergies or have alternate meal requests, helping out in our health center, cookies and milk on the back deck with our younger divisions, cutting fingernails (ever wonder who does that at camp!), helping out with our camper phone calls, calling parents as needed, being a mentor to many of our staff, assisting during cleanup of the cabins, amongst TONS of other responsibilities, how does she have time to have fun at camp? Well, Steph can be found on the tennis courts playing a game with campers, up in the arts center working alongside them making projects, or anywhere out and about on camp with a camera taking pictures for all of the parents to see what camp is like! So, thanks Steph for all you do and sorry once more for leaving your name out of last week’s blog.

Matt Unger and I are headed up to camp on Thursday and we will be checking on many of the winter projects, which should be wrapping up soon. The water is also going to be turned on any day now, once the snow melts! So, alot going on at camp to get ready for Summer 2011.

There has been so much stuff going on both personally and in “Canadensis world”, so I plan to blog every day this week!

It’s been a while since I’ve had a creative outlet, but luckily, a lot of my friends have been celebrating Mitzvahs lately, and I’ve had excuses to get crafty!!!! In October I will be a bridesmaid for a close Philly friend, and at her recent bridal shower, each of the guests were assigned a month of the year, and we got to buy a gift for the couple that fit the theme of the month. Luckily, I got assigned June (which is clearly my favorite month because camp starts!), so I fought the urge to get her a crazy creek camping chair, and I got her and her hubby-to-be a nice set of beach towels. I got to decorate the outside of the box, and here’s what it looked like…

I can’t wait for June!!  Also, another Philly friend has recently welcomed the arrival of her first child, and it’s an adorable boy!  She and her husband will be excellent parents, and he has already been such a sweet and calm baby boy, with super cute expressions to match.  Since Sammy is the first born, the date of his birth is extra special, because not only is it his birthday, but it’s also the day my friends became parents!  So, I put together a framed calendar page for them…and another frame with a owl in it (because that is the theme of his nursery).  I also had a neighbor that gave birth to a boy recently, so I framed a calendar page for her too, check it out below!

I’m so excited for New Camper bowling!  We have such FABULOUS new campers coming to Canadensis this summer, and on Sunday it will be the first chance for them to meet each other.  This means that summer 2011 is coming quick!

At New Camper Bowling, we will be selling some of our Canadensis Cares “Care Wear”, which helps us raise money to send more kids to camp.  We have blankets, sweatshirts, baseball hats and much more.  Check out this super cute poster that Cara made about Care Wear, and be sure to check out the Care Wear table during New Camper Bowling!

It’s time for another round of everyone’s favorite game!  (Well, that might be an overstatement…it could just be my favorite game…)  Please submit your rhyming quotes for this “Annie the Dog” photo!

“Annie the Dog, at her desk working hard…Annie the Dog, do you have a business card?”

Let me set the scene: I had been overseas for almost 6 weeks in 2 months time. That’s alot of time sleeping in random hotel rooms, eating international “cuisine”, and tons and tons of airline flights/miles. So, it’s my last day in Paris before flying home. It’s the last international trip until after camp and I say to Robin (who I so graciously took along to Paris and Milan with me) how much I have enjoyed being overseas and seeing the world, but that I was looking forward to returning home to the good ol’ USA.

The camper fair went great at a private American school in Paris and ended around 8PM. By the time we cleaned up and got back to the hotel, it was around 9PM, so we decided to grab some Chinese food quickly for dinner and call it a night before flying home the next morning. That’s when it all started…

The front desk recommended a Chinese restaurant right next door. The food was sitting in large plates in a trophy looking display case and yes, everyone says “that should have been your first sign”. We ordered our food, which they put into plastic tubs and microwaved (2nd sign) and ate dinner. Because Robin is a vegetarian, we don’t share very many things (I had beef and she had shrimp).

Fast forward to 3AM—I wake up, went to the bathroom, and the rest is history. I will spare you all of the details, but let’s just say it wasn’t pretty, the hotel was sold out so they couldn’t switch our room, and we were both up until 7AM, when we were to leave for the airport. I skyped with Continental Airlines and without any argument (I was shocked!) they rebooked me on the next day’s flight to Philly, while Robin continued on the original flight to Newark. I officially had food poisoning and couldn’t fly home, literally hours before my final trip came to an end! Talk about jinxing it…

All ended OK as I took a day to recuperate at the airport hotel in Paris and flew home the next day. I think my body was just telling me to slow down, stop flying so much, and just RELAX! Of course when I arrived home I went right back to fast paced environment, but it was good to rest for a day.

Highlights in Paris and Milan include:

Amazing pizza, pasta, and gelato. It was nice in Milan to be able to walk into ANY restaurant and order pizza and a calzone and share it with Robin. Yummy!

We did a pastry/baking class while in Paris and that was so much fun. We went to a working Pattiserie and had a tour of the back of the house operations. Afterwards, we had a chance to bake our own croissant (think TONS OF BUTTER, OY) as well as our own baguette (a long French bread essentially).

We had a chance to meet some of our new International campers for this summer! We will be having a few campers from France throughout the summer, and it will provide a unique opportunity to learn about different cultures and what it’s like to grow up in a different country. Last summer we had 3 international campers and they loved the Canadensis experience. Their bunkmates also enjoyed getting to know them, so we are looking forward to yet another positive experience for Summer 2011!

Back here in the US, it’s camp, camp, oh and Passover. Robin decided that we should host 23 people this Passover at our house…that’s TWENTY THREE PEOPLE! Wow. Our first time doing a holiday, did I mention 23 people??

Anyway, like I said, camp, camp, camp. Matt Unger and I are taking weekly trips to camp at this point to check-in with things there. The weather a few weeks ago was great, nice and warm, and outdoor projects were going on. Unfortunately, 8 inches of snow dumped on camp and now we can’t work outside. So, it’s back to the inside projects…which by the way are coming along nicely. I will have more info on that shortly.

New Camper Bowling is coming up this Sunday! Our year round winter staff will be there, along with Robin,  Peter Tarnoff, and Jcal!! Looking forward to a fun day with all of our NEW campers for Summer 2011!

That’s all for now, but check back soon.

I’m SO excited to see all of our adorable new campers next weekend!  New Camper Bowling is on Sunday, April 3rd, and we’ll be bowling the entire day with the different age groups.  Hope to see you there!

Guest Blog by Rafael Rodrigues

So I have been reading Eric’s tweets from across the globe and I am pretty envious. I am excited for the collaboration to begin between Eric,  JCal and I. I will be assisting in the production of the today show.

In my spare time I love to rock climb, play soccer, and challenge opponents in table tennis/ ping pong. I have a younger brother who is 17 years old. As far as my skills I have been interning at an video production studio in Providence, RI. This semester I am taking two fine art classes ceramics and old fashion photography. Yeah I am mastering the development and processing of film in the dark room. Film makes digital photography seem like a breeze. Ceramics is a fun course to as I have been making some pinch bowls, coffee cups, and vases.

Outside of school I ran a half marathon last May. I love crepes and sweets. I can make some delicious smoothies, shakes, and banana splits as I have made thousands of them at Ben & Jerry’s.

I am excited to meet all these new faces at camp from the campers to the staff. I can’t wait to engage in games, stories, and sports with your son or daughter this summer.

See you in June,

Rafael Rodrigues

Last week I told you about some of my favorite incoming Jersey Girl campers, and today I thought I’d introduce you to some awesome incoming campers from my home state of New York!

Jaynie is a current 4th grader at Birch Elementary in Merrick, NY, and she will be a Lower Inter Girl this summer.  She is a super fun, goofy and silly girl, who would be an awesome bunkmate this summer.  As you can see from the picture above, she was actually practicing decorating her camp bunk by decorating her bedroom door!  It’s full of pictures of Justin Bieber, she had just seen his movie and is a big fan!

Jaynie is an even bigger fan of basketball, dancing and gymnastics.   Her favorite gymnastics event is the bars, her favorite subject in school is reading, her favorite color is blue, and she loves to eat mac & cheese, which we serve about every week at camp!  She’s not a big fan of vegetables (which we need in order to get energized for all the camp activities!!) and she really likes to sleep late, so I’m going to prepare her counselors during orientation to drag her out of bed in the morning so she can enjoy all the camp fun we pack into a Camp Canadensis day!  When I was over her house, we watched the new camp DVD, and she’s excited for the first day on June 25th!  Jaynie can’t wait to make new friends, try the activities on the lake, learn how to water-ski, and go on hikes.  I told her all about the overnight program where we hike to the waterfall, pitch tents, and cook dinner and breakfast, and she’s totally pumped for it! When she’s not on overnights or swinging from the gymnastic bar, she promised to write really long letters home, and I’m sure that her younger sister and brother are going to be very excited to hear about her camp adventures!

Jamie is current 3rd grader from Port Washington, who will be a Junior Girl at camp this summer.  When asked to describe herself in three words, she said “Funny, Goofy and Loud”!  I know Jamie from the Tour and More Weekend at camp last summer, and I have to agree…she says the funniest things, and she promised that she is so super loud and will never lose her voice.  That never-ending voice will really come in handy while cheering during Color War this summer!  Her big sister Lauren is going to be a Freshman Girl, and luckily that means they are both on Lower Girls Side, so it will be a bit easier for their parents to find them in our online photo system this summer!

Jamie’s favorite color is hot pink, she loves to play tennis and basketball, and she’s a total thrill-seeker.  She has gone on all the crazy rides at the amusement parks in Disney World, so she is already sure she wants to be in one of our fast groups when we take the whole camp to Dorney Park this summer!  When she grows up, she wants to become a teacher – and she really enjoys reading.  Her favorite book is “Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer“, which I had never heard of, but might be worth checking out.  Jamie gets super hyper when she eat sugar, so watch out after you go to canteen at night with her!  She also loves to eat steak which gets served at camp a few times during the summer, and she’s looking forward to Chinese Food Night at camp, which is when we serve lo-mein noodles out of Chinese takeout containers.  She is super excited for the summer, she can’t wait for Glass Fusion and hanging out with her big sister and friends!

The entire Ambos family has major Camp Canadensis spirit!  Before I left their home, Jamie and Lauren showed me their computer desktop…the wallpaper is the Canadensis Logo!  That means that every time the girls use the computer to check the camp blogs or do homework, they start thinking about the summer fun ahead in 2011!

Abby is a current 3rd grader from Briancliff Manor, NY and she’s going to be a Junior Girl at camp this summer.  I was lucky enough to meet her when she came up to take a tour of camp this summer, so I know that she’s going to be a fun, energetic and crazy (in an awesome way) camper!  She will be easily recognizable at camp because instead of wearing Yankees, Mets or Phillies gear, she’ll actually be showing her Chicago Cubs Spirit!  She loves the Cubs, Bears and Notre Dame, which is the area of the country where her parents used to live.

She is an all-around camper, the ideal Canadensis kid, who loves a little bit of everything we do at camp.  She loves sports, and plays basketball, soccer and lacrosse as extra curricular activities during the year.  She actually even played in the basketball championship, so she knows how to stay cool under pressure, which will come in handy during Color War!  She also loves Arts & Crafts, she goes to an art studio during the year, and she is very excited for Glass Fusion at camp, and she plans to make one of the pizza plates, which was a popular camp project last year. She really enjoys gymnastics too, and the balance beam is her favorite.  She is also a great swimmer, last year at Elmwood  Day Camp, she was a Blue Stingray.  And, it doesn’t stop there…you can also find Abby on stage, she loves to sing and has been in a lot of shows.  Right now she is preparing for a part in Annie, and she’s been in a long list of shows including Hairspray, Sound of Music, Wizard of OZ, Peter Pan, Pinocchio, Bye Bye Birdie and Alice in Wonderland.   Even though she is super comfortable up on stage, she hasn’t been in a lake before, but she’s pumped to try banana boating and sailing on Lake Lenape!

Annie is a current 2nd grader at Village Elementary in Woodbury, NY, and she will be a Lower Junior Girl this summer!  She is going to be joining her two big siblings at Canadensis this summer – her older sister Rachel is going to be a Super Senior, and her big brother Matt will be a Lower Senior, which means that Annie is going to have Lower Camp all to herself this summer!  She is nice, funny and athletic, and her big sister says she’s aslo “crazy, artistic and lovable”.  She won’t be the only “Annie” at camp this summer…if you are a regular reader of the my blog, you’ll know that I also have a dog named Annie who comes to camp during the summer.  I brought a picture of my pup along on the home visit, and I’m excited to introduce the two of them in June!

Annie had just gotten back from a cruise when I came over, which is why she has super cute braids in her hair in the photo above.  She loved being on the beach and winning prizes in the arcades.  When she’s not on vacation, she loves to read, her favorite books are Amazing Days of Abby Hayes and Diary of a Wimpy Kid.  Not only does she like to read, but she actually writes books too!  She actually writes a book almost everyday, so I’m sure that is preparing her to write some awesome letters home!  She loves to play sports too, her favorite sport is soccer because she enjoys running and scoring goals!  She likes to draw pictures, loves to dance, and sing songs.  Because she has older siblings at camp, she has already learned some of the old Color War songs that we sing, so if Annie is in your bunk, she’ll be excited to teach you how to sing along!

The final New Yorker that I want to introduce you to today is Carly!  She is a current 4th grader who goes to Hewlett Elementary, and lives in Hewlett NY.  She is going to be a Lower Inter Girl this summer, and her big sister Lindsey also started camp as a Lower Inter Girl three summers ago, so she is following in really great footsteps!  Carly was a Tour and More Camper last summer, so she’s already spent a few days up at camp trying out the activities, lake and pool.  She’s very excited to go to camp this summer and make tons of friends…Lindsey has told her how close you get with your bunkmates, and it’s like making 10 new sisters!

Lindsey is going to be a Lower Senior Girl this summer, which means she’ll be going on a bunch more trips this summer and that she’ll be living on Senior Girls side.  That means that Carly will have a great place to go visit during the summer when she has free time during rest hour and shower time, and that she can visit right before the dances to have help getting her hair ready!  It also means that hopefully she’ll be getting some souvenirs when Lindsey returns home from her trips.  Carly is going to get so much out of camp this summer, she loves playing sports – especially soccer, which is what she chose for her elective last year!  She loves to swim, and is excited to have her chance to go on the Summit (huge inflatable slide) at camp this summer.  She will miss some things about home (including her cats) but she is pumped for an amazing first summer at camp!