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!

Hello Canadensis…

I hope everyone had a really fun time trick-or-treating this past weekend.  I was actually up at camp on Saturday and is the annual tradition up there, the town has been changed to Scarecroweville, PA for the week.  Again, if anyone has any good costumes they would like to share, please send them and we’ll post’em on our blogs.

As for me, I love Halloween and have always spent it in the usual fashion for the past number of years.  As many of you know, outside of my family and friends, I have several loves for which I am passionate about:  (1) CAMP (of course); (2) the New York Giants (yes, we are 5-2 this season); (3) Music (and live music for that matter).  So, Halloween has usually been about finding a concert and spending it with friends.

This Halloween was particularly special as my favorite band, The Black Crowes were coming to New York City.  About a month ago, I discovered that the Halloween show was going to be my 50th Black Crowes show.  Talk about love!  As a result, I had a special football jersey made up for my costume.  Here it is…

Pretty cool, huh?!  Anyway, the 50th Show was also celebrated with some of MY closest camp friends.  What could be better, right?  We had so much fun and the show was absolutely terrific, especially when they ended up playing my favorite song of all time called “Thorn In My Pride.”

As I said, I also made my way up to camp this weekend.  We have begun some new projects, including re-paving and re-surfacing the Inter Courts.  Here are some pictures of that project…

Right in the same area of camp, we removed the green fencing around the Inter Hockey Rink, which we will now replace with netting behind the goal areas.  Take a look…

The trip up to camp was great!  Of course, all my trips up to camp end the same way, by stopping off at Callie’s Pretzel Factory and loading up on some delicious treats.  I have become addicted to their Everything Pretzels.  Delicious.  To check out Callie’s and even shop online, go to their website:  www.calliescandy.com .

I also wanted to take this opportunity to congratulate any of camp’s San Francisco Giants fans on winning their first World Series in over 50 years.  When I try and think of any Canadensis campers or staff that root for the Giants, I can only think of one…Mike Lindquist.  I’m sure Mike is on Cloud 9 today after such a big win!  I know all of you Phillies and Yankees fans were hoping to be back in the series this year, but you can’t win every year!

Well, that’s all for today.  More blogging later this week.

All the best…Brian

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!

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.

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…

Hello Canadensis…

So, what are you dressing up as for Halloween?  If you have any pictures of you in your Halloween costume, please send them to us and we’ll post them on our blog.

Now that October 31 is just days away, it makes me think about the Halloween we had at camp this summer.  This night was without a shadow of a doubt one of my favorite nights of camp.  It was great to see so much spirit as mostly everyone was in costume.  Here are some pictures to reminisce about…

A great day to remember!  Have a Happy Halloween everyone!  Get lots and lots of candy.

All the best…Brian

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!

It’s just my humble opinion, but the Halloween Evening Activity that we did at camp this summer was the best Halloween I’ve ever had!  I don’t think anything would top it, and even though I’m excited for the celebrations this upcoming weekend, I’ll be thinking about our time at camp.  The campers all made such creative costumes – my favorite is the Junior boys who dressed up as our mascot, the Camp Canadensis Indian Head!

The whole event was planned by our fabulous Evening Activities crew of Terri and Rachel.  The night consisted of ‘trick or treating’ around the bunks, going on a costume parade and it ended with playing the game show “Let’s Make A Deal”!  It was a great night, and definitely something we’ll be doing at camp for years to come.  Here is a picture of me with Rachel.  She is dressed at the “Princess of Canadensis” and I’m dressed as a blue M&M.  Annie (my dog) is on my lap, and she was dressed up as a duck!

Top 5 Reasons Camp Canadensis Halloween is better than “real” Halloween!

#5:  Everyone gets full sized candy bars from the canteen!

#4: The Canadensis Today Show had an “orange carpet“!

#3:  It’s warm in the summer, so you don’t have to wear a jacket over your costume!

#2: Everyone is dressed up, not only the kids!

#1:  You get to be with your camp friends!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Hello Canadensis…

Yes.  I know.  I have been delinquent of my blogging responsibilities.  But, I am now back “in the swing of things” and promise to be blogging regularly to all of you out there in Canadensis CyberWorld.  I will also give Jason “J.Cal” Calabretta a lot of credit for lighting the fire to get me to blog again.  This blog is for you, J.Cal!

Speaking of J.Cal, I hope all of you are enjoying the first Canadensis Courier since camp ended.  What a great summer we had, celebrating the 70th Summer of Camp!  So many great memories that will stay with us for a lifetime.

I was actually up at camp a few weeks ago.  By the way, the fall foliage in the Poconos was just breathtaking!  The drive up Upper Seese Hill Road alone looked like a movie!  I went to camp to check out some of the work that is going on up at camp.  Yes, that’s right.  Already some projects in the works for Summer 2011.  We will keep you posted as the year goes on.

Here’s a shot of Lake Lenape in the fall with all of the leaves changing colors.  Just awesome…

I have already gotten a chance to see some campers and camp families over the past few weeks, some even by complete accident.  Got to see new camper Harrison Keim and his father Dan at our Giants tailgate.  Harrison and I got to throw the football around in the L12 Parking Lot before a Giants victory.  A few weeks later, Dylan Carruba and his parents, Kristy and Rich, stopped by the Big Blue festivities to eat and throw the ‘ol pigskin around.  We had a lot of fun.  Mom even got a picture of us.  Here it is…

By the way, it’s exciting to start hearing the talk of an all New Jersey Super Bowl, as the Giants and Jets are off to great starts!

A few weeks ago, I bumped into 2011 Upper Inter Oliver Shaw and his sister Avery, who will also be coming to camp next summer as part of our Junior Girls Division.  They were with dad Jonathan, grabbing some dinner at Hog Wild Barbecue, a new restaurant that opened up in Caldwell, NJ.  By the way, if you like BBQ food, I highly recommend it.  As soon as Oliver saw me, I was greeted with a great big hug and it made my night!  He let me know that he recently enrolled in the School of Rock and has been practicing Pink Floyd’s “The Wall.”  Awesome stuff!  If you remember, Oliver got a standing ovation at this summer’s Lower Camp Talent Show, to which he also treated the camp with an encore of “Hotel California.”

My home visits meeting new camp families have also started.  Got a chance to go to Short Hills, NJ to meet Jake and Ryan Garfinkle.  Jake is in 4th Grade and will be a Lower Inter next summer and Ryan is in 2nd Grade and will be a Junior.  In the fall, winter and spring months, Jake is busy attending his Science and Mysteries classes after school, plays the piano, violin and recorder and is part of his school’s Math Olympiad.  Ryan plays midfield on his travel soccer team, the Millburn Rangers, plays the guitar and enjoys building Legos.  Both also enjoy family ski trips to Hunter Mountain and Stratton, VT.  In Summer 2011, Jake can’t wait to try glass fusion, archery and waterskiing and is excited to be apart of camp’s Color War.  Ryan is looking forward to glass fusion, fishing, archery and soccer.  Here is a picture from my visit…

So, as they say, I am officially off the schneid.  My first new blog of the offseason.  I am now promising to keep this updated for all of you!

All the best…Brian

My darling camper Carly Fleischer sent me a picture that completely made my day! Carly’s math assignment was to create a simple equation that equaled “1”. Look how Carly camp-ified her assignment:

She's brilliant!

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

Special JibJab below.

Click Here for a Special Halloween Greeting!

Oh what a very Berry weekend it was! Lauren Berry arrived in Montgomeryville, PA on Tuesday evening, and since then it’s been a crazy wild ride of fun, friends, and FOOD! Here’s a short account of the week spent with camp’s favorite lower senior girls group leader…

On Wednesday morning we woke up bright and early to head to the office, making a brief stop at Wawa for breakfast sandwiches and coffees. There was lots to be done around the office, so Lauren kept busy chatting with camp friends and going through camp pictures! Wednesday night we got home and joined my mom for dinner and hung around the house.  On Thursday we woke up early for work again to stop at Wawa, but this time we were inspired as we walked past the baked goods, so we stopped at Yum Yum donuts and brought in 2 dozen donuts for the office! Eric Forti couldn’t control his excitement!!!

With bellies full of donuts the work day flew by and before we knew it we were hopping in Forti’s car to make a trip out to Port Washington. We sang Glee songs the whole way there, and Eric Forti belted out his best rendition of the Wicked Soundtrack on the ride home. We stopped for Pizza (since everything revolves around food) and ended up with WAY too much pizza (can you imagine that even being possible?) Forti had an argument with Lauren as we got in the car as he tried to make room for her feet in the back (our leftovers took up a lot of room!) and she insisted she was fine:

We got home late, but were up again bright and early on Friday for another fun day in the office. There were still leftover donuts and with the addition of my Mini-Keurig to the office kitchen it was a funny and fabulous camp day. As the work week drew to a close, we changed out of our office apparel and into our Friday night outfits, and headed out to the train station to hop the R5 into Philadelphia. After meeting some of my friends for some appetizers, we arrived for our reservation at Buddakan! We had the most delicious dinner and by far one of the greatest desserts we had ever tasted. Lauren Berry was SILENT as she enjoyed each bite (yes, it was THAT good!!!). After a long a delicious Buddakan experience, we hopped the train back to my town and fell into our beds in a food coma.

Saturday morning FINALLY found us sleeping in, and just as we were getting up it was time to rush off to King of Prussia and meet Mel Sukonik, Mindy Rosenthal, and Alix Steerman for lunch at the Cheesecake Factory. We had the most INSANE waitress I have ever experienced – at one point she actually jumped out from a wall and exclaimed “BOO! Gotcha!!!” in an attempt to scare us. Needless to say, it was a lunch full of camp talk and laughing. After our 2.5 hour lunch (our crazy waitress talked A LOT!) we did a little shopping, and Lauren and I bought our new accessories for next year’s Pre-Camp:

We will be rocking our animal hats in the cold arctic tundra that is Canadensis Pre-Camp. After our mall experience we said goodbye to the girls and drove home to my house, where Dani had finally returned from her play rehearsal. We hung around for a little while, and then decided it was time for dinner (told ya it was all about the eating) and it was a unanimous vote to head out to La Campagnola. La Campagnola is famous for many reasons, most importantly that it’s the one restaurant I take my bus counselors to visit every summer, as well as most counselors who come home with Dani and I on our days off. The food is out of this world (ask Kenzie about the garlic bread…) and the portions are insane, we ALWAYS have a fridge full of leftovers after any trip. After our delicious meal we came home and once again fell victim to the food coma.

On Sunday we were running rampant with errands and and laundry, but we had time to stop for a quick lunch with Terri and Company. Once we got home we had some time to sit and play with Leo and Bella (only the world’s cutest dogs) and spend time hanging out. After all the brunching and lunching of the day, we were hardly hungry, but when our stomachs started to grumble around 9pm, we drug Dani out of the house and made a quick trip to TGIFridays for some appetizers. The restaurant was all decked out for halloween and our waiter actually jumped out and tried to scare us at one point. That would be the SECOND time that a waiter jumped out at us over the weekend. What is going on here?!?!

This morning we woke up with the sun for Lauren Berry’s last morning at the camp office. We loaded her bags into the car (Berry is an AMAZING packer) and drove in to work. One of the roads I typically take to get to the office was closed this morning, so we got to go on a small adventure through North Wales until we found our way back on the route to work. When we finally got to the office the day was full of visitors and fun, and before we knew it Lauren Berry was saying goodbye, giving hugs, and trying not to cry as we drove off to the train station. Berry will take the train into the city, hop another train to the airport, and then head off on the next leg of her trip. Watch Out Chicago!

Well, Halloween is finally arriving, I hope everyone will send in photos of their creative costumes, it always makes us laugh here in the winter office to see what you all come up with!