I grew up in New York and I had a love/hate relationship with New Jersey for most of my life. My Mom was born and raised in New Jersey and I was thrilled that my Dad was the one who made the final decision that we would be a New York family. Throughout my childhood, we would often debate whether the beaches were better in NY or NJ and we’d discuss the lack of good bagels in NJ on our visits to my Mom’s parents…
In recent years, I’ve started to see the positive sides of New Jersey! I actually lived there for a few months after Hurricane Katrina when I was evacuated – I was lucky enough to be offered a great job at the Margate, NJ JCC as a Youth Director during the time I couldn’t live and work in New Orleans. I also must admit that I love watching “Jersey Shore” on MTV and I even spent the most recent snow storm in New Jersey. I was in an area that got 34 inches of snow – it was crazy!
This is how high the snow was…my feet aren’t even on the ground, and I’m very tall!
That’s my car…it was almost hard to see it!
One of the ways I entertained myself while being snowed in was by cooking! I made these happy looking peanut butter banana waffles.
Here is video of Annie (my dog) running in the snow!
I also like New Jersey because we have so many awesome campers from there! One of the newest Canadensis campers is Lilly Checkoff from Cherry Hill! She is in 5th grade which means she will be an Upper Inter and this will be her first Summer at camp. She already knows a lot about Canadensis because one of her closest friends is current camper Amanda Seligman and her father actually went to Canadensis when he was 13 years old.
Lilly is a very sweet and very busy girl – she goes to dance class twice a week, and Hebrew School. She also likes to snowboard and ski and she loves the beach during the summer. She hasn’t tried waterskiing yet, but since she’s a good skier I’m sure she’ll be able to get up quite easily at camp this Summer. She likes playing tennis, but is an all-around camp kind of girl and she’ll be excited to do all the activities…even basketball!
On the nights when she is not involved with activities, she has a fun bunch of siblings to hang out with. She has an older brother and a younger brother and sister. When I was at their house, I got to see a cool shrinky dink project that they had done, and it totally brought me back to the 80’s when I used to love making them with my sister! The whole family is very nice and active, so please join me in welcoming the Checkoff Family back to Camp Canadensis!
Welcome Lilly Checkoff!
The whole Checkoff Family
So, I feel the need to say “I’m sorry Mom!” – New Jersey is actually pretty cool…plus you’ve gotta love the cheap gasoline that you don’t even need to get out of the car for!
