Monday, July 13th, 2009
Hello Indian Brook Families,
The last 10 days at Indian Brook have been full of adventure, fun, new friends, and good food. The rain finally stopped and we have had about five days now of beautiful sunshine. It did not seem to faze any of us though, it was camp as usual and we still had lots of activities happening.
On the first day of camp we had 22 campers down at the barn by 6:00 a.m. to help with barn chores, despite the fact that only two campers were required. We were all thrilled to learn our Interpendence Day song called “Scrub and Scrape,” themed after Gwen Stefani’s song Sweet Escape. It was all about clearing up after meal time, the Hobart and Pots….I have never seen so much enthusiasm over doing the dishes!
First Lodge went out for their two day trips, with a combination of hiking and canoeing. They all came back to camp with tales to tell about how strong the wind was while paddling across the lake, or who got the most mosquito bites. My true delight was that they had all bonded in their experience and met the challenge with excitement, and realized that they could sleep out in the wilderness and have fun doing it.
Come Interdependence Day we were all crossing our fingers that the thunderstorms would not interfere with our camp wide celebration. At 4:00 p.m. Executive Director Pieter Bohen gave the green light and we were all jumping for joy to share our performances together. At 6:00 p.m. Indian Brook and Sam Camp started the parade to the spillway at the Barn Day Camp, we picked up Tamarack Farm, Flying Cloud and Timberlake along the way. All of us had wonderful performances to share, and it just reminded me why it is so great to work at a summer camp-the children. We only managed to get one dance in before the next thunderstorm rolled in. We quickly went back to Indian Brook where we enjoyed ice cream together a little drenched but very happy.
As we end our first 10 days at camp, all of Big Lodge are out on trips, and First and Senior Lodge enjoyed a great game of Capture the Flag yesterday evening. We are all in our rhythm and camp is running smoothly, and I have to say I am seeing a lot of smiling faces.