Session 3 ended up being even tougher by the end of the week because there was a heatwave which made it pretty unbearable to do anything. As it was music camp that week, on the last night there was a concert featuring performances from all th different classes etc, which was put on outside at the pavilion. I have never been so uncomfortable sitting for 2 and a half hours in 96f heat, crammed into rows of chairs with campers all around me complaining the whole time about how hot it was. I have surprised myself this summer by being a lot more patient than I thought I was. A lot of the campers went home that night because their parents came to watch so there were only 3 girl left in my cabin that night so DJ and I let them set up a slumber party on the floor with their mattresses etc instead of being in bunk beds. The next day we only got a 9 hour break instead of our usual day and a half break so because it was so hot we went to the mall to shop and then to see Harry Potter where there was air conditioning! In the Maine Mall there is a train ride that does laps of the mall, which is really for little kids, but we all went on it and called it the Hogwarts express to get us in the mood for the film. Some of the group put on lightening bolt fake tattoos on their heads that Captain Jessica had given us from the canteen...they looked so overly keen for the film!
Session 4 started the next day, and there were over 200 kids here this past week which was cray and a big challenge for everyone. I had 14 girls in my cabin this week which was a little overwhelming at first but I think me and DJ handled it pretty well. 14 girls made everything a lot more stressful, as everything took longer than usual, it was hard to keep track of them all. That reminds me actually of session 3 when there was a code 5 alert one day which is the signal for a missing camper. When the alert was announced everyone ran to the flagpole and counted their kids and started to break up into search parties only to discover that there wasn't a missing camper at all, they had just gone to the wrong music class or something. It was pretty scary at the time though, hopefully it won't happen again! But the girls I had this week were a handful. When they were good they were really cute but they fought a lot and complained a lot and there were several that had really bad home sickness but I think we overcame all these things pretty well. I had to lay down the law several times though to the point that I had them trained into saying "this is a no fighting or complaining zone". I also had to give them a talk about cabin clean up as the cabin was disgusting. Just so many more girls than normal pushed the cabin over it's limits. I had to do some major clean up of it this morning when they all left.
There were some interesting evening programs this week. For skit night, the younger girls unit did a super hero skit where we tried to solve the problem of not having enough ice for sno cones on Lord's Day (we got the inspiration for this from Magnes who was genuinely concerned about not having enough ice and brought it up at the staff meeting. Needless to say everyone just laughed at him). So one by one the younger girls counselors went up as different superheros to try and solve the problem. Maddie went up as a broken wizard as she has a broken elbow so we used this as an excuse to get Magnes up on stage to be her helper. I then came on as ice woman and solved the problem by holding up two pitchers of ice and pouring them all over Mag. Haha.
One evening program we had was called crazy corners which was a huge game that the whole camp was involved in. Everyone dressed up in crazy colored stuff and the staff were given labels to wear with points on them. So counselors were worth 10points, leadership staff were 15points etc. All the staff had to stand in the middle of the field and run when the campers were let loose so that they wouldn't tag us. If they tagged us they took us back to their unit bases. Maddie and I paired up as a duo and made it funny for them by speaking in funny accents and clinging to the flagpole/soccer net so they wouldn't take us. The next night counselors got a night off! We were all so excited and just spent the time at Applebees having dinner (camp food is getting worse by the day). It was so funny though as we felt like parents leaving our kids at school or a crèche or something. We were told we had to be back at 8:30pm to pick our kids up at Sebago Hall so as we pull up at camp we check the time and it's 8:29pm so we start sprinting to sign in and then I start running to Sebago Hall when I hear DJ screaming across the field "Sarah!!! They're in the Rec hall!!!" so we bolt across the field and just make it in time. Had we not made it we would have been given early curfew which would have sucked!
Another evening program this week was a staff auction night where each cabin had 500points they could use to bid on staff members who would perform tasks for them. My girls decided they wanted to bid on Steffan and Roger who said they would do anything they wanted so we blew 450 of our points winning them. This then caused major stress because we had hardly any points left. Thankfully we won bonus points for being the best at saying the memory verse and dancing the hoedown throwdown, but we still didn't have enough to win anything else so loads of them started fighting and crying and it kind of ruined the fun. Personally I wanted them to just win the housekeeping team who would do cabin clean up for them but that idea was shot down! So we won Roger and Steffan so last night we cut Roger's hair off, put makeup on them and made them clean the cabin. The girls enjoyed it!
On Lord's Day night it was the younger girls turn to camp out which was fine, just uncomfortable sleeping on the wooden platform. I set my marshmallow on fire making a s'more which provided a bit of entertainment.
For clubs this week, me Mel and Leann took Finding Nemo club which was actually a huge success to the dismay of our nemesis club, water world. We made Nemo fish with the kids and then did a scavenger hunt around camp to find them, one day we went down to the lake and did water games and the last day we got water guns and sneaked up on all the other clubs and squirted them. It was pretty fun!
Last night we had Sebago Awards where honor camper awards are handed out in between songs etc. I was asked to come up on stage to do the Sebago song with 5 others so we start doing the song when people came along and soaked us with water! Justin's cabin had won some junior staff in the auction who promised to take out their "enemies" with water guns so they had planned the whole thing and purposefully chosen all of us on stage! They chose me because all week long they believed that I was Justin's sister. Can't believe they fell for that.
Now I am off until Monday night on long break so I'm currently on a bus going to see Tylar in New York for the weekend. I'm really excited, we're going to do lots of tourist stuff,see a broadway show etc. Can't wait!
Friday, 29 July 2011
Tuesday, 19 July 2011
Session 2, Boston Break & start of Session 3
I have been really busy as usual at camp the past week and a half. Session 2 went really well and DJ and I were very lucky to get another great group of campers who behaved really well. There were some great evening programs for the kids during the second session, one night the girls unit had a big knock the bottle tournament, and my cabin got to the final and I scored the winning strike for them haha. Another evening program we had was a spa night for all the girl campers, which was really cute and they loved it. Stations were set up in Sebago Hall with nail painting, hair styling, make overs and a catwalk. Another fun thing from session 2 was Taylor Swift club which I took with Melanie and Danielle. 15 girls joined it and some of them were so keen, it was really cute. On awards night we performed for the whole camp singing and acting to the song "Mean" and they did so well, I felt like a proud parent! I have a video of it which I will have to upload at some point.
It was really hot and humid last week so we went swimming a lot on our breaks. We normally just swim out to the floating dock and lie there for ages until we get too hot then do a running jump off of it; definitely one of my favourite ways to spend breaks. During boating rotation with the campers we got to go on a pontoon boat ride around the lake, which was great for me and Maddie as we just lay out on the upper level of it sunbathing while the campers sat talking with each other. On one of our breaks me, Sean, Maddie and Abby went to Walmart and we all split up when we got there so we could get whatever we needed. So I was strolling around the store when suddenly I hear over the loudspeaker "Sarah Feeney please come to customer services, your party is waiting". I was in a bit of shock and started panicking as I hadn't got everything I needed so started running around the store frantically until I got to customer services to find that Sean had got one of the store assistants to say it as a joke.
Lord's Day during Session 2 was probably my favourite day despite it being the hottest day of the summer. We have a church-style service each morning which is really nice and then we all play sideline soccer. I scored a goal which was quite remarkable seeing as I'm rubbish at soccer and everyone was dying in the heat. In the afternoon there was an all camp swim which I actually had off as a break but went to it anyway with the other counselors who were off too as it was so warm. All camp swim is pretty crazy as counselors basically have to fight through swarms of campers to get out into the water to swim, they all just rush for you and all want you to play with them which can get stressful when they are so demanding! After that we had the carnival which ended up being hilarious. Justin and I got into a big water fight with the kids and then the campers pressured us into racing each other on the Blob. The Blob is a huge inflatable water slide and obstacle course contraption where you have to race through the first section, climb up some inflatable steps and slide down to the bottom. After they had seen us race each other then the campers wanted me and Justin to race them which got very tiring!! Especially as Brent pushed me off the top of the stairs back down to the bottom so I had to start over, ugh! For dinner on Lord's Day we have a cook out which is a nice change from the dining hall as we sit outside at the pavilion at picnic tables and have barbeque stuff. Lord's Day was particularly good during session 2 because of Jesus Theater. Jesus Theater is a a performance by some of the staff which shows Jesus' life through music, acting and dancing, and it is narrated by Jesus speaking to an emo girl who is going through a lot of issues such as her parents divorcing. It's a pretty big deal at camp because usually the campers are really affected by it so I was a little disappointed during session 1 that my campers didn't really seem to take much from it. However, session 2 was completely different. All my campers were affected by it and some got really upset. One girl, Rebecca who is 9, told me that she related to it because her parents are divorced and she lives with her mom and her dad has stopped calling her. It was really sad to hear this as kids do not deserved to be treated like that. But it was amazing to hear from her at the same time that she had taken so much from Jesus Theater and had so many questions about it and wanted to pray and become a Christian. This was the case with a lot of me and DJ's campers, they had so many questions, some of which were really difficult to answer but I think we did pretty well talking to them.
The last day of the session it was really hot again so for athletics rotation a slip and slide was set up. Of course, the kids love it when the counselors join in so they kept chanting "Sarah and Maddie" until we would go on it. So we went at the same time and did a big run up and landed on the mat and went flying along it. The next morning though I woke up and found it painful to move my neck - definitely got whiplash from it!
We got a day and a half break after session 2 so 19 of us went down to Boston which was SO much fun! We roadtripped down and stayed in a nice hotel (really nice to actually have air conditioning for once). The first night we all went into the centre for dinner but with such a big group conflict was bound to arise and people started getting annoyed right off the bat from when we got on the train as some of the boys started mucking about singing songs which were irritating other passengers, then we all didn't want to go to the same restaurant so we split up into smaller groups. That night after dinner a group of us went up to the top of the Prudential Center to its observatory and admired the view of the city at night. It was beautiful and we had a really nice time just walking around the top of the building looking out at the city. We then went back to the hotel and most of us congregated in me, Sam, Sammy G, and Kelsey's room and hung out relaxing. The next day we got up and me, Kelsey, Dom, Sean, Lyle and Magnes had decided to stick together and do a lot of touristy stuff while the others just went shopping or to visit their school friends as a lot of my friends at camp go to college in Boston. So my group first went on a duck boat tour which was so much fun! It took us all around the city and then it turned into a boat and sailed along the river Charles. The driver let me sail the boat which was fun! After that, we went to Harvard and walked around the campus there which was incredibly nice, I loved it and was totally in my element! We tracked down the Law School so I could get a Legally Blonde picture in front of it, haha. Then to finish up the day we went to the aquarium which was pretty fun. Sean made friends with some penguins and we all touched some rays and a baby shark! It was one of the best days ever! We just had so much fun, I loved Boston!
We are currently half way through session 3, which is music camp. I have 10 campers this week and we got moved up to the Older Girls unit as most of the campers this week are a lot older. The classes which I am helping with are Worship team and chorus, where I don't really have to do much except sing with the kids. This week has been quite tough so far as the girls aren't being as well behaved as our previous groups and they are all hypochondriacs and constantly moan that they don't feel well even though nothing is wrong. Definitely had my patience tested a few times! Last night there was a talent show, which I was in as part of "Tito's Blondes". Me and Tito sang Amazing Grace to the tune of In the Jungle from the Jungle Book whilst Sean, Dom, Lyle and Jake danced fantastically with an inspiring aire of dancing genius which I can only hope I will see again at some point in the future and although no prizes were awarded we know that we were the true winners (as you can tell Dom just made me write this). It was actually a lot of fun and there's a video of it which I'm sure will get uploaded eventually.
Here is a picture of me and my unit the Younger Girls!
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Anyway, I will have to go, think I have covered enough!
It was really hot and humid last week so we went swimming a lot on our breaks. We normally just swim out to the floating dock and lie there for ages until we get too hot then do a running jump off of it; definitely one of my favourite ways to spend breaks. During boating rotation with the campers we got to go on a pontoon boat ride around the lake, which was great for me and Maddie as we just lay out on the upper level of it sunbathing while the campers sat talking with each other. On one of our breaks me, Sean, Maddie and Abby went to Walmart and we all split up when we got there so we could get whatever we needed. So I was strolling around the store when suddenly I hear over the loudspeaker "Sarah Feeney please come to customer services, your party is waiting". I was in a bit of shock and started panicking as I hadn't got everything I needed so started running around the store frantically until I got to customer services to find that Sean had got one of the store assistants to say it as a joke.
Lord's Day during Session 2 was probably my favourite day despite it being the hottest day of the summer. We have a church-style service each morning which is really nice and then we all play sideline soccer. I scored a goal which was quite remarkable seeing as I'm rubbish at soccer and everyone was dying in the heat. In the afternoon there was an all camp swim which I actually had off as a break but went to it anyway with the other counselors who were off too as it was so warm. All camp swim is pretty crazy as counselors basically have to fight through swarms of campers to get out into the water to swim, they all just rush for you and all want you to play with them which can get stressful when they are so demanding! After that we had the carnival which ended up being hilarious. Justin and I got into a big water fight with the kids and then the campers pressured us into racing each other on the Blob. The Blob is a huge inflatable water slide and obstacle course contraption where you have to race through the first section, climb up some inflatable steps and slide down to the bottom. After they had seen us race each other then the campers wanted me and Justin to race them which got very tiring!! Especially as Brent pushed me off the top of the stairs back down to the bottom so I had to start over, ugh! For dinner on Lord's Day we have a cook out which is a nice change from the dining hall as we sit outside at the pavilion at picnic tables and have barbeque stuff. Lord's Day was particularly good during session 2 because of Jesus Theater. Jesus Theater is a a performance by some of the staff which shows Jesus' life through music, acting and dancing, and it is narrated by Jesus speaking to an emo girl who is going through a lot of issues such as her parents divorcing. It's a pretty big deal at camp because usually the campers are really affected by it so I was a little disappointed during session 1 that my campers didn't really seem to take much from it. However, session 2 was completely different. All my campers were affected by it and some got really upset. One girl, Rebecca who is 9, told me that she related to it because her parents are divorced and she lives with her mom and her dad has stopped calling her. It was really sad to hear this as kids do not deserved to be treated like that. But it was amazing to hear from her at the same time that she had taken so much from Jesus Theater and had so many questions about it and wanted to pray and become a Christian. This was the case with a lot of me and DJ's campers, they had so many questions, some of which were really difficult to answer but I think we did pretty well talking to them.
The last day of the session it was really hot again so for athletics rotation a slip and slide was set up. Of course, the kids love it when the counselors join in so they kept chanting "Sarah and Maddie" until we would go on it. So we went at the same time and did a big run up and landed on the mat and went flying along it. The next morning though I woke up and found it painful to move my neck - definitely got whiplash from it!
We got a day and a half break after session 2 so 19 of us went down to Boston which was SO much fun! We roadtripped down and stayed in a nice hotel (really nice to actually have air conditioning for once). The first night we all went into the centre for dinner but with such a big group conflict was bound to arise and people started getting annoyed right off the bat from when we got on the train as some of the boys started mucking about singing songs which were irritating other passengers, then we all didn't want to go to the same restaurant so we split up into smaller groups. That night after dinner a group of us went up to the top of the Prudential Center to its observatory and admired the view of the city at night. It was beautiful and we had a really nice time just walking around the top of the building looking out at the city. We then went back to the hotel and most of us congregated in me, Sam, Sammy G, and Kelsey's room and hung out relaxing. The next day we got up and me, Kelsey, Dom, Sean, Lyle and Magnes had decided to stick together and do a lot of touristy stuff while the others just went shopping or to visit their school friends as a lot of my friends at camp go to college in Boston. So my group first went on a duck boat tour which was so much fun! It took us all around the city and then it turned into a boat and sailed along the river Charles. The driver let me sail the boat which was fun! After that, we went to Harvard and walked around the campus there which was incredibly nice, I loved it and was totally in my element! We tracked down the Law School so I could get a Legally Blonde picture in front of it, haha. Then to finish up the day we went to the aquarium which was pretty fun. Sean made friends with some penguins and we all touched some rays and a baby shark! It was one of the best days ever! We just had so much fun, I loved Boston!
We are currently half way through session 3, which is music camp. I have 10 campers this week and we got moved up to the Older Girls unit as most of the campers this week are a lot older. The classes which I am helping with are Worship team and chorus, where I don't really have to do much except sing with the kids. This week has been quite tough so far as the girls aren't being as well behaved as our previous groups and they are all hypochondriacs and constantly moan that they don't feel well even though nothing is wrong. Definitely had my patience tested a few times! Last night there was a talent show, which I was in as part of "Tito's Blondes". Me and Tito sang Amazing Grace to the tune of In the Jungle from the Jungle Book whilst Sean, Dom, Lyle and Jake danced fantastically with an inspiring aire of dancing genius which I can only hope I will see again at some point in the future and although no prizes were awarded we know that we were the true winners (as you can tell Dom just made me write this). It was actually a lot of fun and there's a video of it which I'm sure will get uploaded eventually.
Here is a picture of me and my unit the Younger Girls!
Saturday, 9 July 2011
Session 1: Speedboats, golf carts and lots of sparks
Camp has gotten incredibly busy since the campers arrived, I am on the go all the time, up at 6:30am and go to bed around midnight each day! I am really enjoying it though; I'm not sure where all the counselors get our energy from but we somehow manage to always keep going and play games with the kids even when we are not doing properly organised activities. The first session went really well; DJ and I had a fantastic cabin of girls who were very well-behaved and we didn't have any major issues with them, there were no huge fights between the girls or anything. Our work assignment for the first session during camper choice time was to help at the waterfront which was so good. This meant that whenever I was on waterfront duty I had to help either at swimming by the lake by handing out wristbands to ensure each camper had a swimming buddy (this job was made fun by Dom helping me so we just got to have a laugh the whole time), or else I helped out at boating where I had to pull in and push out paddle boats for the kids and I also got to help with tubing so I spent a lot of time sitting on the back of the speedboat letting out the rope and pulling the kids back in. This was definitely my favourite job! Getting to relax on the back of the boat and look at the lake, soak up the sun and have a laugh with the campers is a pretty good job! I am on waterfront duty again for this session this week which is great! It's a much better job than some of the others such as sitting at the gate guarding it so campers don't try to escape.
I took my cabin on rotations on the second day and it was a bit of a nightmare. I had to take them to Athletics and Swimming, and it was incredibly hot that day and all they did was moan and complain during the games. They perked up when they got to go swimming though, thankfully, and it was a fun rotation as the three cabins that were together for that activity had to do relay races against each other. The relay races involved spinning around an oar three times and running into the lake, swimming to the end of the first section and back, then putting on a lifejacket and doing the same thing again etc etc. The kids loved it, especially when they then made me, Maddie and Justin (the counselors) all race against each other too. After that they got to have free swim which was a bit of a nightmare for me as the campers all have different swim bands dependant on their level of swimming and those mean that they can only swim in certain sections, so I was being constantly yelled at by girls in different sections to come play with them. If there was one thing I wished for last week it was that I could multiply myself so I could be in several places at once to keep them all happy!
Each session the counselors have to create "clubs" for the kids to join and participate in for an hour each day after their camper choice time is over. For session 1 Jaime, Makayla, Meaghan and I took Group Games club. Jaime and I had thought this would be a walk in the park and that we could just play huge games of tag etc each day but no... There were a couple of boy campers who were really badly behaved and they started to ruin the games for everyone and we had to make them sit out a lot and try and discipline them. This meant that the kids tired of the games easily and we were starting to struggle for new ideas. So, for session 2 we've decided to give this club a miss and create different clubs. This week I am taking Taylor Swift club with Melanie and Danielle which so far looks like it's going to be a lot easier and a lot more enjoyable. All first session my campers made me and DJ play Taylor Swift music and they kept telling me I looked like her because of my hair, and they loved us singing her songs to them at night to get them to go to sleep so I decided a Taylor Swift club would probably be pretty popular among the next batch of campers. Yesterday clubs started up again and loads of girls signed up for our club which is great. I did a Taylor Swift quiz with them and then we decided that all this week we will sing and perform a dance to her song called "Mean" which the girls can then perform on Awards Night at the end of the session. They're so excited, it's really cute, hopefully it goes well!
During the first session the main problem DJ and I had with our girls was boys! Our girls were all 9 years old and they were boy obsessed! It was ridiculous. They started inventing code names for the boy counselors they liked, eg. JAG = Josh and Graham, and MAJ = Magnes and Jared. They would not stop talking about boys and getting worked up about asking boy campers to be their boyfriends that it got so bad that we had to enforce a ban on talking about boys in the cabin. It was all really hilarious.
Each night there is a different evening program for the campers and sometimes the whole camp is together for it and sometimes the boys and girls' units are split up. On Opening Night all the counselors and staff put on skits for the kids so they could get to know us, which were funny. Then one night the girls unit threw a Dutch Auction which meant that we divided up into our cabins and we had to create scenes or things such as cars or houses out of what props we had and however many people were in our cabin. Then we had a bit of a dance party and then at the end each cabin was asked to create a cabin chant to perform on stage for the other cabins as part of a competition. I took charge for this and put my old cheerleading skills to good use and did a proper cheer with them. They all went on stage and performed it and Quincey did a cartwheel across the stage as the big finale and they won! They were ecstatic! It was also very cute as that night each cabin was asked to come to evening program all dressed in a certain colour of their choice so our girls all wore pink and we did their hair and put some pink eyeshadow and nail polish on them. They loved it, I loved it! Another night the girls unit had a huge dodgeball dance party where they played big games of dodgeball and then everyone danced afterwards. It was a lot of fun.
Then on day 3 we had to camp out. I had been dreading this but it turned out to be one of the best nights of the session! After the campers went to bed the counselors had so much fun! The whole younger girls unit went out into the woods a little bit outside of the main camp grounds and we all sat around a camp fire and Sam told all the girls a Bible story and they made smores then went to bed. Everyone had to sleep in tents, which were basically made up of a huge wooden platform and then canvas sheets for a cover. Each cabin had a tent and it was a nightmare trying to get the girls to sleep because they were all so scared! To make matters worse, we could hear fireworks going off over the lake as it was the 4th July weekend. Eventually they went to sleep though and the counselors made smores and talked and had a laugh around the camp fire. Then we decided to take the golf cart and drive back to camp to get more snacks and grab our pillows etc. This was hilarious. We managed to get six of us into a tiny golf cart. Sam drove, and Maddie and Katie squeezed into the front seat beside her, I then sat on their laps and held the flash light so we could see where we were going, then Abby and Emily sat on the back. We then drove back to camp really stealthily, grabbed snacks and our stuff and drove back up. All the counselors shared a tent which was fun, I thought I was going to hate sleeping in it but because it was dark that meant I couldn't see any insects which would normally freak me out. We were all exhausted that sleeping on just a wooden platform wasn't a problem either. We were up at 6:45am the next morning to bring the campers back down to get ready for Lord's Day. Lord's Day was great. All our girls dressed up really nicely and we had our mini church service, then everyone played sideline soccer which was even more fun with the campers there this time. All the counselors just goofed about dancing crazily and getting the kids to join in when they weren't playing. In the afternoon a carnival was set up with different stalls and such, I managed to get the easiest job of helping at the card making stall, so I just got to sit and make my own encouragement cards for the counselors. We have an encouragement board in the dining hall where the counselors post nice cards and letters to each other, which is really nice.
There were quite a few storms this past week because it has been so hot and humid, so that meant that all camp swim was cancelled as a storm started rolling in. A storm happened later in the week too whilst I was on waterfront duty. I had just come back from being on the boat when the storm alert alarm went off and everyone had to run to Sebago Hall to take cover and watch a movie instead.
It was sad saying goodbye to the campers on closing day; my girls that week were really cute. On Awards Night the night before honor camper awards were given out and there was an honor camper for each cabin and then an honor camper for each unit overall, Quincey one of my girls got the unit award which was great! Awards night was on the 4th July and Wazzo and Buckley's "Historical Reinactment" club performed by giving the story of how America gained its independance. It was hilarious, especially as Dom (who is English) played along with it and acted as if he was really outraged the whole time. Wazzo was hilarious all week; she let Dom read her diary out loud one night at staff snacks, in particular an entry about her first date with her boyfriend when they went to Best Buy and their "pinkies touched and sparks flew". It's become a running joke now around camp.
Once all the campers had left on closing day, after ourstaff meeting our day and a half break officially started. About 24 of us all went to Olive Garden for lunch which was really nice, and it was also great to eat a proper meal for once as we have to eat the same stuff as the campers usually which is just a tray with small portions of food and when you're on duty for meal times with the kids you don't really get to eat as you're always doing something whether it's pouring them glasses of water or tidying everything up. After lunch then I went home with Sam to her house to stay over that night. Sam is amazing! I got to skype my parents which was good and then we had dinner with her family and started looking up hotels for when everyone goes to Boston next week on break. I am so excited for that trip! There is about 17 of us going down there for a night and I can't wait to shop and hopefully see Harvard and maybe do a duck boat tour to see the city. The next day after I'd stayed over at Sam's we met up with everyone else at Old Orchard Beach and spent the afternoon there sunbathing and wandering around the touristy shops. We came back to camp in the evening and a big storm started and I got stuck in the cabin with Wazzo for about an hour; she kept freaking out about it which was not helpful but quite amusing all the same. When the storm blew over we had our first Bible study that night with our units. This was really good as my unit definitely got to know each other better. I love my unit, the girls are great. I have met so many great people here at camp, everyone is so so nice and fun.
Now we are into session 2 so new campers have arrived. This week we have 9 girls in our cabin ranging from ages 9 - 11. They are called Rebecca, Ivy, Maddie, Tess, Courtney, Shelby, Chelsea, Abby and Mikayla. They have been great so far, really well-behaved which is good. Yesterday during our time off me, Maddie, Abby and Magnes went down to the waterfront and swam out to the floating dock and lay there for ages sunbathing - amazing. Definitely planning to spend more breaks doing that! Last night for evening program the whole camp played a huge game of Clue which was fun. And there was yet another storm!
Anyway, have to go, my break is almost over. Dom and Soobs are beside me currently so this their special mention, they are awesome!
I took my cabin on rotations on the second day and it was a bit of a nightmare. I had to take them to Athletics and Swimming, and it was incredibly hot that day and all they did was moan and complain during the games. They perked up when they got to go swimming though, thankfully, and it was a fun rotation as the three cabins that were together for that activity had to do relay races against each other. The relay races involved spinning around an oar three times and running into the lake, swimming to the end of the first section and back, then putting on a lifejacket and doing the same thing again etc etc. The kids loved it, especially when they then made me, Maddie and Justin (the counselors) all race against each other too. After that they got to have free swim which was a bit of a nightmare for me as the campers all have different swim bands dependant on their level of swimming and those mean that they can only swim in certain sections, so I was being constantly yelled at by girls in different sections to come play with them. If there was one thing I wished for last week it was that I could multiply myself so I could be in several places at once to keep them all happy!
Each session the counselors have to create "clubs" for the kids to join and participate in for an hour each day after their camper choice time is over. For session 1 Jaime, Makayla, Meaghan and I took Group Games club. Jaime and I had thought this would be a walk in the park and that we could just play huge games of tag etc each day but no... There were a couple of boy campers who were really badly behaved and they started to ruin the games for everyone and we had to make them sit out a lot and try and discipline them. This meant that the kids tired of the games easily and we were starting to struggle for new ideas. So, for session 2 we've decided to give this club a miss and create different clubs. This week I am taking Taylor Swift club with Melanie and Danielle which so far looks like it's going to be a lot easier and a lot more enjoyable. All first session my campers made me and DJ play Taylor Swift music and they kept telling me I looked like her because of my hair, and they loved us singing her songs to them at night to get them to go to sleep so I decided a Taylor Swift club would probably be pretty popular among the next batch of campers. Yesterday clubs started up again and loads of girls signed up for our club which is great. I did a Taylor Swift quiz with them and then we decided that all this week we will sing and perform a dance to her song called "Mean" which the girls can then perform on Awards Night at the end of the session. They're so excited, it's really cute, hopefully it goes well!
During the first session the main problem DJ and I had with our girls was boys! Our girls were all 9 years old and they were boy obsessed! It was ridiculous. They started inventing code names for the boy counselors they liked, eg. JAG = Josh and Graham, and MAJ = Magnes and Jared. They would not stop talking about boys and getting worked up about asking boy campers to be their boyfriends that it got so bad that we had to enforce a ban on talking about boys in the cabin. It was all really hilarious.
Each night there is a different evening program for the campers and sometimes the whole camp is together for it and sometimes the boys and girls' units are split up. On Opening Night all the counselors and staff put on skits for the kids so they could get to know us, which were funny. Then one night the girls unit threw a Dutch Auction which meant that we divided up into our cabins and we had to create scenes or things such as cars or houses out of what props we had and however many people were in our cabin. Then we had a bit of a dance party and then at the end each cabin was asked to create a cabin chant to perform on stage for the other cabins as part of a competition. I took charge for this and put my old cheerleading skills to good use and did a proper cheer with them. They all went on stage and performed it and Quincey did a cartwheel across the stage as the big finale and they won! They were ecstatic! It was also very cute as that night each cabin was asked to come to evening program all dressed in a certain colour of their choice so our girls all wore pink and we did their hair and put some pink eyeshadow and nail polish on them. They loved it, I loved it! Another night the girls unit had a huge dodgeball dance party where they played big games of dodgeball and then everyone danced afterwards. It was a lot of fun.
Then on day 3 we had to camp out. I had been dreading this but it turned out to be one of the best nights of the session! After the campers went to bed the counselors had so much fun! The whole younger girls unit went out into the woods a little bit outside of the main camp grounds and we all sat around a camp fire and Sam told all the girls a Bible story and they made smores then went to bed. Everyone had to sleep in tents, which were basically made up of a huge wooden platform and then canvas sheets for a cover. Each cabin had a tent and it was a nightmare trying to get the girls to sleep because they were all so scared! To make matters worse, we could hear fireworks going off over the lake as it was the 4th July weekend. Eventually they went to sleep though and the counselors made smores and talked and had a laugh around the camp fire. Then we decided to take the golf cart and drive back to camp to get more snacks and grab our pillows etc. This was hilarious. We managed to get six of us into a tiny golf cart. Sam drove, and Maddie and Katie squeezed into the front seat beside her, I then sat on their laps and held the flash light so we could see where we were going, then Abby and Emily sat on the back. We then drove back to camp really stealthily, grabbed snacks and our stuff and drove back up. All the counselors shared a tent which was fun, I thought I was going to hate sleeping in it but because it was dark that meant I couldn't see any insects which would normally freak me out. We were all exhausted that sleeping on just a wooden platform wasn't a problem either. We were up at 6:45am the next morning to bring the campers back down to get ready for Lord's Day. Lord's Day was great. All our girls dressed up really nicely and we had our mini church service, then everyone played sideline soccer which was even more fun with the campers there this time. All the counselors just goofed about dancing crazily and getting the kids to join in when they weren't playing. In the afternoon a carnival was set up with different stalls and such, I managed to get the easiest job of helping at the card making stall, so I just got to sit and make my own encouragement cards for the counselors. We have an encouragement board in the dining hall where the counselors post nice cards and letters to each other, which is really nice.
There were quite a few storms this past week because it has been so hot and humid, so that meant that all camp swim was cancelled as a storm started rolling in. A storm happened later in the week too whilst I was on waterfront duty. I had just come back from being on the boat when the storm alert alarm went off and everyone had to run to Sebago Hall to take cover and watch a movie instead.
It was sad saying goodbye to the campers on closing day; my girls that week were really cute. On Awards Night the night before honor camper awards were given out and there was an honor camper for each cabin and then an honor camper for each unit overall, Quincey one of my girls got the unit award which was great! Awards night was on the 4th July and Wazzo and Buckley's "Historical Reinactment" club performed by giving the story of how America gained its independance. It was hilarious, especially as Dom (who is English) played along with it and acted as if he was really outraged the whole time. Wazzo was hilarious all week; she let Dom read her diary out loud one night at staff snacks, in particular an entry about her first date with her boyfriend when they went to Best Buy and their "pinkies touched and sparks flew". It's become a running joke now around camp.
Once all the campers had left on closing day, after ourstaff meeting our day and a half break officially started. About 24 of us all went to Olive Garden for lunch which was really nice, and it was also great to eat a proper meal for once as we have to eat the same stuff as the campers usually which is just a tray with small portions of food and when you're on duty for meal times with the kids you don't really get to eat as you're always doing something whether it's pouring them glasses of water or tidying everything up. After lunch then I went home with Sam to her house to stay over that night. Sam is amazing! I got to skype my parents which was good and then we had dinner with her family and started looking up hotels for when everyone goes to Boston next week on break. I am so excited for that trip! There is about 17 of us going down there for a night and I can't wait to shop and hopefully see Harvard and maybe do a duck boat tour to see the city. The next day after I'd stayed over at Sam's we met up with everyone else at Old Orchard Beach and spent the afternoon there sunbathing and wandering around the touristy shops. We came back to camp in the evening and a big storm started and I got stuck in the cabin with Wazzo for about an hour; she kept freaking out about it which was not helpful but quite amusing all the same. When the storm blew over we had our first Bible study that night with our units. This was really good as my unit definitely got to know each other better. I love my unit, the girls are great. I have met so many great people here at camp, everyone is so so nice and fun.
Now we are into session 2 so new campers have arrived. This week we have 9 girls in our cabin ranging from ages 9 - 11. They are called Rebecca, Ivy, Maddie, Tess, Courtney, Shelby, Chelsea, Abby and Mikayla. They have been great so far, really well-behaved which is good. Yesterday during our time off me, Maddie, Abby and Magnes went down to the waterfront and swam out to the floating dock and lay there for ages sunbathing - amazing. Definitely planning to spend more breaks doing that! Last night for evening program the whole camp played a huge game of Clue which was fun. And there was yet another storm!
Anyway, have to go, my break is almost over. Dom and Soobs are beside me currently so this their special mention, they are awesome!
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