Last Break & Session 6

Break
Our last break before the final session of the summer was SO much fun! Definitely one of the best breaks, if not the best. On the first day around 20 of us went for lunch at On the Border, a mexican restaurant, which was really nice to relax and hang out and eat food other than camp food! We then all went to the mall afterwards to find outfits for Banquet! This started off being really fun and we kind of split off into small groups, so Sam, Maddie and I went around together looking for dresses, shoes, jewellery etc. It ended up getting a little stressful though, especially when people couldn't decide what to wear...(Dom shopping in Macy's drove everyone to breaking point, haha). A group of us then went for dinner afterwards and decided then to go back to camp, get changed and go for icecream at Dairy Queen, then after that we went to a beach further up the lake from camp and hung out there sitting on the dock and all talking. It is definitely one of my favorite moments of the summer, sitting on the dock with my close friends just discussing loads of stuff and with stars in the sky and the lake so peaceful it was such a good atmosphere! :-)

Everyone on the pontoon boat.

Kelsey, Sam, Me & Katie on the boat.

The next day of break some of us went for lunch at Applebee's and then came back and spent the whole afternoon on the pontoon boat on Sebago Lake. This was an AMAZING afternoon! SO much fun! We sailed out quite a bit and stopped the boat and all lept off it into the water and swam about and jumped off more which was wicked fun. We then sailed to Frye Island which was quite far away from camp on the other side of the lake (Sebago Lake is huge) and by the time we got there we realised that we had hardly any gas left and wouldn't be able to make it back to camp unless we got some more! Frye Island didn't have a gas station, so we got some icecream there and tried not to panic, and thankfully some other people very kindly offered to show us where the nearest boat gas station was so we followed them across the lake and got more gas just in time before we totally ran out! This meant we could now all relax so we went back out into the middle of the lake and stopped and jumped off the boat more and played music and danced etc, it was just sooo much fun :-) On the way back me, Maddie and Kelsey sat on the very front of the boat and let our feet get carried along by the water and just laughed and sang along to the music. Great memories from that day!

Jumping off the boat!

Me, Maddie & Kelsey.

Session 6

Session 6 was the last session of the summer, and it was definitely one of the best, everyone made the most of it and gave it their all. Deejay and I had 10 campers that week, which was double what we had the week before so things seemed a bit more normal again. One of the evening programs was called Collaboration, which was just for the girl campers. All the girl counselors had to pair up with their co-counselor and perform something on stage for the campers to watch. Deejay and I did an alternative Taylor Swift performance...I pretended to be Taylor Swift singing her song Love Story whilst Deejay was pretending to be a DJ behind me, then the music cut and I yelled out "Hey, DJ turn it up!" and then it changed song into Thug Story, Taylor Swift's gangster parody of her own song Love Story and we rapped along and acted like rappers. It was fun, all the other performances were really entertaining and funny too. Mel and Kirsten got all the other counselors up on stage and squirted us all with water guns, haha. 

Team Ireland's staff members.

Session 6 was a little different from the other sessions because we had Olympics. Basically for a day and a half we ran fake Olympic Games. The counselors and kids were all assigned to countries (I was the Captain of the Irish team) and during the opening ceremony which was one of the evening programs, each country had to put face paint on and create and perform a chant after the passing of the torch procession. I taught my team the Ireland rugby chant (Ireland, Ireland together standing tall...etc) and we added a few other chants to the end of it. The kids were so cute singing it all decked out in green, white and orange with shamrocks and Irish flags on their faces! 

Me doing the high jump, haha!

The next day was Olympic Games day, this was undoubtedly the most exhausting day ever!! It was a lot of fun but it felt more like bootcamp than simple games for the counselors. It was so hot also that day, it made it hard to keep going. The Games were fun though. We went around in our countries and did activities like javelin, discus, shot put, high jump, triple jump, long jump, hurdles, sprinting and we built a lean-two (basically a tee-pee). The counselors had to participate in everything as well as the kids, which was tiring but hilarious. Thank goodness we had Freddie on team Ireland as he is really athletic and set a lot of records for the events!

Me, Fred, Mel & Abby

That day we ate meals with our countries etc, and in the afternoon we took part in tug-of-war, swimming relay races, dodgeball, freeze dance, soccer and capture the flag against the other countries. It was non-stop!! It was fun, but quite stressful as team Ireland seemed to have most of the youngest campers who needed more instruction and control than the older ones. By the time it was our turn to do the water race we were all just ready to jump right off the dock into the water to cool off and try and relax for a little bit! After dinner that night we had to come up with a skit for our whole team to perform, so we made one up about how our kids wouldn't listen all day and ran off on us and when they returned and we asked where they were they said they had followed a rainbow and found a pot of gold so we wouldn't need to win the Olympics anymore, haha. In the end Canada won, and Ireland came 5th out of 8 countries which wasn't too bad seeing as Freddie was really our only team member really into athletics! 

YO- G! Younger Girls Unit.

We had a Younger Girls Unit night out in session 6 where we just went to Wal-Mart and stocked up on snacks and went to the dock by TJ's where some of us had gone during our last break to hang out which was nice just to get off camp for a bit and hang out as a unit one last time before the end of camp. 

  

Jesus Theater during session 6 was incredible! So many of my campers were really affected by it and wanted to talk and share with me issues that were going on in their lives. It was amazing to see how many of them wanted to pray and talk about God not just with me and Deejay but among themselves. I heard so many interesting, encouraging and inspiring stories from these little 9 & 10 year old girls and it was a really special night. Jesus Theater was a big part of camp life each week and it was really successful, enjoyable and rewarding for everyone. Hannah, who was in charge of it, deserves so much credit for doing such a good job! 

Sebago Awards on the last night of the session was so much fun!! The week before, kind of embarrassingly, me, Sean, Dom and Meaghan were pulled up on stage by the unit leaders and made to dance to S Club 7, which was really funny, but this time at the end of the awards the whole camp had a dance party which was a brilliant way to end the last night! Everyone went crazy dancing to dance music, Bon Jovi and Don't Stop Believing by Journey. Marshall, who was one of Dom's campers that week and has autism, wanted to dance with me as I had helped him out making something in Arts & Crafts earlier in the week, and he pulled me up on stage with Maddie to dance which was fun. He took it a little far though by then telling everyone in the infirmary during Night Meds that I was his girlfriend!! Haha, this only got worse on closing day when his mom came to pick him up and he pointed me out and said "there's my girlfriend!". Thankfully she was not annoyed and saw the funny side! 

After closing day, camp clean up began and lasted for two days. We had to completely clean our cabins and areas from top to bottom until they were spotless which we made fun by blasting music etc so it really wasn't bad at all. One of the nights of camp clean up we had Vespers which is something we had once every week, just a time of sharing what had happened during the week and of music and prayer, and then we were allowed to go off camp for a bit so some of us went to Applebee's (our second home it would seem) where Jared decided to order 3 desserts, hahaha, what a bad idea! The next night after camp clean up a huge screen was set up in the field and everyone brought couches and mattresses out to sit on and we watched two movies, which was really nice. 

Abby, Me, Jaime, Sam & Katie all ready for Banquet.

Our Banquet Table - Abby, Jared, Jaime, Lyle, Me, Dom, Kelsey & Sean.

Me & Kelsey with our awards.

The following day was Banquet Day! Camp clean up was all done so we had the whole day off, so me, Sam, Jaime and Abby left early and went to the mall and got pedicures and shopped for last minute jewellery and shoes and had a really nice girls lunch out. We then came back to camp and had from about 1pm until 6pm to get ready! This was a lot of fun, we had a shaving party on the porch of cabin 26 and sat on the porch for ages just talking and took our time getting ready, doing our hair, make up etc so it was all really relaxed and fun. All the girl counselors got ready in 26 and at 6pm the boys walked over across the field to meet us, and get pictures etc. We then all walked over to the pavilion where dinner tables had been set up and there were caterers and a huge buffet of really good food! Everyone chatted and took photos and had a great time at the dinner. There were camp Superlative awards, which everyone had voted for, for things like Best Tan, Camp Comedian, Friendliest, Honor Staff etc. I won Best Hair which was really nice as I didn't expect to win anything at all! Also on show at Banquet was the big Camp Sebago Staff 2011 board which is a huge board with a painting of a sunset at camp with everyone's names on it, which is really nice. We also watched a powerpoint slideshow of photos taken throughout the summer which was really nice and it was funny looking back on some of the hilarious moments that had happened.

Wazzo getting the party started.

Me & Maddie whipping our hair back and forth.

After the meal, the tables were cleared away and everyone started dancing. All summer, the Younger Men (Younger Boys) Unit counselors had always introduced themselves on skit night by saying "I'm Sean/Lyle/Jared etc... and I like to party". Well, Camp Sebago staff likes to party. It was one of the most fun nights of the summer dancing crazily with everyone! Maddie and I got up on stage and whipped our hair back and forth like crazy to Willow Smith's song "I whip my hair" and Wazzo got everyone pumped up by having a dance off, and Sean & Fred performed their Justin Bieber routine one more time, it was just such a great way to spend the final night at camp :-).

Sunrise.

We only got a couple of hours sleep before me, Wazzo, Meaghan, Alicia and Magnes got up to do watch the sunrise down at the waterfront. I had to force myself to get out of bed to go and am so glad that I did because it was so beautiful. The sky was purple, pink, orange and red and the water was so still. We wandered along the shore and sat on docks and rocks watching it, and it was definitely the perfect way to end our time at camp for the summer, just admiring the beauty of where we had been all summer. I have seen pretty sunsets in Florida and at home in Ireland before but this was undoubtedly the most beautiful sunrise I have ever seen :-).

Meaghan, Me, Alicia & Magnes on the dock watching the sunrise.

The staff board.

It was one of the hardest things ever to say goodbye to everyone the morning after Banquet. I still can't believe camp is over, the time flew by but at the same time it felt like I had been there forever. I really did not want to leave! I don't think anyone did! After camp ended me, Kelsey, Sean & Dom went on vacation to Washington DC and then to NYC for a few days before going home and had a lot of fun which I will detail about in the next entry! 

Long Break & Session 5

I realise I have not blogged in a month...when I returned to camp after long break I decided that I would rather not spend my free time writing and instead just hang out with everyone as much as possible as the summer was quickly coming to an end. But anyway, I shall update it now as usual.

Long Break
Once session 4 had ended we got 4 days off so for long break I went down to New York to visit Tylar my friend from St. Andrews. It was a really good trip, I did however have some travel issues. I stupidly decided to take the 8hour long Greyhound bus instead of fly (why oh why??) and on the way there once we crossed over the state line into NY the bus got pulled over and a cop got on board and said "Everyone, I would appreciate your co-operation at this time as we are searching for someone". I was freaking out inside! Thankfully after waiting for 20 minutes the bus was allowed to continue on and nothing was wrong. 

Me at Times Square

It was really exciting to see Tylar outside of school, and we had so much fun! The first full day we went into NY from New Jersey where she lives, and went to Macy's, visited Times Square, went shopping on 5th Avenue, went to the Rockefeller Center, and we got food from a street vendor (not great) and hung out in Central Park for a bit. In the afternoon we went on a boat tour which took us past Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty which was really cool. We ended up going back to NJ for the evening to eat and go to the mall there where everything was tax free, woo! Tylar also took me to a place called Eagle Rock in NJ which was really nice; it is a big observatory point up on a hill which looks out onto the skyline of NYC and has a big memorial for 9/11 with all the names of everyone who was lost during the attack. It was one of my favorite things which we did. 

Me & the Statue of Liberty

The second day we went to Ground Zero and saw the new World Trade Center being built and visited the memorial preview store which had documentaries etc showing on large screens. We also visited the church beside Ground Zero which offered loads of support in the aftermath of the attacks and it was really interesting to walk around and look at the displays it had on show. We walked along Wall Street and then went back uptown to the Met (Metropolitan Museum of Art). I loved the Met, it had some really nice exhibitions in it (I was disappointed however that there was a big Alexander McQueen exhibition on and the waiting time in line for it was over 2 hours so I couldn't see it). We met up with Andrew, another friend from St Andrews, at the Met and he took us to see the musical Jersey Boys on Broadway. It was really good and so funny! I love musical theater so really enjoyed it. We then went for dinner after it at a very nice Italian restaurant in the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle, which was very relaxing and pleasant. Later that night, Tylar and I went up the Empire State Building, which although it was cool being up at the top, was not particularly enjoyable as we were so tired by this point and we had to wait in line for 90mins to even get up to the top, which was packed full of people, and then we had to queue to even get out of the building. Not really the best time to do it, even though the city looked really nice at night. As it took so long at the Empire State Building we had to rush like crazy and had an epic run through Port Authority to catch the bus in time, which was hilarious upon reflection!
The next day I then had to travel back up to Maine, and everything went really well until we got to Boston for a layover. When it was time to leave Boston the bus had a new driver who had never driven the route before, thus had no idea how to get out of Boston and onto the highway. Passengers started yelling out directions at him, which wasn't helping, and as we were driving through Boston suddenly we crashed into the side of a truck and the bus' wing mirror fell off...Passengers started screaming and the driver took forever to find his way back to the station. Eventually after waiting around at the station, we got a new bus and a new driver and made it back to Portland, ME just fine. Sam picked me up from the station and we went and got massages with Alicia - I definitely needed one by then!!!

Me & Tylar on the steps of the Met.

Session 5
Session 5 was a little strange as after the previous session in which I had 14 campers in my cabin which was crazy, I now had 5 campers! There were pros and cons to this - it was less stressful and we could keep count of them easily and get them organised easily, but then again it was a little difficult trying to play games etc when there were so few of them. 

Abby, Me & Maddie dressed up for Superhero Night.

Me & Sean dressed up as catwoman and catman.

We had some really fun evening programs that session. One evening we had Superhero night so everyone on camp dressed up as superheroes and the program staff dressed up as super villains. Early in the day at lunchtime Captain Brett came into the dining hall and announced really seriously and really angrily that a canteen key had gone missing so there was now only one and that whoever had it must return it (I did not realise this was a joke...oops). Evening program started in Sebago Hall, and Fred was dressed up as the Joker and he came up on stage and stole the last remaining canteen key... This launched evening program. All the kids and counselors then had to take part in games of kickball, poisonball, capture the flag and an obstacle course in order to defeat the supervillains and win parts of a puzzle that when put together would lead us to where to get the key back. Once we'd finished the activities we went up to the camp fire site and waited silently until the Joker appeared, then some of the staff "fought" against him and won the key back. It was a really fun evening, definitely one of my favorites!! 

T-Swizzle, Thunder, Lightening & DJ turn it up.

Another really fun evening program was gangster Clue. We played Clue earlier in the summer but this time gave it a gangster theme, which was really fun to get dressed up for. My cabin was paired up with 6B again to go around camp and figure out who murdered "Mr. Sebago", and Brent and Tyler (6B's counselors) were hilarious, and get cracking jokes the whole time making everyone laugh. They called themselves Thunder & Lightening (because together they create a storm...) and gave me the gangster name T-Swizzle (after Taylor Swift) and Deejay got called "DJ turn it up". This time when we went around camp to get the clues our cabins were made to rap the week's memory verse, sing Thunderation etc. It was a lot of fun, and ended again with the murderer being thrown in the lake.

Lorissa (Miss Scarlett) gets thrown in the lake!

 For clubs that week, me, Sean & Dom took British Club as I'm from Northern Ireland, Sean is Scottish and Dom is English. It was quite good; the first day we did a scavenger hunt around camp to find dodgeballs in teams and every team was a different country and we played a few more games with them after that. The next day Sean organised Highland Games for them to compete in in their countries. The final activity in the Highland Games was human ring toss, where the kids had to throw hoops and try and get them on me, Sean & Dom... My favorite British Club activity however was my own idea haha (well, with a little help from Dom). We took the kids to the playground and Dom and I pretended to be guards and tied Sean (a.k.a Prince William) up and entrapped him in the playground castle. This meant the aim of the game was to set Prince William free so that he could marry Kate Middleton (Kelsey). To do so, firstly we had the kids do a number of challenges like walk with a book on their head, introduce themselves in a British accent etc. The last challenge was to go find Kelsey (a.k.a Kate) who had a map which showed where the key to a treasure chest was hidden. When they brought Kelsey back then they had to complete an obstacle course in order to get the map from her, which led them to where the key to the chest was hidden. They then found the chest and in it were loads of dodgeballs and a crown. They had to throw the dodgeballs at me & Dom to defeat the guards and then climb up into the castle, untie Sean and give him his crown. Then we performed a fake royal wedding so it all ended happily ever after and Wills and Kate got reunited and married, haha! It was actually very fun and successful even though Dom & Sean were a bit dubious at first.


Another entertaining thing from that week was Dom asking me to banquet. Banquet is at the very end of camp and it's a big dinner party with dancing after it and most people arrange to go with someone to it. After some over the top proposals (Buckley made Sam a big powerpoint presentation for example) Dom decided to have me get up at 5am and meet him at the gazebo. From there we went to boating and there was string the whole way down the stairs and along the boating dock which I had to follow and pull on when I got to the end of the dock. Out of the water, attached to the string, came a message in a bottle which basically said go to the pavilion. So we went to the pavilion and on the floor there were loads of chalk drawings and a message saying Now go to the waterfront. So we went to the waterfront and as I was walking down the ramp I saw in pebbles on the ground the word "Banquet?". It was highly entertaining and really nice! We hung out at the waterfront for a bit and fed some ducks who appeared on the shore. I definitely had the most extravagant banquet proposal out of everyone on camp, haha!

Pirates attack!

Lord's Day that week was also really fun as at lunchtime some of the program staff came in dressed as pirates and seized the unit leaders hostage. Then when everyone went down to the waterfront for all camp swim that afternoon the pirates came over on the pontoon boat with the unit leaders and when they docked they threatened to push the unit leaders into the water as their treasure had been stolen by them. Captain Brett stepped up and sacrificed himself in order for the unit leaders to go free so he was pushed in. It was really funny, and made all camp swim more fun! 


Jesus Theater that night was also really good as I got to talk to one girl after it called Alexis, who was also in British Club that week, who was very affected by it as she had dealt with a lot - her family had just got out of a homeless shelter, her grandfather had passed away and her grandmother was in hospital. And Alexis is only 10 years old. I talked to her for a little bit and she was so thankful to have someone just listen to her. It is definitely one of my favorite camper moments.


That night the Younger Girls Unit camped out, which was fun. I set my s'more on fire and couldn't get it to blow out...oops, me & Maddie were on Angel Watch that night and had to tell the 7 year olds off multiple times for talking, and Abby and Sam convinced me to sleep outside on the ground by the fire with them instead of in the tent but we got rained on in the middle of the night and had to move into the tent in the end!


All in all, it was an eventful session and the break which followed it was definitely one of the best breaks of the summer! :-)

End of Session 3 & Session 4

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!

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!

Anyway, I will have to go, think I have covered enough!

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!

Orientation Week & Opening Day

I have been at Camp Sebago for a week now, and it has been great so far. Orientation lasted until Tuesday and it was a really good few days to get to know the other staff and learn about camp life etc. It was a really busy couple of days, we had a lot of talks and bonding exercises to do. After a lot of rain at the start of the week the weather brightened up and it got really warm. All the staff had to take a swim test in the lake which was freezing!! The swim test wasn't hard, just swimming two lengths and treading water for a minute but the water was so cold that it knocked the wind out of everyone. Though the lake is much more bearable when it is really hot out, the waterfront was opened up to the staff on our last day of orientation for the afternoon and we went swimming then and it was a lot more enjoyable! The lake is beautiful, the shore is covered in pebbles and fir trees are all around it. The lake gets really deep quite quickly and there's a floating dock further out that you can jump off and there are paddle boats, kayaks, a pontoon boat and there's a speed boat that can be used for tubing. In the evenings we had an evening program organised for about an hour and a half which was basically just icebreaker bonding exercises; one night we played team games and another night all the units had to do skits like I mentioned briefly in my last entry, which was fun. My unit is called the Younger Girls unit because we are the counselors for the younger girls aged 7-9 which come to camp. I love my unit! The girls are great and we get on really well. One night we all left camp and drove 20mins to the nearest Walmart so we could get white tshirts for tie-dying in arts & crafts. Camp is in the middle of nowhere so you have to drive quite a while to go anywhere, but we make the car journeys fun blasting music and singing along. For most of the evenings during orientation everyone just hung out talking either at the basketball court or in the Rec Hall where we got some games of round robin using the table tennis table, pool and foosball going. On our last night of Orientation we had a big cookout where we ate on the picnic tables outside by the pavilion instead of in the dining hall which was really nice and we got to make smores which are so good. We also had this thing called vespers which is like a staff worship service where we sing some worship songs and people can get up and share something if they want, like talk about their expectations for the summer etc. It was good because it got everyone focused on the fact that we are here to do a good job for the kids primarily. We also have a day each week called Lord's Day which is basically the equivalent of Sunday only it falls sometime during the week because camp sessions start halfway through the week so Sunday isn't necessarily at the end of each week. Lord's Day is really fun; everyone dresses up a bit more nicely in dresses and shirts and we have a short service where Captain Brett (the camp director) gives a short talk, and there's songs etc, it's a bit like church only shorter and more informal. Then after that everyone goes back to their cabins and gets changed and heads back out onto the main field to play sideline soccer. Sideline soccer is a lot of fun; what happens is everyone lines up on either side of the field, so the younger girls and older boys units on one side and the older girls and younger boys units on the other side and music is blasting and everyone dances and then when someone yells out for example "Everyone wearing red!" then everyone wearing red has to run into the middle of the field and play until a team scores. It's a tradition so we'll play it every Lord's Day when the campers are here.
I also found out that session 3 is a music camp so the campers that week will all be a bit older and they will just do music activities, so they sign up for whatever class they want during the daytime, like guitar or timbrols, and then they also sign up for a chorus (choir). I found out that I am assisting with the worship team that week which means I'll just have to help lead the kids with the songs, and then I am also assisting with one of the choruses which I'm really looking forward to because I love choir, I am also down to accompany the choir as well but I don't think my piano skills are really that good but apparently I'll just have to bash out a few notes along to a backing CD so it should be ok.
Another thing I found out is that each week our unit will go up into the woods and camp out in tents. I am not looking forward to this, my unit leader Sam tells me it'll be fun and we sit around a camp fire with our campers and sing and make smores etc but the idea of sleeping in a tent with so many bugs around creeps me out. Dom, who is English and has been a counselor before told me that he complains for two days before he has to camp out each week and complains for two days after...so I'm not expecting great things. Hopefully it won't be as bad as I anticipate.
Yesterday the campers arrived for the first session! It was really nerve-wracking because there is so much stuff that the counselors have to do and know, but me and my co-counselor DJ got a really good cabin, with 8 girls who are all 9 years old and they have been really well-behaved so far. Their names are Quincey, Nytasha, Krystina, Cheyenne, Destiny, Shelby and there are two Emilys. Very American names! They are so cute though, and as I helped them move into the cabin Krystina launched at me and gave me a huge hug and said she's so happy I'm here. Me and DJ played some team games with them until it was time for lunch. Meals are crazy now that the campers are here, we have to line up with them and collect our trays of food, go back to the table, and make sure they eat and drink all their milk and water. At dinner last night our girls really wanted Blue Juice which is full of sugar so we said they could only have it if they all drank their milk cartons and the two pitchers of water...I have never seen anyone drink so quickly. Quincey was downing glasses like there was no tomorrow, not so sure we should go with bribe again! Then we have to clear and stack all the trays and collect the rubbish and the kids start firing the trays at you all at once so it's a bit chaotic but we'll get used to it. After lunch yesterday then the kids went on rotations. Rotations means that they had 4 different activities to do that afternoon, starting with swim tests, then playground, then arts & crafts and then athletics. DJ and I are able to take time off during these so she took the kids to swim tests and playground and I was meant to be on arts & crafts and athletics after my break. Unfortunately, I have been suffering from some horrific mosquitoe bites the past few days, I have literally been eaten alive. I've never been so badly bitten before which is weird seeing as I spent a lot of time in Florida growing up, and these bites aren't even small they are huge. They were so bad yesterday that my ankles were completely swollen up and it was painful to walk, so I went to the infirmary on my break and Dr. Bill made me rest and put enormous ice packs around my ankles, and gave me medicine. I was so gutted though that when it came to 3pm which was when I was meant to go take the kids to arts & crafts he decided that I shouldn't go because the swelling hadn't gone down very much so Sam had to cover for me, which was so good of her. So I was stuck in the infirmary all afternoon whilst it was really good weather outside and I was missing out on getting to know my campers. Sean came and visited me though which was good so I had someone to chat with for a while but then the medicine I was given must have made me really drowsy because I totally passed out and jumped in total fright when I heard my name being said and I opened my eyes and saw Becky, Dr. Bill's wife standing over me. We both jumped in fright, it was hilarious. When I was allowed to go back to my cabin my campers gave me this huge get well soon card that they had made me in arts & crafts, saying "We love you Sarah" inside and they had all written little messages, it was so so cute. After dinner then we wentup to the outdoor theatre thing where there's a stage and a lot of benches and all the units had to do a skit to introduce themselves to the campers. The skits this time got messy, there was a lot of water being thrown and shaving foam everywhere, but they were funny and the kids loved them. Then some of the program staff dressed up all in black and rode up to the theatre in one of the maintenance carts and started pie mafia. Pie mafia is where the program staff mafia pick out counselors in the stands and bring them onto the stage and throw a whipped cream pie in their face. Thankfully I was not picked last night! Though my campers were screaming "Pick Sarah!!!" and pointing at me the whole time!
After that then we took the campers back and got them ready for bed with lights out at 9:15pm. Each night DJ and I have to do a devotion for them like tell them a Bible story or something and encourage prayer and sing for them so they go to sleep. Once they are all quiet for 20 minutes then we can leave and go on our free time although last night I was down to do Angel Watch with Jaime and Leann which meant we had to sit out in the field in front of the girls cabins and make sure everything's quiet until our curfew. All the girl counselors rotate on this though so I won't have to do it again until next session.
Then so far today it has been wake up at 6:30am so me and DJ can get showered before the kids and then get them ready before breakfast at 7:55am. I didn't sleep well at all last night - first of, three of our campers were snoring - I hate snoring - and then I kept hearing them coughing and getting up and going to the bathroom during the night. Hopefully I'll be tired enough tonight that I'll just pass out. Now opening day is over we are onto our normal schedule so we have breakfast then JAM session which stands for Jesus & Me which is where the two younger units get together and sing songs and see a drama and learn a memory verse, then it's cabin clean up where all the campers have a chore to do to tidy the cabin and then it's onto rotations. I got this morning off so DJ is on rotations with our campers at the minute and then this afternoon she will get time off while I go down to help out at the waterfront during camper choice time, where the campers get to choose whatever activity they want to do. Then after that we have clubs in the late afternoon. Clubs are run by the counselors for the campers and they can be anything, eg. dance club, swim club, but me and Jaime are taking Team Games club so hopefully some kids want to join it!
Anyway, that's all for now, I've given a pretty big update on what's been going on, and now we're just on the daily schedule until the end of this session, then we get a day and a half off after the 4th of July so the counselors will go and do something fun then; I think a group of us are going to go down to Boston on one of our breaks which I'm excited for!

Start of Orientation

On Thursday morning I had to get up super early to go back into NYC to get to the bus station to get the long bus up to Portland, ME. I met up with two other British guys, Sean and Dom, who are also counsellors at Sebago so we traveled together. We had some time to kill before the bus arrived so Dom and I walked to Times Square at 6am which was fun. Can't wait to visit NYC properly! We had a long ride up and passed the time playing 20 questions. Arrived in Portland and the camp director and my unit leader picked us up and took us to camp. I share a cabin with 3 other girls, Meaghan who is from New Zealand, Nicole aka "wazzo" and DJ who is my co-counsellor. On the first night despite being super jet lagged me and Meaghan stayed up til 2am chatting to Josh and Ryan, so the next day we were pretty tired still. It has rained heavily for the past few days but it finally brightened up a bit today. Proper staff orientation started today so we had a few talks etc and then just chilled out playing frisbee etc in-between talks. Earlier tonight every unit had to present a skit to the rest of the staff so my unit (younger girls) did this like choreographed clapping thing which sounds weird but it was pretty funny! Anyway have to go we are just in mcdonalds chilling and leaving now to go back to camp!