Greetings from Discovery Camp! (Wednesday)

WEDNESDAY

Today, the weather was better!

I slept through my 6:30 am alarm, but managed to start checking in with campers and staff just before breakfast. I grabbed some cereal and scoped out the campers who were eating. I think the biggest thing I noticed was some of the campers looked a little tired. We really keep the campers busy with activities, meals, programs, and rest periods, so its not uncommon to see a few of them looking a little bleary-eyed in the morning.

I stopped by and talked to every camper who seemed a bit worn out, all but one of them told me they were doing fine and having fun. One camper just wasn't feeling great (so she went to see the nurse), but I saw here at the first morning activity on my way to Indian Camp and she looked better.

We have over 100 campers this season, and I'm pretty proud of how most of them are doing. Breakfast was pancakes, fruit, water/juice, applesauce, toppings, toast/bagels, vegetarian patties, and melon. After breakfast camp really comes to life as staff and children recharge a bit and get ready for the day.

I had Indian Camp again and we went for an entire mile hike (uphill) into the mountains. It took us about 20 minutes to reach the vista point where we took a photo for Instagram, and then headed back down the mountain. After the hike was feats of strength, and we had two champions from those games. I talk a lot about Indian Camp, but it's the only activity I teach every summer and this year our campers in that group are all still on track to get their Eagle Feather.

Lunch was big franks, various toppings for hotdogs or chili dogs, watermelon, chips, chili beans, salad bar, and water/juice. It's probably the most popular meals with the campers and staff. For lunch I sat with the staff and talked about the evening program. Campers have all sorts of ideas about what the characters should be doing in the Outpost Play, and frequently communicate their desires for the characters to the actors.

It's really interesting.

The evening play allows campers to see adults making good and bad choices, and then they also get to see how those decisions affect the characters. However, since the actors are also the counselors at camp, campers have the ability to express their opinions on what's happening in the play to them. Some of the girl campers wanted one of the protagonist (good) characters to marry a rich and wealthy doctor, even though he's one of the antagonists (bad characters) in the play. When she asked them why she should marry him, one camper told her to marry him because he's rich!

Afternoon activities proceeded without a hitch. I was tied down with administrative work from 1:15 - 3:30 pm, but I managed to sneak away to see some chalk drawings of ponies and birds down at the sports rotation. Last summer we started providing campers who didn't want to play sport with colorful chalk to draw with, and the entire parking lot seems to be decorated with art from a couple of children who decided to draw versus play Frisbee, basketball, or foursquare.

Dinner was taco salad, and of course it was build your own, just like the entire buffet we serve at camp. Counselors are on hand to make sure campers make some food choices, but we also let the campers have some discretion when it comes to the food that goes on their plate. People have been asking me how serious we are on fruit and veggies and we ask the campers to build a 'colorful' plate. 

The soda machines have been off all week so far, since we find that 8-10 year olds have trouble managing their sugar intake. We've done this since 2007, but I know it catches some parents off-guard. The campers get juice, water, milk, soy milk, and rice milk but no soda unless they buy it in the store as a treat.

After free time we had our final outpost play and then sent the kids to sleep a little earlier than usual at around 9:20 pm. I think it's a good idea to give them a little more rest tonight so that they can be a little more awake at breakfast tomorrow.

Tomorrow we'll be sending out our second update for parents, so please check your junk mail.

Blessings,

-Jeremy