Grades 5-7 July 22 - July 27

Speaker:Craig Wilmot
Director: Glenn Leiper
Time it took to be completely drenched in sweat: negative 2 minutes

This week was probably the hottest of the summer. It seemed like you constantly wanted to either jump into the ocean, jump into the shower, stand in front of a fan, or wanted to always be changing into dry sweat-free clothes. I think the most popular person on the grounds that week though was Ryan Waterman a.k.a Kitchen boy. Some of the girls loved him! And I mean follow/chase him around everywhere. It was mildly disturbing.

For some strange reason I can barely find any pictures from this week. Maybe it was just too hot to take pictures? Okay, now for some other highlights. Bruno the Bible bear came back. He was found extremely fast. Luckily this year there was not as much Bruno hate going on as the year before. They guys in my cabin that week were great. I had to play the tooth fairy as Evan lost one of his teeth. Unfortunately when Drew lost one of his teeth the next night I didn't have any more change to put under his pillow. (Disclaimer-These teeth came out naturally, not as the direct result of their counselor). Trail biking that week was also lots of fun, the best part being the fact that the girls were faster than the boys (except for two of the guys). It was also a great group to play Apples to Apples with.

Craig Wilmot did a great job speaking. He brought some funny stories and lots of bags of chips. He had a game where if he said your word during his sermon you would get a bag of chips for your cabin. Another thing he and Glenn did was give you a dollar off at tuck only if you asked for it. Craig also provided some good ideas for me to include in a scavenger hunt during family camp.

Well thats all the memory bank has. Feel free to add anymore highlights in the comment box.

Family Camp July 29 - August 4

Speaker:Peter Bloom
Director(s): The Churchill family
Extra room in the dining hall: none

Family camp was the largest camp of the summer, but that did not keep it from being a fun enjoyable week. The Churchills were back to direct their 100th family camp. Well not really that many but they have been doing it for a while and always have a fun week planned. The week featured fireworks, a candle-light skit night, an exciting volleyball tournament, a slip-n-slide on the front lawn, a scavenger hunt for the female staff, and a week of tenting for the male staff.
The week was a nice "break" from some of the regular duties of camp. It was great to just hang out with the family's talking with the adults and playing and leading the kids. It was nice not to be responsible for a cabin and have to know where they were ALL the time. The structure was also very enjoyable as it was much more relaxed than a normal week. And also having a long free/beach time is always a bonus, especially when the weather is beautiful which it was almost all week. There was a volleyball tournament on the beach which were made up of teams of 4 or 5 people. Some teams went all out and made nice uniforms, or played just to be good-balls, or played for keeps. Well the nice uniforms didn't cause the PEI boys to win, but they went out looking stylish.
The skies weren't always blue and the sunshine wasn't always pouring either. On Friday night, traditionally skit-night, there was a huge downpour/thunder and lightening storm. It was an amazing and haunting experience to watch the storm move in across the water and feel the wind pick up then to have the heavens open up and it pour rain. The thunder claps were right overhead, and I'm pretty sure one of them almost hit James Howitt as he was dancing/filling up the water tank out in the rain. When chapel was all done, many of the campers decided to have run and slide in the huge puddles that gathered out front. I think the photos do a good job showing what it was like. But it wasn't just the young guys out there, there were a few gals (Amanda and Jenni), and Lawrence acting young on his birthday.
Speaking of Lawrence's birthday, that was one of my personal highlights of the week. Like myself, Lawrence has been blessed with a head full of tight curls. His are slightly grayer than mine. Since it was his birthday some of the staff carried me into breakfast in a canoe while I was dressed wearing one of his shirts and also with my head full of baby powder to make it look like his hair. I don't know if any of that made sense, you had to be there. I also ate every meal that day with him. It was just a fun day.
Since it was so stormy the power was knocked out which meant we had skit night unplugged and had snack by candlelight. Very romantic and tasty.
Another highlight of the week was the when the Fraser family blessed us with their talents both musically and artistically. The Fraser family is a large family (12 people or something like that) that have come to camp the past 3 year from Quebec. All of them play instruments so they put on a mini-chapel for us playing a collection of hymns and traditional folk songs on violin, cello, and piano. After this they did a chalk drawing and told a story while doing it. There is no use in me even trying to explain it. All I can say it was completely mind-blowing. Art is a powerful thing.
Since there were so many campers, both sides of the loft were used as cabins for the family's. This meant that the staff were out in tents for the week. Well the girls found a way to end up staying up at B and E's place. But us boys had a good time out in the tents with nightly readings of Narnia in one cabin and Harry Potter in the other. There was more fun in the tents but I will not blog about it.












































Where's Waldo?
Philadelphia?
Australia?
Sackville?


Monkey and New Monkey

Junior Teens II August 5-10

Speaker:Hudson Trenholm
Director(s): Paul and Shelley Munnings ( feat. Owen and Grace)
Blown over trees: quite a few

By this point in the summer the energy levels and health of all the staff were starting to decrease but that did not prevent junior teens two from being an awesome camp. Paul and Shelley had a well planned week of games that aren't always the camp norm. All the campers were split into four groups; the Tourists, the Surfers, the Vendors, and the Entertainers. Now the Surfers made quite the splash and ended up winning the big prize, but I am glad to say as leader of the Tourists that we had the best cheer. A big reason I enjoyed the games so much was because I was able to dress up for pretty much all of them. First of all there was the game phobia where the campers had to guess what the staff were afraid of or what was wrong with them. We also played a game called "Underground Church" commonly known as Romans and Christians. It was a good game because it simulated the type of decisions Christians have to make in various parts of the world have to make when practicing their religion is not tolerated by the government. It was also fun to dress up as a Roman. Sir Aloicious the Vicious also was able to make another appearance, but you will meet him at a later date. We also played a game with resources which was fun since we got to dress up, but beyond that I don't have any good stories about it.
versions of the night games I've played in a long time. Grogs was awesome because I pretty much ended up being a complete freak following Julia around the woods all nigThe two night games we played, Grogs and Mission Impossible, turned out to be the bestht scaring the crap out of her. Mission Impossible (a game which this summer I have grown to hate) was amazing because the cabin was unbelievably quiet and stayed together, a rarity for a group of boys regardless of age.
And while we're on the topic of my cabin, I must say I enjoyed hanging out with them all week very much. Half of the cabin was obsessed with basketball. Having played fantasy basketball the past two years I was able to talk to them about the NBA somewhat. But when it came to my skills on the court, well lets just say the skills were lacking. The other half of the cabin were hilarious and pretty crazy. I ended up having a Turban club at the front of the chapel where a few of us would wear turbans for the first couple songs. Every morning I would wake up the cabin to David Bowie's Lets Dance. It was quite funny because all of the cabin except for one guy would be up dancing trying to wake this one sleepy head camper up. Melville, a very intelligent camper I must add, memorized the entire lyrics after only two listens and sang it a couple times. It was priceless. Any Bowie fan would be proud.
This week for twin meal I couldn't find a twin so I made a twin. His photo is further below.
Another memorable moment of the week was when we awoke Thursday (?) morning to witness a huge storm taking place outside. The wind was super powerful, you could lean back or forward into it and have you push you up. The waves were also the biggest I have seen there in quite a few years. The water came up way past the lifeguard stand and really altered the beach landscape. And it also pushed in the plethora of seaweed as I mentioned in a previous post.

Senior Teens August 12-17

Speaker:Jeremy Marsh
Director(s): Josh and Krista Docksteader
Male to Female ratio: 1 to 3

What a fun week to end off the summer. Josh and Krista definitely brought lots of 'new fresh' ideas to the week. The biggest thing would be the new schedule. Staff meeting was at 8:00 instead of 7:30 and let me tell you that extra 30 minutes to sleep made a world of a difference. Also rotations were at a new time, chapel was later at night, etc.
The week however was not pleasant on the nostrils. A storm the week before (which you will read about in later posts) washed in about 85% of the entire planets seaweed onto the Malagash beach. Well maybe not quite 85%, but there was a plethora of it. Thick, stinky, rotting, fly infested seaweed. It was the type of stench that would make you want to gag and puke. Somebody (I won't mention any names) puked from the stench. And while we are on the topic of Matt McMullen, along with puking he also managed to poop his pants from laughing so hard at camp. And while we're on the topic of poop smells, that stinky waft of sewage smell you get at camp was also out in full force quite regularly that final week. So basically the week stunk. Betty's cooking however smelt quite heavenly, and it tasted great as well I might add.
We had a couple themed meals as you can expect at camp. The first was fashion faux pas. Basically you had to wear clothes that if you wore in public you would probably get weird looks. I went for the touristy look as you can see. The high shorts and white thighs, the black socks and sandles, the same coloured shirt and shorts. Derrick Zoolander would have a fit and die if he were to see all the fashion disasters at that meal.
We also had a twins meal. There were lots of great pairs and I was glad to see Ryan thinking outside of the box by becoming Siamese twins with Sam. I thought inside the box and was a robot with Sonny. Not just any robot, but a picture taking stalker robot (look for a special post about Briggins and stalking later on). My favourite meal however was when the Curly Haired Club came into existence. It was a glorious meal that featured all curly hair people sharing their favourite curly hair moments. This including things such as how long they were straight before they went curly, or the way that sometimes they/we feel like a frizz ball sometimes. I think all the straight hair people were jealous.
A highlight of the week for the staff, but not really the campers, was waking up at 6:00 AM to play the staff vs. camper soccer game. The staff really enjoyed going from cabin to cabin waking up the campers (Beached whale!). Alot of the campers just watched the game, but bravo to those who against their body's will still played the game.
Sr. Teens is always alot of fun, especially when you are friends with some of the campers at home. Its just a great time to chill, relax, and just hang out. As fun as the games are, the highlight is usually chapel. And this year was no exception. Jeremy did a great job presenting new ways to look at old things such as prayer and worship. He also told us all about the "Slow Club" which was great to hear (and it also firmly planted the tourist in my head). Worship times were also fabulous, it was great having the chapels in the dark of the night, there's just something special about it. The worship team did an outstanding job that week, and the whole summer I might add.
So all in all it was a great week, a great way to end the summer. I was very tired and ready to go home when the end of the week rolled around. Just ask my cabin, they'll tell you I wasn't all there at some points which was pretty funny.