Last Week of Summer Camp 2009

Each year, the last week of camp is always a little heartbreaking. Luckily, the last week is turning out beautiful and ends the summer on a good note. It is just day camp this week and their theme is music.

While the campers are still doing archery, canoeing, and arena rides, they are also participating in activities such making their own instruments. On Thursday they will have a dance party and on Friday we will be hosting Camp Abe Lincoln (CAL) Idol!

Camp Genesis Update

This week is our last week of resident camp, and we are lucky enough to have this week sponsored by Genesis Health Systems, and sponsored by the Gilda's Club of the Quad Cities. All of the camper's families have been affected somehow by cancer. It truly is a phenomenal week, and it's heartwarming to give these campers the chance to just be kids.

They started with the opening "Zany" campfire on Sunday night where they met all the counselors and saw some of our favorite skits, such as Boomer and Dr. Justice's "Princess and the Knight," and Tinkerbell, Nacho, TaDa, and Bubbles' "Little Girl Walking."

The other night activities that the campers have done are a night swim, capture the flag, and a cook out. Tonight, they will participate in "Wild and Crazy Kids." This will involve races and games that include eggs getting smashed onto counselor's heads, building fires, and filling a bucket with water, without the use of hands.

Some activities that campers have had the option of doing are arts and crafts, drama, dance, outdoor living skills, archery, and canoeing. In outdoor living skills, they are building a tree house/fort this week! In archery they used fruit and clay objects as their targets. For canoeing, they have applied teambuilding activities to learn how to canoe. In arts and crafts, they are making scrapbooks.

Day campers are taking advantage of the weather with the "Wet and Wild" theme this week. Currently, they are playing water games and are slip'n sliding!

7/30/09

On this gorgeous Thursday, all the campers are having a great time!

Resident campers are playing outside with Ga-Ga, Medieval battles, Arts & Crafts, water games, etc. Blackhawk, Wabsecon, and Young Bear all climbed the Alpine Tower today. Tonight, they will have a cook out and then the closing campfire where they will say goodbye to their new friends and counselors.

Day campers went caroling this morning! They sang beloved Christmas songs to all the resident campers, staff, and Hand in Hand. They later trimmed a Christmas tree with ornaments that they made.

Hand in Hand rode horses, and are currently doing facepainting and having a dance party!

7/29/09

Today was a beautiful day for camp! Cabin Pottawattamie is in the lead for White Tornado. One of the classes offered this week is "Medieval Times" and today they staged a battle! Tonight, the cabins joined together for a few games of Capture the Flag.

Day camp is getting ready for Christmas in July activities by listening to Christmas songs at lunch. Tomorrow they will be caroling to the resident campers!

Hand in Hand group rode horses, went canoeing, did archery, facepainting, and arts and crafts, and went swimming!

Welcome to Session 7!

Resident camp started off fantastic on Sunday night at the Zany campfire. Highlights from the campfire include a skit by Boomer and Dr. Justice about a Knight named Knight who wants to marry the princess and the infamous remix of "I'm a Little Teapot" by the Camp Director.

This week's classes that are offered for cabins are Canoeing, Dance, Arts & Crafts, Archery, Outdoor Living Skills, and Journalism. Each cabin will climb the Alpine Tower and go on a trail ride sometime this week. Poweshiek climbed the Alpine Tower today.

Pottawattamie is currently in the lead for White Tornado. White Tornado is a game between all the cabins on the cleanliness of their cabins. This helps teach campers about the 4 core values of the Y: caring, honesty, respect, and responsibility.

Day Camp started today as well. This week's theme is "Christmas in July." They will go caroling, decorate a tree, make ornaments, and possibly meet Santa!

Hand in Hand is out here again this week too! They participated in arena rides, archery, arts & crafts, and swimming today.

Tuesday 6/21/09

Today, resident camp started their day out playing "Ga-Ga." Ga-Ga is a new game at camp, that is a safer form of dodgeball, because you can only get people out from the knee and below. It has been very popular with the campers... and the staff too! Cabin Young Bear went to the Alpine Tower today to climb, but when it started raining, they had to leave early. Cabin Oneida is winning White Tornado currently. For those who don't know, White Tornado is a competition between the cabins on the cleanliness of their cabins. The reasoning behind this game is to teach campers about the four core values of the YMCA: caring, honesty, respect, and responsibility. Tonight, the campers joined together for a rainy, muddy game of Capture the Flag, which the blue team won.

Day campers had a typical rainy day schedule, consisting of indoor activities like arts & crafts and teambuilding games.

Hand in Hand had lots of fun in the mud today. They also roasted smores inside and had a rocking dance party!

Session 6 Update

Sometimes, camp can be a difficult time for parents. Not knowing what exactly your child is doing at any moment can be quite stressful, but contact between the parents and campers can cause homesickness for the child. However, thanks to this blogging world, we can now update all you parents on what your child is doing everyday.

After the resident campers arrived yesterday afternoon, each cabin got settled in and acquainted with each other. Later, after dinner the campers attended the opening campfire. Since it's called the "Zany Campfire" each camper gets to dress as silly as their hearts desire. There they met all the counselors and staff, watch funny skits, and sing songs.

Today, they had what a typical day will be like. Each camper has the option of signing up for various classes, such as canoeing, archery, drama, arts & crafts, outdoor living skills, journalism, and more! Also throughout the week, each cabin will have the opportunity to climb the Alpine Tower and go a on trail ride. Currently, the resident campers are out at the pool for their evening activity.

Day camp just got started again today! This week's theme is Secret Agent so the kids will be be making "secret decoders" for arts & crafts and will be involved in various activities that will relate.

This week is extra amazing, as we also have the Hand in Hand group out at camp each day! They do all the same activities that the resident campers and day campers do, like archery, horseback riding, canoeing, arts & crafts, and swimming.

The World of Facebook

So I have attempted to move into the new technology world by creating a Camp Abe Lincoln facebook account.  I will have to say that I have no idea what I was doing.  The "Facebook" language which all of my counselors speak is hard enough to follow but now I have officially joined.  It is just listed under camp's email, camp@scottcountyfamilyy.org.  I have noticed that there are quite a few past counselors on Facebook which is pretty cool.  I would love to hear from any of you who are or are not. 

Challenge

I would also like to challenge any of you to send me some great camp memories.  I know that there are some pretty great ones since camp has been going since 1924 and I would love to hear some of the best.  Please email me any stories you have and I will see who has the best (best meaning best story to share with camper parents.)  Please send me the stories when you can and I will post some of the best.  

I look forward to hearing from you all.  Have a great day and a great time remembering.