Hello Canadensis readers! It’s been waaaay too long since my last blog, I can hardly believe it’s the end of April! So much has been happening, both in and out of the office, so I’ll try to keep it short and simple!

Earlier this month Mara came to Pennsylvania to visit Dani, and by default (I mean, we DO live together) I got to see Mara too!!! The best part was that I had planned to make a quick day trip up to camp to get some things out of my camp house, and Mara and Dani got to come along for the ride! We spent a beautiful hour in the Poconos, including stops at Callies and Sonic!

The fun didn’t end after my weekend with the girls. Just as the cold weather was deciding to come back for a visit, my gal pals and I hopped on a plane and jetted off to Cancun! The weather in Mexico was perfect, sunny and 82 everyday, and we spent our days by the pool and splashing in the ocean. Our resort was the same location where they filmed MTV’s “The Real World”, so it was a really cool place to be! We had the best long weekend, and returned home just in time for Passover.

Cancun was fabulous, but as soon as I got home I was happy and excited to get back to real life, because camp is getting here so quickly, and I still have lots to do. The sheer excitement of so many of my best camp friends coming back this summer after taking a year or two off, (Gabe, Moira, Steve, Alex, just to name a few…) has got me out of my mind with joy! When Gabe was away in Africa for two years we couldn’t talk about camp on the phone like we did in years past, so now that he’s back we’re talking about it constantly, which is not helping!!! Ahhhh can it just be camp now?

The biggest event these days is Dani’s spring musical, The Sound of Music. She’s playing Mother Abbess, which makes it really hard for me to keep a straight face when she’s dressed head to toe as a nun! She does a fabulous job, as always, and I cannot believe it’s her last musical with this Theatre Department. Tears!!! The show opened last night, and will play again tonight, and then twice tomorrow, at 2 and 7:30. If any campies want to join us, you know how to get me!

Well, I’ll try to blog some more before I move to camp on MAY 23rd!!! I’ll be picking Gabe up and taking him to precamp in less than two weeks, so I’ll try to take some pics and blog from camp for you all!

Hi Canadensis! It’s been a long time since I updated my blog – things have been so crazy in the winter office this year! Between a road trip to Michigan and a Tri-State Camp Conference so much preparation for summer 2011 has happened!

Pam and I went on a fabulous road trip to Michigan to hire some amazing staff for you all!  Here are some pictures of the friends we saw along the way:

More to come!

Happy New Year!!! I hope everyone had a safe and relaxing winter break, and I REALLY hope everyone found some time to catch up with Camp Friends! As always, I’ll be telling the story of my Winter thus far through pictures…

The first big event of Winter Break was the exciting 18th Birthday of Lower Inter Counselor (and my sister!) Dani Corradetti! Because Dani’s birthday falls between Christmas and New Year’s Eve I knew I had to start planning early if I was going to make it an amazing night! I started by calling some camp friends and trying to find a date that worked for most of us. From there I was texting non-stop to try to organize a Birthday Sleepover SURPRISE Party! I think I had Dani completely unknowing until the morning of the party itself. She overheard us ordering dinner for 11 people and knew something was up… this might not have been the first surprise party I’ve attempted to throw her (although last year she was TOTALLY SURPRISED!). Once she knew about the party I told her that I was about to leave to go get Mara from the train. After she jumped and cheered around the house as if Color War was breaking, we ran to my car just in time to drive off to pick up Mara Bernstein. On the way home we took Mara to Virago, a bakery in our town that specializes in Gluten Free baked goods. Mara picked out a delicious cupcake to enjoy later in the evening when it was time for dessert. Seeing Mara pick from all the beautiful cupcake options reminded me of being in Disney with her, and meeting the Chef at Planet Hollywood, one of my top 10 Camp Memories of All Time… but that’s a story for another blog post…

Once we had some baked goods secured, it was time to get back to the house and start to greet the friends who had traveled from all over for the party. No one knew Dani was in on the surprise, so it was like a little mini-surprise each time someone new walked in the door! When we got home Danielle Faden and Becky J were already waiting for us to arrive. They didn’t know Mara was coming in to town- another set of surprises! Shortly after that we were joined by Rebecca Waxman, Jess Cook, Rachel Dender, Jen Romberg, Alexis Vardakas, and Elana Sharir. The house was SO loud as we laughed and told stories… there might have even been a short musical singalong to a medley of song from The Sound of Music, with the Upper Inter counselors reprising their famous MTV night dance. We were then interrupted by my mother returning from our favorite Italian Restaurant, arms full of takeout pans, which we devoured in the dining room, continuing to tell wild camp stories in between bites of pasta and salad.

Once we were stuffed it was time to play our favorite table game- “Most Likely To…”. Most Likely To, or MLT as we say at camp, is a really easy game to play when you need something fun to do. I learned how to play at a Sorority retreat in college, and taught the CITs and Staff in summer 2008. Ever since then, it’s been a staple in our nights in the HQ. Everyone rips up a piece of paper into nice even strips. Then the group picks a number (usually it’s 5, but we went for 10!) and writes that many “MLT”s on the strips of paper. Good examples are “Most Likely To own a camp someday” or “Most Likely To become President” or “Most Likely To jump in lake lenape in their pajamas”. The possibilities are endless.

Once each strip of paper has an MLT on it, we fold them all up and toss them in a basket, mix them up, and distribute them. Everyone reads the MLTs that they were given, and then decides which person at the table is most likely to do what’s on the paper. Then you fold it back up, and place it in front of the person you chose. This part gets crazy, with everyone putting papers in front of everyone else; you have to be careful not to give away the ones given to you! Once that’s done, each person takes a turn reading the ones they got, and the hilarity ensues!

After MLT it was time for CAKE… and coffee; Rebecca Waxman is a huge fan of the Keurig coffee maker, we spent most of our days off making individual coffees and lounging around the kitchen. After we couldn’t eat or drink any more we retired back to the den, where we all continued to catch up after being apart for so long!

We spent the rest of the night doing what all of you do at your camp sleepovers – talking about camp! It was so good to be together, and even though we were missing the camp friends who couldn’t make it, or live too far away to make the trip, it was nice to get to be together and pick up right where we left off in August.

After a fun and relaxing winter break, it was time to get back to the winter office… only to pack up and take off for the winter meeting! On Friday night Dani and I met Eric, Robin, Matt, Alyssa, Mike, and Karen for dinner at a Mexican restaurant! Seeing Mike, Alyssa, and Karen after being apart for so long was the best feeling ever… almost as good as the first day of camp!!! We had a yummy dinner, and then Dani and I took Karen back with us so we could get some sleep before the big Winter Meeting! While we were sitting around, Karen took the time Leopold to dress in her favorite hat:

After Leo modeled a few selections from his hoodie collection, it was time to get some sleep! We woke up bright and early and drove off to the Forti’s house, hoping to miss the impending snow storm. We all piled in to the camp minivan and drove off to Newark.

The winter meeting was a great success! We talked about so many great ideas for Summer 2011 and even got to play a new game, taught by the ever fabulous Pam! We had a great day, and then rushed off to our rooms to get ready to go out for a Hibachi dinner! Everything was delicious… Eric Forti even took this photo express just how full we all felt:

The next morning we all drove off to Jeepers, where we got to spend time playing games and having full with our summer 2010 campers and staff! It was a great day, and I’ll post some more pictures from the reunion soon!

I hope everyone enjoyed a snow day this week, and that you’re getting even more excited for camp now that we’re officially into 2011! Next month Pam and I will head off on our Staff Hiring Road Trip, and soon it will be time for New Camper Bowling, followed by Pre-Camp… camp is basically tomorrow!

There are a million reasons to love December, most of which are somehow related to the excitement of the Holiday Season and the anticipation of taking time away from school or work. Most of you are taking your last tests and quizzes, finishing the last of your homework, and filling your upcoming time off with family and friends. For me, this time of the year will be spent having little reunions with my camp friends, some of whom I haven’t seen since we left camp! Dani Corradetti joined me for a day of shopping last Friday, and we were FINALLY reunited with  Rebecca Waxman! Although I got to see her in Syracuse not too long ago, it was so good to finally be back to our usual routine. The camp friend fun continued into the next day with the arrivial of  Alex Feigin at my house Saturday night!

We had family dinner and Alex ate her first Sweet Potato! After dinner I had to prepare LOTS of dough for our holiday cookie baking bonanza, and my mom was working on a puzzle for one of her last holiday airings on QVC. Between the cookies and the puzzles we had a lot of laughs, and then Alex and I spent the rest of the night talking about camp and our new ideas for summer 2011. For those of you who may not know, Alex and I go way back to my first summer at camp, in 2006, when we dominated the field and courts (and rec hall!) on Blue Greased Lightnin’… if you weren’t at camp that year, I bet you’ve at least heard our Alma Mater! Here’s a picture from the 2006 CW break, early in the morning, featuring some familiar faces…

Well, now I’ve got to go get ready to interview a staff member for a position at camp! Tis the season for college students to start deciding what they’re going to do over the summer, and that means lots of interviews and college visits for Pam and I. We’ll be heading to Michigan in early February to meet lots of interested students who want to work at Canadensis! To really get the word out, we’ve started a Facebook Ad campaign, so don’t be surprised if you see this show up on your screen:

So very exciting! Speaking of things that are exciting, or get easily excited, I had a long conversation with Lauren Berry as we continue to think of ways for her to move to the US and live here forever. Since we both LOVE sushi, today’s idea was for us to open our own sushi restaurant. I even drew Lauren a pie chart to express my love for sushi, and said I would post a picture of a pie on the blog for her. So I went to Google, typed in “Sushi Pie”, and my life was forever changed:

SO CUTE!!! Whoever came up with this brilliant idea is my new hero! I can’t even imagine eating something so lovable! New idea for summer 2011 – iCan Make Sushi Art? I’ll be working on my skills for the rest of the winter…

Anyways, that’s my rambling blog for the week. I can’t believe the New Year is just around the corner. Summer 2011, here we come!

Check out our new table display cover for camp fairs:

Thanksgiving has finally arrived! For those of you who follow my blog, you know how I look forward to all the festivities surrounding Thanksgiving, and my belief that once it arrives life should be nothing but nonstop celebrations until after the Camp Reunion in January. Dani and I stayed up late last night baking cookies for our Concert Choir Party tonight, so here’s a few pictures from our funny night:

We still have lots to do before the party tonight, but I’ll be sure to post some pictures next week. Although I have a firm stance on NOT leaving my house on Black Friday (too crazy for me!) I will venture out to have dinner with some of my favorite camp friends who are home from college for Thanksgiving Break! This is the longest we have gone without some sort of camp dinner so it’s easy to see how excited we are to see each other. We might even play some Mah Jongg…

It was great seeing so many of you at Canteen on the Fly! For those of you who missed out, here’s a look at the cool tee shirts you saw me, Pam, Robin, and Aunt Terri wearing:

I made mine on this cool Peace Sign Tee, while Pam’s got printed on a neat two tone tie dyed shirt. Robin went with a classic gray tee, and Aunt Terri chose a lovely white long sleeved swing tee. We looked pretty awesome, if I do day so myself…

…anyways, I hope everyone has a happy and healthy Thanksgiving, surrounded by all the family (and camp friends!) you love.

Just a few days ago I was sitting at the table with my mom and looking over our calendars for the rest of the year and realizing just how quickly the rest of this year is going to speed past. Dani’s fall drama, Witness for the Prosecution, is only two weeks away from opening night, I’ve got weekends filled with glorious Canteen on the Fly events, and my mom’s QVC schedule will have her up at all hours of the day and night! Once again hitting the family calendar is the Concert Choir Thanksgiving Eve party, for which we spent some time last night starting to discuss the details, which may involve me spending two days baking dozens of cookies… anyone want to come over and pretend like we’re cooking at camp?

We realized that this past weekend would be the ONLY weekend between now and the end of the year when one of us didn’t already have plans. So, we made the official decision to take our weekend of opportunity and make the trek up to Syracuse University, to see camp friends and check out the campus. The drive was only about 4 hours and we armed ourselves with extra large coffees and snack bars in the car. When we finally arrived in Syracuse we were greeted by a very excited Rebecca Waxman, who graciously let us stay with her for the evening! We unloaded our duffels into her super cute dorm room, and quickly got ready to go out to dinner. We returned to the parking lot as Rachel Dender and Brittany Kahane jumped out of the car to greet us. After lots of hugs we loaded our cars and drove off in to town. We had a reservation for Habachi and had a delightful time snacking on sushi appetizers as our entrees were grilled right in front of us.

After dinner we went to the Carousel Mall to see “Due Date”. The Carousel Mall is the SAME mall we visited while on the Super Senior/CIT College Tour this summer. As soon as we stepped inside I was overwhelmed with memories from the trip, specifically the hours we spent in that very mall, searching for the perfect gift for our “Bigs” or “Littles”. We had great seats for the movie, and it was quite funny, although by the time it was over I was definitely exhausted! We drove back to campus, parked my car, and took off on foot to explore the campus.

Once our fabulous walking tour commenced it was definitely time for bed! We rolled out our sleepover mats (some very famous Camp Celebs have enjoyed the infamous sleeping mats when visiting our family!) and had long life chats until we fell asleep. In the morning we woke up and met Brittany for breakfast in the dining hall. The girls told us all about school and their big plans for the rest of the semester, and we also made some plans to get together over breaks, and perhaps take a trip to visit some other camp friends!

I hope everyone had a safe and fabulous Halloween! My weekend was definitely full of festive fall fun, and I managed to work a bit of Canadensis spirit into my plans…

Friday night I left the office and drove straight to King of Prussia to meet up with some friends, and we all got in my car and drove off to our sorority’s hayride event. We drove all the way out to Media, PA to an orchard where 28 of us rode through the orchard at night for a not-so-haunted hayride, which was nice, because I do NOT like anything remotely frighting! After our hayride we were dropped off at a campfire, complete with a table covered in sticks, graham crackers, chocolate, and marshmallows… can you guess what that was for? Clearly it was S’MORES time!!! One of the girls commented on how well I made my s’more, using the graham crackers to take the mallow off the stick, avoiding the gooey mess everyone was accumulating on their fingers. I guess that’s just a sign of a properly trained camper!

On Sunday Dani and I headed to NYC to spend Halloween doing what we love most, seeing a musical! We arrived in town early to meet the wonderful Emma Cohen for lunch! It was so good to see Emma, and of course we talked about camp.

After a lovely lunch we made our way to the theatre where we had 2nd row seats for Avenue Q. I saw Avenue Q back when it first came to Broadway, but this was Dani’s first time seeing the show in New York, so it was great to see her reaction. The cast was super, and there were lots of people in Halloween attire in the theatre. After the show we made our way back to Penn Station to start the trek home, and we noticed so many more people starting to dress up for the holiday. By the time we hopped the train home we had seen a large group of zombies, plenty of princesses, and everything in between. We made it home just in time to see the last of the Trick-or-Treaters come by the door.

So now it’s November, which brings us another month closer to the return of the camp season! I’m looking forward to fires in the fireplace and playing with puppies in the snow. My dogs are white so it’s really funny to watch them try to run around the yard. They’re also completely obsessed and curious about fire, so I’ll be sharing some very funny video of my little Leo running through the house and barking at the fireplace.

Well, that’s it for now! I’ll leave you all with this picture of Matt, very excited to receive a package he ordered online…

My darling camper Carly Fleischer sent me a picture that completely made my day! Carly’s math assignment was to create a simple equation that equaled “1”. Look how Carly camp-ified her assignment:

She's brilliant!

Oh what a very Berry weekend it was! Lauren Berry arrived in Montgomeryville, PA on Tuesday evening, and since then it’s been a crazy wild ride of fun, friends, and FOOD! Here’s a short account of the week spent with camp’s favorite lower senior girls group leader…

On Wednesday morning we woke up bright and early to head to the office, making a brief stop at Wawa for breakfast sandwiches and coffees. There was lots to be done around the office, so Lauren kept busy chatting with camp friends and going through camp pictures! Wednesday night we got home and joined my mom for dinner and hung around the house.  On Thursday we woke up early for work again to stop at Wawa, but this time we were inspired as we walked past the baked goods, so we stopped at Yum Yum donuts and brought in 2 dozen donuts for the office! Eric Forti couldn’t control his excitement!!!

With bellies full of donuts the work day flew by and before we knew it we were hopping in Forti’s car to make a trip out to Port Washington. We sang Glee songs the whole way there, and Eric Forti belted out his best rendition of the Wicked Soundtrack on the ride home. We stopped for Pizza (since everything revolves around food) and ended up with WAY too much pizza (can you imagine that even being possible?) Forti had an argument with Lauren as we got in the car as he tried to make room for her feet in the back (our leftovers took up a lot of room!) and she insisted she was fine:

We got home late, but were up again bright and early on Friday for another fun day in the office. There were still leftover donuts and with the addition of my Mini-Keurig to the office kitchen it was a funny and fabulous camp day. As the work week drew to a close, we changed out of our office apparel and into our Friday night outfits, and headed out to the train station to hop the R5 into Philadelphia. After meeting some of my friends for some appetizers, we arrived for our reservation at Buddakan! We had the most delicious dinner and by far one of the greatest desserts we had ever tasted. Lauren Berry was SILENT as she enjoyed each bite (yes, it was THAT good!!!). After a long a delicious Buddakan experience, we hopped the train back to my town and fell into our beds in a food coma.

Saturday morning FINALLY found us sleeping in, and just as we were getting up it was time to rush off to King of Prussia and meet Mel Sukonik, Mindy Rosenthal, and Alix Steerman for lunch at the Cheesecake Factory. We had the most INSANE waitress I have ever experienced – at one point she actually jumped out from a wall and exclaimed “BOO! Gotcha!!!” in an attempt to scare us. Needless to say, it was a lunch full of camp talk and laughing. After our 2.5 hour lunch (our crazy waitress talked A LOT!) we did a little shopping, and Lauren and I bought our new accessories for next year’s Pre-Camp:

We will be rocking our animal hats in the cold arctic tundra that is Canadensis Pre-Camp. After our mall experience we said goodbye to the girls and drove home to my house, where Dani had finally returned from her play rehearsal. We hung around for a little while, and then decided it was time for dinner (told ya it was all about the eating) and it was a unanimous vote to head out to La Campagnola. La Campagnola is famous for many reasons, most importantly that it’s the one restaurant I take my bus counselors to visit every summer, as well as most counselors who come home with Dani and I on our days off. The food is out of this world (ask Kenzie about the garlic bread…) and the portions are insane, we ALWAYS have a fridge full of leftovers after any trip. After our delicious meal we came home and once again fell victim to the food coma.

On Sunday we were running rampant with errands and and laundry, but we had time to stop for a quick lunch with Terri and Company. Once we got home we had some time to sit and play with Leo and Bella (only the world’s cutest dogs) and spend time hanging out. After all the brunching and lunching of the day, we were hardly hungry, but when our stomachs started to grumble around 9pm, we drug Dani out of the house and made a quick trip to TGIFridays for some appetizers. The restaurant was all decked out for halloween and our waiter actually jumped out and tried to scare us at one point. That would be the SECOND time that a waiter jumped out at us over the weekend. What is going on here?!?!

This morning we woke up with the sun for Lauren Berry’s last morning at the camp office. We loaded her bags into the car (Berry is an AMAZING packer) and drove in to work. One of the roads I typically take to get to the office was closed this morning, so we got to go on a small adventure through North Wales until we found our way back on the route to work. When we finally got to the office the day was full of visitors and fun, and before we knew it Lauren Berry was saying goodbye, giving hugs, and trying not to cry as we drove off to the train station. Berry will take the train into the city, hop another train to the airport, and then head off on the next leg of her trip. Watch Out Chicago!

Well, Halloween is finally arriving, I hope everyone will send in photos of their creative costumes, it always makes us laugh here in the winter office to see what you all come up with!