Time spent with camp friends is always the best, and we know that many bunks have been arranging sleepovers this winter – we love seeing photos!  I thought I’d blog today and share some pictures of my recent time spent with camp friends, so here we go!

First up was a trip to Pittsburgh to celebrate Noah’s Bar Mitzvah!  He is in the picture above with his mom Sandy, who is part of our fabulous Head Counselor team at camp each summer!

He did a fantastic job leading the congregation, and then we go to enjoy “Club Noah” that night – the party was great, and I loved the logo that captured Noah’s amazing hair!

Everyone loves cupcakes…right?  Well, at the Bar Mitzvah there were tons of flavors, but my favorite was the campy classic “s’mores”!

It was fun to dance and hang out with camp friends, here’s a picture of me with Sandy and BeckyJ in the photobooth!

There was also a caricaturist there -he’s just starting to draw me in the photo above…

And here’s the final product – pretty good job!  Of course, I asked him to draw me walking Annie!

  Annie got to come to Pittsburgh too, and before we headed out of town we took a walk over to see the giant inflatable rubber duck that was floating in the river.  He was so cute…I’d love to have him swim over to camp and spend the summer in Lake Lenape!

Later that month, I went to a Chinese cooking class with Eric & Robin.  It was hands on, and a lot of fun!  In the photo above, Eric is working in the kitchen with chef Joseph Poon!

He learned how to make lo-mein, and it was delicious!  He’s so good at it now, he’ll be cooking for everyone on Chinese nights this summer!

We learned how to make about 10 different dishes, and it was hard work!  Once we finished cooking, we got to enjoy the meal and by the end of the night we were totally stuffed!

I recently got to do some traveling to Cuba and New Orleans, and I was so lucky that my time in New Orleans overlapped with Lachie and Steph, so I was able to see them for a few hours!

They have spent two summers at Canadensis, and ran our waterfronts this year.  They are from Australia, and Lachie was our lake director, and Steph was the pool director!  They have been on an amazing coast to coast road trip after leaving camp, and they’ve planned to go and see just about everything the US and Canada have to offer!

We enjoyed beignets at Cafe Du Monde (they are like donuts covered in powdered sugar) and it was so good to hear about their travels!

And finally, as you might know – Matt & Melissa are getting married soon!  Melissa is the Lower Girls Head Counselor, and Matt works full time for camp as the Operations Director.

We recently went to Allentown (where Melissa lives and teaches during the off season) to celebrate her bridal shower.  It was a lovely luncheon, and as is the tradition at showers, Melissa ended the afternoon wearing a hat made out of all the bows and ribbons off her gifts.

One of the coolest gifts was the bus Matt’s mom made for the couple.  It recreated their engagement last year!

In the photo above (from left to right) is Cara, Robin, Matt, Melissa and me – all the purple was just a coincidence!

I look forward to the next time I’ll get to see camp friends…on MONDAY (11/11/13)!  If you live on Long Island, I hope we’ll be seeing you at Canteen on the Fly at Carvel in Westbury NY.  We’ll be there from 2-3:30!

I’ve been excited about this “Mystery Box” idea for months, and now that it’s been announced, it has been so much fun to hear the positive reactions from Alumni & Parents!  In the same realm of popular gift services like Birch Box, we have put together a number of Canadensis items that would retail at a higher value than $60.  None of these items have ever been available before, and are sure to bring many smiles during the winter! Our Canadensis Carewear collection is usually only available at the camp store, but just like Carewear, all proceeds will go into the Canadensis Cares! fund.

Canadensis Cares! is a scholarship program designed to benefit Canadensis campers whose families are impacted by adverse or unusual circumstances. In some small way, every member of the Canadensis community can help families facing circumstances less fortunate than their own.

I can’t give away too much detail (the mystery is a big part of the fun!).  All items have been selected by the Camp Canadensis Winter Staff to be perfect for campers and alumni of every age.  Each box is gender specific, but are one size fits all! The boxes have 6-8 items, and will come ready to give your child during the holiday season – no wrapping needed and the $60 also covers shipping!  Give your kids this special Canadensis gift, while giving the gift of camp to another child.

To sign up for the mystery box, log in to your online Canadensis account, or call the winter office at 484-674-1941.  Boxes are only available until Wednesday, October 9th at midnight.  After that, we will be placing orders, and cannot accommodate any additional requests.

After camp ends, I have the enormous (and fun!) task of going through every single one of the amazing photos that capture the summer fun at Camp Canadensis.  Without these photos, it would be hard to remember the unbelievable moments and summer memories.  95% of the approximately 25,000+ photos uploaded every summer are taken by Lauren “LMac” McGuire – shown in a rare photo above where she is in front of the camera!  She’s spent 5 summers at Canadensis, and this year she went above and beyond every single day.  She created and supervised our Media Programs, ensuring that our photos & videos helped families at home be a part of the magic at Camp Canadensis.

Many of our families use these photos to share on social media, put together collages, posters, photobooks, slideshows, and much more.  If you have a great way you display your summer 2013 photos at home, take a photo and email it to me at pam@canadensis.com – I’d love to see it, and include it in a future blog post! Thanks to LMac, some of my own summer highlights were captured, and here they are…

I was so excited about our two GIANT new waterslides…I couldn’t wait to try them!  As soon as they were up and running, I just jumped right in, fully dressed!

We know the campers live 10 months for 2, and that’s especially true for us directors…we wait all year round for the campers to step foot off the bus!  I’m lucky to work with Brian Krug & Eric Forti, and the rest of the full time staff year round.  It’s become a tradition for us to take a photo on opening day before the first bus pulls in – look how excited (and well rested!) we are on day 1!

We love seeing camp come to life as the kids jump off the bus.  The Lower and Middle Campers (current grades 1-6) bunks are already unpacked and setup, so they get to start bunk bonding and activities right away.  Kylie (a new Junior Girl) got off the bus, and handed me my first Rainbow Loom bracelet – checkout her full wrist!

For me, camp is all about the games and friends – and Mah Jongg brings those two things together!  It was a new elective at camp this summer, and thanks to the Super Senior Girls (like Heather & Julia above), it was a popular!  I loved every minute spent teaching this game and playing with the amazing girls who learned Mah Jongg this summer.

Another game I can’t get enough of is Connect Four!  I came out on top in this round vs Sami (a Lower Senior Girl), but I’m up to be challenged anytime!

My desk is in the programming office – and luckily campers stop in all the time to check what’s on their schedule or make changes to their electives.  We love visitors, like the Upper Inter Girls above (from left to right, Samara, Haley, Elana & Sarah)!

But most of all, I love getting out and visiting the campers at activities – especially when I get to craft alongside them at art!  Here, the Junior & Lower Inter Girls art elective were teaching me how to finger weave and make a headband!  From left to right, my teachers were Skye, Amanda, Kailey, Brooke, Paige, Annie & Sierra.

We start every day with a whole camp dance party, followed by Morning Line Up (MLU), where we celebrate birthdays and make announcements for the day.  This summer, mystery envelopes were being hidden all over camp with facts and clues inside.  When campers found an envelope around camp, they brought it up at MLU and we opened it on stage.  In the photo above, Lower Junior Boys, Mitchell & Luca found one!

In one of the mystery envelopes, it said “Pam Levi, Jump In The LAKE!” – so I had no choice but to run and belly flop off the dock!  When we discovered the mystery writer was our one of our ceramics specialists, Mike Morrissette, I got my revenge by sending him into Lake Lenape!  It was all in great fun, a definitely highlight of the summer!

At another MLU, we had a staff limbo contest.  It was during Staff Appreciation Week, and the winners got Dunkin Donuts coffee delivered to their table during breakfast!  In the photo above, Theresa from programming, AKA “Mama T” helped judge – checkout the amazing moves for our soccer specialist Issac Peglow!

Right before parents arrive on Visiting Day, we have a jacket ceremony for campers and staff that have spent 5, 8 or 10 summers at Canadensis.  This year I received my 5 year jacket with my favorite partner in crime, our unbelievable Program Director, Moira Ciechoski!  It’s been amazing to work next to this lady for the past few summers, and getting our jackets together was a special moment.

After the parents leave on Visiting Day, all of Lower Camp, Middle Camp and the CITs have a huge water fight!  I look forward to this every summer, and it just keeps getting bigger and better every year!

We have endless activities at camp, but for our Seniors (currently in grades 7-10), the program includes weekly trips.  I had an amazing time chaperoning the Super Seniors at the Skytop Adventure Course & Ziplines!  We go through training before getting up in the trees.  I took a break from learning how to work our harnesses and carabiners to snap the photo above with Alex Ehrenthal (counselor) and Erica, Amanda & Morgan.

The whole camp is treated to special events and programs!  One of our summer highlights is when Rak Dan comes and teaches us Israeli line dancing – we love it so much, we do it as a preview with the staff before the campers arrive!  It happens to be a great workout, and excuse to dress in some crazy outfits!

But, the most highly anticipated event of the summer is Color War!!  When is it going to break?  How is it going to break?  What will the team names be?  What do the shirts look like?  Will there be a fake break?  The color war hysteria reaches its peak in the 6th week of camp every year…and it becomes hard to focus on anything else!  In the photo above, I was mid-interrogation with some Senior Girls – Ally, Jamie, Madison, Lauren & Ali.  I love listening to their theories, and not revealing any of the fun surprises!

 A few days later, when Color War did break (in the rain!) the CIT Leaders dug up some buried treasure on camp, and inside were the Color War Shirts!  As a tradition, Eric and I hold up and display the shirts that all the campers receive! 

There are so many amazing photos from the summer – I hope this post encourages you to go back and look at some of yours!  Close your eyes, and imagine you are back at camp enjoying Fruit on the Fly (like in the photo above – with Junior Boys, Andrew, Ben, Eddie, Jason & Andrew).

It’s been a while since I returned home to Philadelphia, but I wanted to use this blog post to throw back to some of my favorite memories of summer 2013…the best summer ever at Camp Canadensis!  Just like the Canadensis campers and staff, camp is my happy place, and here’s why…

I get to spend a ton of time outside…usually I’m right next to Pam like in the photo above.  Sometimes I get distracted by chipmunks, or the delicious smells coming from the BBQ grill on the weekends, but I always find my way back.

I get a ton of hugs and belly rubs from campers – they are SO nice to me!  Jordan (above) from the Lower Inter Girls even made me a rainbow loom collar on the first day of camp, and it stayed on all summer!  She made it in blue and gold so I could show off my camp spirit all summer…thank you Jordan!

I had a new partner in crime this summer…it was so fun to hang out with Carli during Morning Line Up!  We are around the same size right now, but I have a feeling she’s going to keep growing every year, and I’m done!

People tell me I look like a puppy all the time, but I actually turned 13 at camp this summer!  The Canadensis Dog Club helped plan an amazing Bark Mitzvah for me at Morning Line Up…we danced the hora, had a delicious cake made by Jojo in cooking and I got to say thank you to the many people at Canadensis that make me feel loved.

At another Morning Line Up, I was called up for “Unnatural Siblings”.  It’s one of my favorite camp games – kids get called up with people who look like them, even though they aren’t related.  I was called up with a soccer ball, and we won by round of applause!

I bet that one of the kids cheering for me was this girl above.  Believe it or not, there were TWO Annie Levi’s in camp this summer…I share my name with Annabelle Levi from the Junior Girls!

There were also TWO hotdogs on our “Canadensis Come On Down” dress up night!  We both looked tasty in our hotdog costumes!

We looked almost as tasty as those real hotdogs and hamburgers the Junior boys are holding on their overnight!  I love getting out in the woods and visiting the kids at the campsites.

I got to visit more than half of the overnights this summer, and my goal is to get one every single on next year!

Sometimes, Pam has to do something that I can’t do with her…and when that happens I have a few windows I like to hang out in, that way I don’t miss a single moment of the camp action!

But, it’s MUCH better when I get to hang out with different people in camp while Pam is busy.  In the photo above, I had the coolest babysitters ever…the CIT girls let me spend the whole day with them!

Another day, Cade from the lake looked after me while Pam was on the Summit with campers!

No matter who I’m with, or what I’m doing…I’m happy if I’m at Camp Canadensis!  Thank you to everyone who made summer 2013 my best summer yet…thank you for the walks, hugs, manicures (see my blue nails above, thanks to Girls Bunk 7!), belly rubs, treats and love you all shared with me.  See you in summer 2014!

I love opening day of camp!  After all the planning and staff training, we are about to have the campers arrive and the real fun will begin…it’s electric, and I have goosebumps as I type knowing that many of our campers are already on the buses on the way to their summer home – with us at Camp Canadensis.  We have an unbelievable summer in store, and we are so thankful to the parents, campers and staff members that allow us to spend our summers at Canadensis doing what we love.

The photo above is from Opening Day, 2012…it’s an annual tradition that we take one every year as we welcome kids off the bus.  When you check the website to see photos of your kids arriving this evening, you’ll probably see our 2013 group photo!  Being on a team with dedicated co-workers like Eric Forti & Brian Krug (the directors of camp), and all the winter staff including Cara Corradetti, Matt Unger, Aunt Terri Saltzman & Neil Sukonik is something I’m truly grateful for everyday.  We are so excited for the summer to begin, so get here already!!

Starting Monday, the camp office is officially setup for the summer at Canadensis, if you need to reach us call 570-595-7461.  With just a couple of more hours left in Philly, I’m packing up and getting ready for another wonderful season up at camp!  Before I head up to the Poconos, check out some of the amazing Canadensis campers I got to see this week!

Above is a photo of Jason & Luke (both coming back to camp for their 3rd year as Upper Inters!), Sabrina and Rachel (coming up to camp and receiving 5 year jackets as Lower Seniors!) and Sage (coming for her 3rd year as an Upper Inter).  We enjoyed some pizza, and talked A LOT about camp!  They are all moving into new sections of camp this year, and will get to enjoy lots of new changes and perks – extra trips, extra choice periods, and much more.  They had great suggestions for Evening Activities they’d like to do this summer, and I took notes!  Their camp enthusiasm is contagious!

I also got to spend some time with Anna (2nd year camper, will be a Lower Inter) and we made some bracelets on the rainbow loom.  I also got to hang out with her sister Lindsay (first time camper, will be a Junior…not pictured!) and we made some crafty cards which you can see below!

And, my week wrapped up with a lovely Shabbat dinner with Alexa (1st time Junior camper), and Brooke (1st time Lower Inter) was a special visitor who stopped by!  After dinner, we talked camp packing – and check out the super cool lounge chair (pictured above) that is coming to camp with Alexa!  The girls had a dance competition today, and I hope they had a great time!

Well, I’ve got some more packing to do myself…including these great Canadensis items my friend Sara spotted and was sweet enough to get…just one more way I’ll be showing my camp spirit this summer!

Last weekend was the 10-mile race I’ve been training for, and Carli Forti’s 1st Birthday Party!  It was great, and next weekend (Brian’s Camp Wedding!) is going to be awesome too!  I wanted to share some photos, and let you know to expect the Camp Canadensis Social Media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Blogs) to be all abuzz with updates from Brian & Jaime’s celebration soon!

My friends Katie & Jay came into Philly for the Broad Street Run.  Jay works at Camp KenMont/KenWood in Connecticut, and in the picture above Katie and I are both rocking our camp swag!  She’s an amazing runner, former collegiate athlete and it was incredible to have her expertise and advise right before and after the 10-Mile Broad Street Run.  Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would finish the race in under 2 hours, but I did it in 1:57:31 – a major accomplishment for a novice runner like myself.  I set a goal, and it felt great to achieve it!  I hope many of you start thinking about goals you want to achieve at camp this summer, anything is possible!There were 40,000 runners, and it was a perfectly beautiful day in Philly.  It turns out that after the run, the picture you see above of me at the finish line was randomly picked and used in a Philly Magazine blog.  My friend spotted it and shared it with me, so cool!  Maybe it’s because they liked my Camp Canadensis t-shirt?  (Of course I had to run with something to show my Canadensis spirit!!)

There wasn’t much time to rest after the race, because a year ago Miss Carli Forti was born!  It was time to celebrate this amazing little girl that has brought so much love and fun into the world!  She had a great party with music, games, and of course cake!  I got crafty and made her the birthday card above, it’s actually a “pop-up” card, and when you open it a birthday cake springs out!  Just a reminder, you can learn how to make awesome cards and envelopes like this by signing up for the Stationery Making elective!  (Keep an eye out for a blog post coming soon with a programming preview of all the new stuff at camp to try!)

There were so many camp friends at the party!  In the picture above is Sam, Dani, Cara and JCal.  But, I’m not the only one who got to see camp friends this weekend…

There was a camp friends gathering in NYC, and I got some adorable photos that I wanted to share with you!  Bailey, Julie and Jordan are all in 4th grade, and are going to be Lower Inter Girls at camp this summer.  They enjoyed spending time together, and it looks like they got to enjoy some milkshakes and Baked By Melissa cupcakes…could there be anything better than camp friends and sweet treats?

On a recent sunny day, Eric and I got to visit a great new family in Dresher, PA with two siblings heading to Camp Canadensis for the first time this summer!  We had so much to learn about this awesome brother/sister duo, it took two of us!  Here’s what you need to know about these new campers:

Landon is a current 3rd grader, who will be an Upper Junior Boy this summer.  He’s a big fan of the Philly sports teams, so expect to hear him cheering loudly at Morning Line Up if the Phillies are winning!  He not only likes to watch sports, but he likes to play them too.  He’s on a travel baseball team, plays hockey, and pretty much likes every sport there is!  He knows how to roller blade, so maybe he’ll join our CHL Roller Hockey league this summer!  We talked a bit about food, and he was excited to know we serve lox & bagels every Sunday morning.  We can’t wait for him to try our Canadensis hamburgers, and let us know if they are even better than his favorite one from Texas Roadhouse!  He’s already thinking about which sweet treats he’ll want from the canteen, and he can’t wait for Hershey’s bars!  He plans to write lots of letters home, and to friends at other camps – and he will definitely be excited for the inter-camp games this summer!  His favorite color is blue, so hopefully he is on the blue team when Color War breaks this year!

Rayla is a current 1st grader, and she will be a Lower Junior Girl this summer.  She’s full of energy and ready for the nonstop action at camp!  While we were over she showed off her gymnastics skills with tumbles and splits – we’ll make sure she keeps practicing in our gymnastics facility this summer.  She is really silly, and fun!  She sang us a pig song, and did a dance she learned from her Kindergarten play…maybe she’ll try out for our camp show this summer?   She’s very comfortable on stage, and even did a gymnastics performance in her school talent show.  She loves yogurt and was happy to hear we have it on our breakfast bar every morning – and she loves cookies & cream ice cream so she’ll try to be the cleanest bunk this summer and win ice cream parties!  She is really excited for the new waterslides at camp (they are being put up right now, and they are HUGE!).  Before we left, she showed off her t-shirt folding skills, and did a great job!

I also spent some time with Jordyn, a current 4th grader who will be a Lower Inter Girl, returning to camp for summer #2!  She lives in Lafayette Hill, PA and she’s about the happiest person you will ever meet!  Here’s what Jordyn’s been up to this year:

She’s been super busy on the weekends.  In just one weekend she played in a soccer game, a softball game, went to a swim party, AND a party at Benihana -she also went to Hebrew School a few dozen other things!  She is a super picky eater, but tried and liked new things at camp last year, like strawberries and grapes.  She is also one of our Gluten Free campers, and if you were lucky enough to stop by her bunk of Visiting Day last summer, you would have been able to enjoy the amazingly yummy GF cookie cake her mom made, it was huge!  She showed me how to play a new game called “stack the states”, which was super cool because I love geography!  (Really…I really love US geography!)

Check out the adorable photo above…it’s from the Tour & More in the summer 2011.  That was the first time Kylie got to spend a night at camp, and she cannot wait to join us for the full summer in 2013!  Kylie is now a current 3rd grader, and will be a Junior Girl at camp this summer.  She lives in Plymouth Meeting, PA and here’s what you need to know about this awesome new camper…

• She has tons of energy, she was doing cartwheels and splits in the house, but she doesn’t even do gymnastics as an after school activity!
• She does a TON of dancing after school, it’s her favorite thing to do!  She goes to dance class three days a week, and she is on a dance competition team.
• She’s pumped for the inter-camp dance competitions this summer.  We are planning to host one at our camp, and travel to another camp as well!
• She hopes to be on the blue team during Color War…maybe she knows the blue team has won for the past two years?
• For her electives, she will probably choose to do gymnastics, dance and glass fusion…the last will be a mystery!
• She’s going to stay in the dance elective for the entire summer and change the other two.  I’ll see her in the programming office each week and help her swap her schedule!
• Kylie also takes piano lessons and goes to Hebrew School, she’s busy almost every night!
• She’s working on riding her bike before camp, she’ll be ready to hit our trails by June!
• Her favorite food is chocolate!  She likes chocolate covered everything!!  She got to try cooking when she was at camp two years ago, and can’t wait to go back!
• Just like me, she doesn’t like to fly…we talked about how it’s scary, but worth it when you get to sit on the beach in Florida!
• She loves Justin Bieber!
• She got to decorate her room (except the paint color…it’s blue but she’d like it to be aqua!), and she hung up all these cool vinyl stickers.  I can’t wait to see what she does with her camp bunk.
• At Kylie’s house they have “Salad Sunday” where the whole family gets to create their own salad from a big selection of veggies. She’s going to help teach her bunk mates how to eat and enjoy lots of salad bar items!
• She wants to have really nice counselors this summer, and we can guarantee that!

My next stop was across the street…Kylie & Ashton live on the same block!!  Ashton is a current 2nd grader, and will be a Lower Junior Boy at camp this summer.  He got a chance to spend the night at camp and do a ton of activities last summer when he came up for the Tour & More weekend (see the photo above).  He lives in Plymouth Meeting, PA and here’s what you need to know about this great new camper…

• He loves the game  Tchoukball!  Have you ever heard of it??  It’s something he learned to play at school, and it’s a really awesome.  It’s sort of like handball, and you can learn more about it here – maybe we’ll play at camp?!

• He takes a trip to the Outer Banks with his family every year.  He loves to hang out on the beach, dig huge holes and then wait for it to be filled up by the ocean, like a swimming pool.
• He loves to play sports, and he’s very athletic.
• He also likes cheering for the Philadelphia sports teams, so expect to see a smile on his face when the Phillies winning scores are announced at morning line-up this summer!
• One of his favorite sports he learned at day camp was archery.  He even has his own bow now, and knows how to safely use it (ie, not in his driveway!).  He can’t wait to do archery at camp, and will probably choose it as an elective.
• Ashton has an indoor Ping Pong table in the house, he is the ping pong champ of his family!
• He’d done a few campouts before, a few years ago a tradition was started in his backyard.  He camped out, made s’mores with his dad and had lots of friends come over.  Now they do it every year and call it “Occupy Ashton”.
• Truth be told, he’s not excited for MTV night (our bunk vs bunk music video evening activity) because he doesn’t like to sing and dance…but it’s so popular at camp, maybe he’ll like it?!
• He definitely plans to sign up for basketball elective, and spend time on the court during free play.
• He’s always been on the gold team for Color War at his day camp, so he wants to be on the blue team this year!
• He sometimes goes by the name “Ash”, and he does really well in school.

I also got to hang out with Ashton’s older brother Max, who is a current 5th grader and will be an Upper Inter Boy this summer.  It will be his third year at camp, and he’s been seeing a lot of his bunk this year, including recently at a sleepover party.  He specifically wore a Camp Canadensis shirt for his visit…he loves camp!  He also goes by the nickname “Witty”, and he told me we need to plan a good overnight in 2013 for the Upper Inter Boys, unfortunately they’ve had bad weather two years in a row!

Over in Livingston, NJ, I got to spend some time with Amanda, a current 2nd grader who will be a Lower Junior Girl at camp.  She also did the Tour & More Weekend at camp last year (photo above), and .  Here’s what you need to know about this fun new addition to camp…

• Her favorite TV shows are Dance Moms and Cupcake Wars – she can’t wait to have her room redone so she can get a TV in there!
• She goes to dance classes once a week.  If she has enough time, she would like to be on the competition team like her big sister.
• She is super busy with soccer!  She loves that sport, and she had even played a game outside the day before I came over (it had been realllly cold!)!
• I went over to visit on a snowy day in March, and she told me about the storm when they lost power and the whole family slept downstairs in the basement – she said it was sorta fun to camp out down there together!
• Her favorite ice cream flavor is coconut.  She had it once when she went to Mexico on a family vacation.  She hopes they will have it at the Casino Movie theater – it’s a trip that every Canadensis camper goes on, and they have sooooo many ice cream flavors to choose from!
• Her second favorite ice cream is mint chocolate chip (they’ll definitely have that!).
• Her soccer team name is the “Lady Leopards”.
• She gets to sleep in a Blue and Gold room every night at home!  The ceiling is painted like the sky, and it helps her fall asleep.
• She’s excited for the overnight camping trip!
• Amanda has never gone on a upside down roller coaster before, but she can’t wait to try it at Dorney Park!
• She got to do cooking as her elective during Tour & More last summer.  This year, she is going to choose gymnastics and maybe tennis as electives.
• She told me she didn’t like vegetables at all…but it turns out she does like carrots and broccoli…and that’s a really good start!
• For Halloween this year, she dressed up as a lady from “Monster High”.  Because of the Sandy Storm, they didn’t get to go house to house, but they went car to car and called in “trunk or treating” – very creative!
• She had a couple of requests for the summer: she wanted to make sure her counselors would all be girls (yes!), that they all be nice (yes!) and she hopes she can have a middle bed so she can have friends on each side.
• Amanda is both is a little sister and a big sister – baby Sloan (not pictured) and her like to do gymnastics together.

Her older sister Ashley is currently in 5th grade and will be an Upper Inter Girl this summer.  It will be her second season at camp and we can’t wait to have her back!  She has been really busy at school…I could barely tear her away from her homework!  She told me a little bit about her dance classes, and about the camp friends she’s been seeing at sleepovers.