I got to spend the first night of Chanukah in Cherry Hill with new camper Molly, who is a current 4th grader and will be in the Lower Inter Girls division for her first summer. She has an awesome family, including big sister Maddie, who is currently in 7th grade, going to lots of Bat Mitzvah’s, and will be back at camp for her third summer in the Lower Senior division. Molly made an awesome “welcome” sign that greeted me at the front door, and even though I already know her from the Tour & More Weekend in 2010 & 2011, I know tons more about this awesome new camper now!
First of all, she reads the camp blogs, and she is very excited to meet some of the other new campers. She saw that a lot of the girls coming to camp are dancers, and Molly is also a very talented dancer. She was asked to join the Petite Ensemble for her dance group this year, which means she is practicing routines 4-5 nights a week, and she’ll get to perform in Philadelphia & NYC! Jazz is her favorite (more than ballet or tap) and she has performed for audiences as large as 700 people, so she’ll have no trouble up on the camp stage this summer. She had to give up some other activities in order to be in this group, but she also loves other sports like swimming and basketball. She is really excited for other activities too, including glass fusion, art, waterskiing and intercamp games. She is planning to be on both the dance and swim teams that travel and compete again other camps during the summer.
As you can see from the wrapping of her Chanukah present above, she is also a huge Justin Bieber fan! And, Molly is a very good little sister…she even plans to wake up early in the morning to wish Maddie a “Happy Birthday” at camp this summer before she gets on the bus for her three day trip to Lake Placid! Molly also promised to write long letters home to her parents, but she has a lot to live up to because Maddie is known for writing long two-sided letters daily! Maddie told me some really funny camp stories while I was over…and most of them ended up being about falling off stuff! She also told me some top secret things about her Bat Mitzvah in March, but my lips are sealed! It sounds like it will be very fun!
We ended the night by checking out their Chanukah Menorah, that will be filled each night with blue and gold candles (Canadensis colors!!) and the family sent me home with a latke to-go. Molly also wrapped up the most chocolately chip cookie she could find…doesn’t that sound like a perfect person to be camp friends with?
I got to spend the second night of Chanukah with Anna, a current 3rd grader who lives Penn Valley. She will be coming to camp for her first summer as a Junior, and I first met her at Tour & More Weekend in 2011. She is a super sweet & can be silly too! On the day I came over, she had given a book report on Pippi Longstocking to her class, and she actually put pipe cleaners in her pigtail braids so they would stick straight out! Anna is also a well rounded girl…and I’m serious, this girl likes everything!! She plays basketball, goes to Hebrew School, takes classes at the Handworks Studio and she is about to start hip hop dance classes in the new year.
Anna had made me a picture at school that day, and it’s hanging on my office bulletin board now. She also prepared a very organized list of camp questions, which included…
1. How is eating in the dining hall different than eating on the back deck during Tour & More?
2. When do you find out what bunk you are going to be in?
3. What are Special Days?
After she asked those great questions, she made a list of the elective activities that she would enjoy doing, and she wrote down EVERYTHING! She’s excited for the ropes course, lake activities, mountain biking, arts, sports, and she thinks she might even try golfing! She plans to sign up for water-skiing (she snow skis regularly during the winter) and she may audition for the camp show because she likes being on stage, and was recently a villager in Beauty and the Beast. She really likes the Phillies baseball team, and has a Phillies Phanatic doll in her room. She already picked out bedding for the summer, and it’s M&M themed! Pretty much the only thing Anna doesn’t like is fruits and vegetables…but luckily, she does like corn…which is the official vegetable of all Canadensis Campers!
She is a “double” big sister to Lindsay and William. They all had made such awesome menorahs and crafts around their home, and are a very fun family. All the kids had watched the camp videos and knew SO much about camp, including color war team names and what shows we performed – you would have thought they were at camp in 2011!! Lindsay is in 2nd grade, and thinks she will come for Tour & More again this summer. William is only 4 years old, but I think he’ll make a great camper one day! They had gotten their big Chanukah gift the night before I visited…and air hockey table! I think they are going to have a lot of fun family tournaments in the future.
