Candy Crush 3rd session

Well hello again parents, when I say its been a sweet day up here, I mean exactly that! The weather had been much cooler, we’ve had a breeze blowing all day and then we all got to play Candy Cush tonight! Its been really fun getting to walk around camp checking on all the campers and how they’re doing in their activities. As soon as I walk close to an activity, there is at least 2 or 3 campers calling my name and they can’t wait to tell me something new they’ve accomplished or show me how well they shot in riflery or archery. I’m always more than happy to hang out for awhile and listen to each success story one by one as their eyes get wider and their voices get louder as they tell me the “new thing” they have done each day. I’m sure when you get your letter from your camper you will get many of the same stories (or should I say “if you get a letter”, I know these girls have been staying pretty busy and I don’t exactly know when they would find time to write……kinda like me looking for time to sleep!! Know what I mean??). If you don’t get your letter with all the details, then you are in luck! I guarantee you will have an action packed trip home when you pick up your camper. You’ll get to listen to all the details in person from the time you pull out of camp till the time she falls fast asleep. That should be anywhere from 4-5 minutes total. Remember this line in the blog, cause next week when it is time to head home, thats exactly what will happen (the 4-5 minutes till asleep part!)

With the cooler day, all the campers were all over the place. Mountain biking headed out of camp to try their skills at a place called Taylors Ford where they actually got to ride their bikes across the little river. While it was a little cooler today, it was still plenty warm enough to enjoy the river and pool and thats exactly what the campers in fun swim did all day. You could hear them screaming every time one of ‘em got “blobbed” into the air and eventually landing in the water. You didn’t have to be there and see it in person to tell they were having fun.

I had to go down to riflery class this afternoon to do a little repair work on one of the guns. Apparently it was one of the guns the campers all loved to shoot, ‘cause as soon as I had it ready to go, every girl in that class cheered and said “thank you!!” and then started calling out dibs on who got to shoot it first. (yes, there were plenty of other rifles to choose from, but they all liked that one for some reason). Anyway, it was nice to make ‘em happy and as usually, before I could leave, each one was telling me about how much they had improved and showing me some of their previous targets. I ain’t gonna lie, they had some pretty impressive targets in their hands. Those girls were “dottin’ the I’s” with each and every shot.

Tonight we had our Candy Crush activity where the girls all came to the gym to try some homemade special candy one of our counselors made for them. But before they could pass it out a giant chicken (litterly) and her farmer came running in and took all the candy. There was only one thing to do and thats team up in cabins and make our way around camp collecting candy (balloons) from counselors that were about and about around camp. Now the only thing they had to do to get some candy (balloons), was complete whatever task the counselor asked of them as a group. It was everything from reciting our theme verse for the summer, make up a dance, beat one of the counselors in tetherball (y’all remember that??), make a 3pt score in Cornhole, walk like they are runway models and “strike a pose” at the end, and more! It was a crazy night and your campers fit right in and didn’t disappoint anyone when it came time to earn back their candy. They did, however, have to watch out for “heckler” counselors that were out to get their candy (remember, it was balloons). some of them would make the ladies do another challenge to be able to keep their ballots and if they couldn’t do it, they had their candy taken and they had to go back to the station where they earned it and repeat their action to earn another piece of candy (balloons).

Now why you wonder were we using balloons in stead of real candy? I’m glad you asked. The balloons had point values in them and each one was worth a different amount of points. So even though they were competing against the counselors, they were still competing against all the other cabins to see which cabin could earn the most points. Confused yet? good, so was I, but the campers weren’t and they hit each station one after another getting those balloons only to have them taken and then return to that station later in the night to try again. Sounds a little crazy but the girls sure seemed to enjoy it.

Now tomorrow will be a SPECIAL day here at camp. Yes, its Friday, but the more important thing is its the night of he big Skyline Laney dance! All the boys from Cam Laney will be coming over to enjoy the evening with our campers out under the stars and on the tennis courts as that are transformed into a giant dance floor. Since it is our “Christmas in July” session, the theme of the dance will be “Tacky Christmas sweater”. I’m sure there will be some great pictures to see once they all get out there so be sure to check back in and see who your campers danced with and just how tacky they looked. Don’t worry dads (LD) well be out there right in the middle of it all with the camera and we’ll be shooting all the ones that ask our campers to dance with ‘em (with the camera of course….).

Well its gettin a little late and I have to get caught up on a few things so I’m gonna go ahead and sign off. You guys enjoy the rest of the evening and pictures. Theres plenty to look through and remember, were almost half way there. You guys are doing great keeping up with everything online, especially since we all know the family computer/internet expert is probably here with us at camp for 2 weeks!! (thats pretty funny till ya think about it and realize it may be true!)

On a different note, I do apologize for the blog being a little late these past few nights. I’ve been keeping up with the cave rescue in Thailand since I’m a caver and the National Cave Rescue Commission trains here at Skyline every 3-4 years and they were just here in May right before camp started this year. All the guys you see on TV giving interviews and some of them actually consulting on the rescue are friends of mine and so I do take little time to see how they’re doing before I get to the blog. Hopefully it will have a better ending than the news we had tonight and everyone else will come out safely.

Y’all have a good night and get some rest, like I said you’re almost half way there and your camper will be so proud of you for making it this long without them.

Have a good one, its time to shut ‘er down!!

LJ