Opening Day 4th Session

Well Hellooooooo Parents!! Welcome to opening day of Session 4 here at Camp Skyline. You guys did a great job this morning of checking in and getting everyone settled. Although Mother Nature was forecasting some bad weather it wasn’t bad at all if you don’t mind a little humidity first thing in the morning (for those of y’all that aren’t local….. welcome to the South!). Now before we get too far on this blog, let me introduce myself, I’m LJ and I’ll be giving you all the day to day info of everything thats going on while your camper is here having the time of her life. I’ll also post some random pics that our photographers have chosen along with the video at the end of each blog with a couple minutes of footage from each days highlights. I hope you’ll get used to checking in and seeing whats going on for the next two weeks.

Even though I’ll show ya a few pics from each day, you can log in to our “Waldo” app and find almost 400 pics everyday so for those of you that have other plans while your camper is here with us, you might want to change them, you’ll be scrolling through all sorts of pics trying to find your camper (or back of her head, elbow, tennis shoe, anything you can….don’t laugh, I know some of y’all are doing that!!!), or you can sign up through Waldo and have it find your camper for you and send you the pics. Its a new service we have this year they’re offering it to all our parents and so far everyone LOVES getting the alerts that Waldo found pics pf their camper. Either way is fine, its up to you how you want to spend your time but don’t say I didn’t warn ya if you end up spending the whole two weeks on your computer!!

Now on with the news!…. Before you guys had even made it back to the interstate, your campers were already out in camp playing games and getting to know their new friends and cabin mates for the next 2 weeks. It didn’t take long and they were enjoying the sun and fun with all sorts of ‘get to know ya’ games so everyone could get acquainted. After that it was time to sign ups for classes (unless your camper is a mini camper, their classes are all pre determined as they travel from activity to activity in a group…. they end up looking like a bunch of little ducks following their counselors around from class to class).

After Lunch (I’m still full) it was time to do our club drawing where each of our new campers drew a bead to see which club their in and when I say “they’re in” I mean it in every sense of the word. These girls up here take their clubs seriously and thats no understatement. The best advice I can give ya is to write down what club (or color) your camper is in. There have been small family feuds started because a parent called her camper by the wrong club. Heres your pro tip for the day. In the cabin and club pics, if you find your camper and she’s wearing a blue shirt, that means she’s a Ranger, if its green she’s a Trooper, and if it is a red shirt then she’s a Mountie. Don’t forget it, you’ll be sorry, cause once you guys playing along at home see how these girls compete in their club competitions each night, you’ll understand how important it is to ‘em.

If you send your camper an email or Waldogram, be sure to congratulate them on getting in the club they did. I’ve never heard the campers cheer so loudly after they found out they had a new member each time their club bead was drawn.

Now after all that cheerin’, it was time for everyone to go to Bali Deli and get something to wet their whistle and re fresh their vocal chords. Seems like the camper favorite today was definitely Frios Pops and they did the trick. If ya haven’t had a Frios Pop, you’re missing out, I’l let your camper tell you about ‘em but there delicious and refreshing all at the same time! I’m sure if you look through some of the pics from this afternoon, you’ll see several campers with one along with a BIG smile!!

Tonight after dinner (I really couldn’t even eat…I’m still full from lunch) it was time for tonights evening activity of “Cabin Fun Night”. This is where each cabin chooses an activity (or two) to play all together. It just gives them a little more ‘get to know ya’ time with their new friends and we had all sorts of fun activities tonight. Everything from counselor face painting, Spa night (really?), yoga, shaving cream wars (I don’ think I’ll ever get that menthol smell out of our grass in camp now…there was THAT much shaving cream), messy twister (try that one at home!!), water balloon fights (at least that helped wash off the shaving cream), playing games like GaGa ball, sardines (your guess is as good as mine on that one…), and fish bowl. (I would have joined them if it was just ‘fishing’, not sure what fish bowl is but they liked it). You could hear campers laugh and scream all across camp as the activities wen on through sunset. Of course what camp night would be complete without each cabin coming to the campfire to make and enjoy their own S’more before the night was through.

After everyone had finished and cleaned up it was time for everyone to enjoy of opening night campfire where everyone was at the main campfire together in one large bunch. This is where they went through our night time devotion and songs and our camp Chaplain Sarahlee talked to everyone bout our Summer theme “In Good Company”. All the cabin counselors will take turns this session giving the devotion and they all will center around the theme as they talk about always being in good company with God always being around and with them.

After tonight, the campfires will be split up as the older campers in Summerplace and Riverside will have their own camp fires across the river over at their cabins. This just makes it easier to focus the devotions on two different age groups throughout the summer.

Whew….. its been a busy day and everyone is now back in their cabin (except me, the videographer, Isabel and our photographer, Anna Peyton). We’ll still be up a little later trying to get all the pics and videos to ya each night so be patient and they’ll be up here on the blog (‘The Roost’ tab on our webpage), and the video will be on our facebook and youtube page each night for those if ya’ll that just can’t wait to see it on the blog (it usually goes up on those pages a few minutes before I get them on the blog).

Well I hope everyone had a safe trip back home after drop off today. FOR this parents traveling back to LA and MS you guys are in our thoughts and prayers for a safe trip and good findings when you get home. I know Barry was doing a number on your area when you left and that had to be weighing heavy on your minds. We appreciate you making the trip up here while that was happening.

You guys get some sleep, enjoy the video and pics and remember to pace yourself. Like I said, if you’re not careful you’ll end up spending the whole 2 weeks on line and thats probably not what you had planned while your family computer expert was here at camp with us!

Have a good one, I gotta get some rest if I’m gonna try to keep up with these girls for 2 weeks, y’all do the same!!

LJ