Archery Tournament and Speed Challenge

Happy terrific Thursday to ya parents! (I did that one without the use of my watch!…its the little accomplishments). Its getting towards the end of the week and also towards the end of the session and that can mean only one thing. Everyone is working hard competing for club points and/or getting ready to perform in front of the whole camp in some form or fashion. Lets start off with news from todays archery tournament. The final contestants in the tournament had been settled over the previous few days so today during our first Beli Deli, it was time for the winner take all. The area around the archery range was crowded with campers from all three clubs as they packed in to cheer on the campers that were representing their club. It took several close and intense rounds of shooting to get it down to the final 4. I gotta tell ya, I’ve never seen so many arrows end up in the yellow bullseye as I did this morning. The focus and intensity on their faces showed as each girls took her time to carefully aim and then release an arrow on its way to the center of its destination. If you look through the pictures from today you can see for yourself there are several that are great, but there is one that is REALLY Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. She has 3 arrows in an 2 inch circle. Talk about great grouping! Go ahead and look for yourself, there are some great archers up here this session, you’ll be surprised at how good they’ve gotten over the last 2 weeks. I was so caught up in seeing that picture I almost forgot to tell ya who won….. Congratulations to the Rangers for claiming the Robin Hood status of unbeatable in archrery this session! (that means they won!)

While some fo the campers in tennis class were enjoying a “Modified” version of tennis today with water balloons as the balls (yea, it was as cool as it sounds to play it this way), the girls in sports class took to the sand volleyball court to get in a little beach volleyball. I mean, if it’s gonna feel like you’re at the beach, go ahead and play like you’re at the beach, know what I mean!!

Our campers in the canoeing class took a nice leisurely cool trip down Little River to enjoy Desoto Falls state park. There are some amazing views down there of the falls and the girls loved getting to see them. I’m pretty sure they enjoyed the part where they had to canoe past the boys Camp Laney but I couldn’t get them to talk to me about that.

As we get close to the end of the session, we have Showtime at Skyline coming up soon where each performing arts class will get to show their skills to the entire camp. We’ll have a short performance from our advanced Circus class, cheerleading, gymnastics and dance. Every one of the girls in all the classes I just mentioned has been working hard to perfect their tricks, routines, or cheers to they can put their best foot forward when it comes time to show the fruits of their labor to the rest of the campers. When you walk past those classes now, its not just doing the tricks and routines and having fun. They’re still having fun, trust me, but you can sense theres a different attitude in those cases as they all are working really hard to make everything perfect and get the timing down just right. I know you’re gonna love the pics and video when ya see it.

Tonight was our camper favorite “Speed Challenge”. This is a series of 10-12 wild and wacky relay races per age group that are run back to back to back to back…you get the point. Each age group will rune their set of races as fast as they can. This might include the find your shot relay, cover your partner with shaving cream relay, wet sponger over the head between the legs relay, the piggy back relay and more. As soon as all 3 clubs are finished for a particular age group, we rest everything and then take the next age group of girls and do it again. and again, and again….. All in all it ends up being 60-70 relay races and we also have a cheer off contest in there just in case any of them might still have a voice after they’ve been cheering on their fellow club mates in each of their races all night long. I gotta tell ya, it was a loud and fierce competition but when it was all said and done, the final results were….. Troopers 3rd, Rangers 2nd and the Mighty Mounties reclaimed their spot as Champions!

As hard as it is to believe, tomorrow will be the final day of classes for everyone (hence the determination in all the performing arts activities). We’ll get one last go around of riding the zip line or being “blobbed” down in the river and even getting that last ride on your favorite horse. Speaking of horseback, they’ll be having their own competition tomorrow as all the riders will be competing in the horse championship. The winners in each area today will compete in from to everyone on Saturday in our Grand Championship. This is the highest award they can win at horseback so they’ll all be concentrating on getting their post just right as they ride in front of our judges tomorrow and hopefully they be in the Grand on Saturday.

Well folks, I can hear the crickets chipping outside my window and the computer keys are starting to get a little blurry so Im gonna head on out and try to get some sleep so I can try my best to keep up with all the girls one last day. You guys do the same, some of y’all are starting to look a little tired from staying up so late waiting on this blog.

Y’all have a good night and get some rest…….I’m going to

LJ