'Tis the Season

There may be 16 days until winter officially begins, but it has already arrived here at camp. With daily highs in the low 20s and plenty of snow on the ground, we realized that it was time to decorate the office for the holidays.

The leaves have fallen, a chill is in the air, and the holiday spirit is spreading.

Three months ago camp was filled with many sounds—songbirds chirping, children’s laughter, and songs, songs, and more camp songs. Besides the holiday selections playing from Beth's office, today camp is mostly quiet. Camp's wildlife is enjoying the serenity, and the office staff has been working hard to prepare camp for another AMMAAAAAZZZIN' summer.

Plenty Happening at Camp as the Cold Weather Moves In

Camp welcomed its first snowflakes as they began to fall Monday, October 27th. Another reminder that winter is around the corner, but another spring and summer will not be too far behind it!

Our Leadership Training Program Youth, LTYs, visited camp this past Sunday and volunteered at Inspiration Ministries, which serves adults with physical and mental disabilities, in nearby Delavan. The LTYs and volunteers helped clean their camp for winter. Many leaves were raked and bushes were trimmed on a windy autumn afternoon. It was a volunteer project filled with hard work, accomplishment, smiles, and laughter.

On Thursday Rachel Gage and Colleen Mygatt co-chaired a fabulous and successful Fashion Plate Luncheon at the Saddle and Cycle Club in Chicago. The attendees enjoyed an afternoon fashion and a glorious lunch.

The sidewalk chalk may be washed away, but plenty of colors still prevail at camp.

These photos speak for themselves.

Fall Update

The blog is back! As the leaves begin to change and the weather becomes cool, we are in the process of closing camp down until summer 2009, which is only 8 short months away! Before we know it, old faces will reunite and new ones will join our summer team. Until then, you can find all of the latest camp happenings here!



Some exciting events that have occurred at camp since August include:

-Jamie and Beth made an appearance in the Rockford Register Star newspaper:

http://www.rrstar.com/communities/x55304540/Rain-hurts-attendance-at-Greenwich-Village-Art-Fair-but-sales-going-very-well

-Crane Max is truly clean and sparkling

-An embroidery floss donation came from The DMC Corporation for friendship bracelet making!!

-Regular field trips are taken to the pet store to purchase mice for Precious. The mice are quite cute as they make attempts to get out of the box on the way to camp.

-Application forms for staff and registration forms for campers have been recreated.

-A handrail has been ordered for the stairs to the waterfront!



That is all for the time-being! Soon you will find the office crew raking leaves and jumping in them (not on work time of course.) Have a HAPPY day everyone!

Excited Smiles

Last night, our office crew went on a field trip to Milwaukee to participate in an information session about camp for children who have been nominated by their teachers and school staff to come to camp this summer.

It was great to see all the excited children itching for their chance at coming to camp.

Monday Morning Update

Happy Monday!

We have exactly 19 days until our first staff member arrives and 42 days until our first campers arrive at camp. Knowing that, camp is certainly beginning to recover from long winter.

This past weekend we were fortunate to have a group of high school students from Milwaukee come for a work project weekend. They were hard workers and got tons of work done including emptying the library of all the books so that it is ready for painting, setting up the garden near the Nature Center, doing loads of work on landscaping around the Sports Court, and various other gardening projects around camp. It was amazing how much they accomplished!

This week will once again be a busy one, as our benefit plans are coming into full swing and camper registration is at it's peak. We are still working on a few staff members, but we are all confident that things will work out and we will have a great staff this summer!

We also have a really exciting project going on upstairs in Founders Hall, we will wait to post pictures when it is all finished!

Letter From Camp

It's Monday, thought I would provide you all with a little entertainment.

Dear Mom,

Our cabin counselor told us all to write to our parents in case you saw the flood on TV and worried. We are OK. Only 1 of our tents and 2 sleeping bags got washed away. Luckily, none of us got drowned because we were all up on the mountain looking for Chad when it happened. Oh yes, please call Chad's mother and tell her he's okay. He can't write because of the cast. I got to ride on one of the search & rescue jeeps. It was neat. We never would have found him in the dark if it hadn't been for the lightening.

Counselor Webb got mad at Chad for going on a hike alone without telling anyone. Chad said he did tell him, but it was during the fire so he probably didn't hear him. Did you know that if you put gas on a fire, the gas can blow up? The wet wood still didn't burn, but one of our tents did, also some of our clothes. John is going to look weird until his hair grows back.

We will be home Saturday if Counselor Webb gets the car fixed. If wasn't his fault about the wreck. The brakes worked okay when we left. Counselor Webb said that a car that old you have to expect something to break down; that's probably why he can't get insurance on it. We think it's a neat car. He doesn't care if we get it dirty, and if it's hot, sometimes he lets us ride on the tailgate. It gets pretty hot with 10 people in a car.

He let us take turns riding in the trailer until the highway patrolman stopped us and talked to us.

Counselor Webb is a neat guy. Don't worry, he is a good driver. In fact, he is teaching Terry how to drive. But he only lets him drive on the mountain roads where there isn't any traffic. All we ever see up there is logging trucks.

This morning all of the guys were diving off the rocks and swimming out in the lake. Counselor Webb wouldn't let me because I can't swim and Chad was afraid he would sink becuase of his cast, so he let us take the canoe across the alek. It was great. you can still see some of the trees under the water from the flood. Counselor Webb isn't crabby like some counselors. He didnt' even get mad about the life jackets.

He has to spend a lof of time working on the car so we are trying not to cause him any trouble. Guess what? We have all passed our first aid test. When Dave dove in the lake and cut his arm, we got to see how a tourniquet works. Also Wade and I threw up. Counselor Webb said it probably was just food poisoning from the leftover chicken, he said they got stick that way with the food they ate in prison. I'm so glad he got out and became our Counselor. He said he sure figured out how to get things done better while he was doing his time.

I have to go now. We are going into town to mail out letters and buy bullets. Don't worry about anything. We are fine.

Love,

Cole

I hope this letter made you laugh a little bit. It's a parent's worst nightmare! And a list of everything NOT to do with your campers!

Our Pride and Joy

We are lucky enough to have Mary, the rabbit on our team. With the nice weather, we decided to invest in a little rabbit leash for Mary. She tends to hop pretty fast, so this leash keeps her within easy distance. Here we are going for a walk on a sunny spring day!

New Stairs!

For those of you who have been to camp, you know that the stairs down to the waterfront were treacherous. With the help of a gracious donor, these steps are being removed and new steps being put in as we speak.

It's a large project because of the steep hill and the inaccessible area for machines, but within a couple of weeks, the area will be completely transformed. We are anxious to see the results!

2008 Benefit Dinner

As I sit at my desk with glitter and glue up to my neck, I am happy to annouce that this years benefit will be an extremely exciting affair for all. It will be held at a Stone Manor, a historic building on Lake Geneva. There has been months of planning and we want this year to be most successful. Thanks to the benefit committee for all of their hardwork and planning.

A Poem For Your Day

We recently found this poem on an old piece of construction paper......we thought you may enjoy it. It was written by one of our campers a few years ago.

A place to go

To think

To breathe

To be me

People to talk to

That will listen

That will care

That will always be there

This place is my favorite place of all

It has people that care about me most of all

I have had many friends at this place come and go

I've had many memories at this place

But they will never leave my heart this I know.

Out With The Old, In With The New

On Friday afternoon, we welcomed a new addition to Holiday Home Camp. A brand new 15-passanger van. Thanks to a group of generous people, we were able to purchase a new van for camp.

We watched with tears as our 18-year old van was towed off. The summer of 2006, was the last time the van had been used as last year it had some severe mechanical problems and wasn't safe to drive.

We are excited and hope this van sees us to our 139th summer!