Pancake bar at breakfast!

Hello Hidden Valley Friends! Olive Oyl here with some news just for you!

We started off this beautiful morning right with a delicious pancake breakfast complete with fresh blueberry sauce! Yum! We had a pretty silly morning meeting after breakfast, with Loons performing some Crazy Creek chariot races for Spirit Animal, and the Dynamos doing their best Moose impressions.

Now that we’re all fueled on pancake-y goodness, we’re ready to head into the home stretch of our amazing classes! We’ve had an awesome bunch of new classes these past two weeks, such Zumba, Extreme Art, and Liquid Smoke. Our Zumba group doesn’t only bust a move during class, but last two weeks they even got the whole camp to get up and move during sharing night! We can only hope for more funky dancing next sharing night, which is tomorrow night! Extreme Art has also been getting their hands dirty with some crazy stuff around camp. They did splatter paint down the Tipi Zip and painted rock sculptures at the creek. They also used their hands and feet to paint a giant canvas, even doing cartwheels to make some art. Finally, they did some geometric face painting using masking tape. Liquid Smoke is a mysterious new class where the campers complete a series of puzzles all to determine what the whole class is about, which will be revealed on the final day. So far, they’ve done a giant sudoku puzzle (see pictures from yesterday) and other logic and problem-solving puzzles as a group. We can’t wait to discover the true meaning of Liquid Smoke!

Some more details about yesterday…

After a busy day of roller skating and spy day activities, we enjoyed our classic lazy day fare of Mexican food, complete with guacamole, salsa, beef, cheese, and all the other fillings! Mmmm! We  then relaxed with two movie options last night. We played both Epic and The (Original) Parent Trap, so campers had a choice between a new animated adventure or an old classic. Also, our Korean campers went on a white water rafting trip and had a blast! Be sure to check out the photos.

As camp is winding down, we’ve been signing white books and reflecting on our incredible summer at Hidden Valley so far. We’ve really been able to foster a loving and nurturing community of campers, counselors, and staff. The basketball game the other day was an amazing moment of the community feel that we all share– passing around white books to sign goodbye notes and exchange contact information to stay in touch with our friends during the year. The end is near, but there’s still so much to experience– two more days of classes, another Trip/Lazy day, Fair Day, Packing Day and Closing Pine Grove. We can’t wait to make some more memories and take time to reflect on the amazing times that we’ve already had.

P.S.

Be sure to check in soon for a Community update!

Until we meet again,

Olive