Hi folks!

Lady of the Lake here, with lots of exciting news! It all started at evening meeting last night, when we honored a very special group of campers – our five year campers! These kids have been coming to camp summer after summer, and last night each one received their five year vest.

After the meeting, we all headed in for a great meal of sizzling hamburgers, veggie burgers (I still hold that these are the best in the world), fries, and a beautiful, fresh salad. After that feast, we headed to the Rec Hall for sharing night, where we got to see all the performances that campers have been working on in their classes for the past two weeks.

Our first act was very mysterious – while the emcees were beginning the show, Tribal stormed the stage and kidnapped one of the emcees! Tribal, one of our classes, has been up to lots of similar shenanigans over the past eight class days. They’ve shown up at different classes and interacted with the rest of camp in very silly fashions.

After Tribal, gymnastics took the stage tumbling and leaping all over. They sure were a crowd pleaser! We had equally active performances from aerobics and yoga, too. Our guitar class played “I’m Yours,” by Jason Mraz, and our ukelele class played “Wagon Wheel,” by the Old Crow Medicine Show. Both were crowd pleasers and folks all around the room sang along. Tipis came up and shared a song with us all. We had a fantastic performance by our Stomp class, which has been working on making music out of everyday items. They performed a scene at a restaurant for us, and were using dishes, silverware, and of course their bodies, to make awesome beats.

We saw an extremely zany performance from the Frankenstein Doll Making class, where members of the class showed off their creations in a Frankenstein take on the traditional beauty pageant. Audience members cheered and hooted for the dolls they fancied, and the counselor teaching the class read a funny blurb about each doll.

Our Sound Escape class gave us a truly noteworthy performance. They started out by looping a series of creepy sounds. We couldn’t see the campers from the class, and the Rec Hall was dark and silent except for the repetitive shrieks and cries. After we were all sufficiently scared out of our seats, the class changed the tone of the night entirely and looped various wakeup noises of the inner city. Campers yelled out phrases like taxi, hotdogs for sail, and the whaling of an ambulance. The whole thing was phenomenal to watch.

We also heard a preview of the musical last night, which will be performed in the upcoming weeks. Our musical this year is Shrek, so the talented singers performed a parody to the song “Fancy.” Their creative lyrics were hysterically funny, and their voices were lovely to listen to.

Our modern dance class, our final act, showed us an incredible performance. They hung sheets across the stage, turned off the lights, and then danced behind the sheets. The audience saw their shadows as they performed an old Native American tale. It was both graceful and innovative.

The end of Sharing Night was not the end of the night, however. As our program directors came up to announce bedtime, music blared through the sound system. We were having a secret dance! We all boogied along to awesome tunes. No one could resist the contagious music. When we were all tuckered out, the PDs announced the real bedtime and we all headed to cozy up in our beds.

After a fulfilling night of sleep, we woke up this morning to have the laziest of lazy days – otherwise known as Pajama Day. Folks headed to breakfast in their pajamas, and after a brief morning meeting, we all headed to have a super exciting morning of pool activities. So many activities went on, like capture the flag, slip-n-sliding, swimming, friendship bracelet making, and strumming guitars. It was a perfectly relaxing morning. While pool activities went on, a few cabins at a time went to pick up a Hidden Valley t-shirt, grab a book, and sign up for new classes for the next two weeks.

Speaking of new classes, we have some fantastic new choices for the rest of the session. Some of them are takes on other classes we have, like Extreme Llama Care. Extreme Llama Care will be going on extreme hikes and even taking an awesome trip to an alpaca farm! We also have some awesome art classes happening these two weeks, such as cartooning, collage, origami, vejigante mask making (Caribbean carnival masks), and watercolor painting. All those classes are sure to produce a lot of awesome artwork!

For new dance classes, we have a dance to the music class and a Swing Salsa class. Swing Salsa? It’s a combination of salsa dancing and swing dancing! Who knows what folks in that class will put together. We also have the return of Zumba from first session, which is sure to be a big hit, for the campers in the class and for all of us at the next Sharing Night. Another combo class we have is Fused Mosaics, where campers will be fusing mosaics – how cool!

We have a number of appetizing cooking classes coming up, too. There’s a crazy cakes class, where campers will make a different type of cupcake everyday. There’s also chip and dip, where campers will make delicious dips for their chips. Finally, there’s a “Starbucks” class, where folks will make thirst quenching coffee-free drinks to guzzle.

Other new classes we have are a meditation class, a spoken word class, songwriting, and an HVC songbook class, where campers will compile a list of Hidden Valley campfire classics. We can’t wait to see the product of their efforts!

We have some pretty out there new classes, too. We have an Apocalypse Now class, where kids will prepare for an imminent apocalypse. Their strength and bravery will be put to the test in this class! There’s also Aussie Invasion, where campers will learn just what it takes to be an Australian from two of our own Australian counselors. And lastly, we have the ever popular Liquid Smoke from last session, where campers will complete all sorts of strange puzzles in the hopes of discovering the true meaning of the class. Stay tuned for more class updates over the coming weeks!

After lunch and class signups, we’ve had a relaxing afternoon cleaning the cabin, participating in fun cabin activities, and watching some videos from our video classes. We can’t wait for Kim and Reggie, the evening program tonight! More news on the afternoon and evening to come tomorrow.

That’s all for now, folks!

Lady of the Lake