It’s always a special day when we pick them up from their
two week stay at camp. In some ways feels like forever as no contact at all-in
other ways it passes by so fast. Today we picked up Bear and Beauty! They have
been attending this camp for 9 yrs. now and it is like home to them in many
ways. Bear adores every minute. Beauty resists it each year and comes home each
time having had a blast (and then resists it again the next year)
We always have the tradition of going to the closing camp
ceremonies at 10:15am and watching Bear win Camper of the Week! Then we chose a great place to go out to
lunch and then Tim Hortens’s for a donut or hot chocolate and then it’s back to
the cottage to start the vacation. The first day back (today) is always a whatever
they want to do day and that means all day and night being plugged into the
couch, their phones, their ipads etc. They have been unplugged for two weeks
and are craving the relaxation that the couch potato life provides.
We force them out onto a nice boat ride where they both
fell fast asleep and then we dock and ask them millions of questions about
camp. Then they take more couch potato breaks and now cooking with Hubby a
homemade Indian meal.
Earlier bedtimes tonight (aka: before 12am!) as big annual
regatta tomorrow at the Holiday House.
We are big big fans of sleepaway camp. All of them have
been going for 1-2 weeks since the ages of 5-7yrs… for me it was has built so much
of their social., athletic and leaderships abilities. It is an international sports
camp that focuses on diversity, leadership and every sport under the sun.The
camp has taught them self-sufficiency, friendship, autonomy, skill. Everything.
We love the good old fashioned friendships formed there too and the notion of “summer
friends”. These are not Facebook friends (well they probably are too!) they are
“hug goodbye and cry every summer friends. Love it.
Bear is going back next summer for the 4 week “Aspi” program
where he will be a counsellor in training. After that he is assured a job every
summer all summer (they have guarenteed him employment alreadyJ)
Beauty, this may be her last year-we shall see. As of 14 yrs.
old she gets to choose if she does sleepaway camp or not. I bet she will still
choose it.
They are really teens now when they leave. Hugging every
person possible. Every counslellor, high fiving the world, the boy –girl thing.
Trying to ignore their doting parents. It’s really cute. We love picking them
up from camp.
Chase usually comes back tonight after his three week
stay at Dircamp but he postponed his return until tomorrow night as wanted to
be part of a big biking competition that is taking place on the mountain. So he
will return tomorrow night and because we have regatta we will all arrive home
at 1am from all the travel back and forth to city etc..
He ended up being paid for lots of his what he thought
was volunteer work. The director of the camp liked his work and dedication so
much that he paid him a full counsellor salary for one of the week and then
paid him a gardening day at his private house and then Chase was hired for many
hours of private lessons downhill biking at 20$ per hour (for the private
lessons that is) !!! Not bad!!!!! And he thought he was doing it all for free
as experience.
We received the most beautiful email from the director of
the camp today saying how proud he was of Chase (as last year in the CIT program
Chase did a whole lot of sitting on his ass!) He said he had never seen such
transformation and was impressed and listed all the ways that he recognized and
appreciated Chase. He said he is first on the list for the next bike instructor
job coming up next summer or the next.
Chase will be thrilled.
This is big stuff and his passion. An extreme and dangerous sport in a lot of
ways but perfectly suited for him to teach as a very safety conscious guy. He
has been doing it for years and has never even had a minor accident.
Can’t wait until tomorrow late night to have all three home.
It’s fun to have life back in the house (although they are actively ignoring us
a lot of the time!) It just feels wonderful and comforting on so many levels to
be back under the same roof again. Our couple time has been really lovely-but
we do really well as parents together. It’s nice to be able to have this mix of
both.
Camp is awesome. We are very very blessed to have been
able to send them there all of these years. I consider it an important part of
who they have become as people.
Part two of vacations begins!
