July 11, 2008

Due to the consistent Ireland rain the campers had the opportunity to play soccer indoors this morning. I was a little concerned about the higher potential for injuries but luckily there were no serious injuries. On the way back for cottage clean up one camper decided to chew pieces off a Styrofoam cup and leave a trail back to the cottage. I laughed internally wondering what could have made this camper do this but of course had to have him go back and pick each piece up.

We had horses all morning and went on a wet and muddy trail which had both the horses and caras (the staff) sliding around. The campers were allowed at one point to have the Caras let go of the lead rope on the horse and be completely on there own (although we were still right next to the horse). I felt like this was another unique and empowering aspect of this camp.

In Discovery this afternoon the campers ran around the secret garden catching bugs. I had a nice chat with the Discovery activity staff in between catching bugs with the campers. The next rotation was Arts and Crafts which was somewhat ordered chaos. The campers had a type of paint that they could blow bubbles in then press paper on the bubble to make art. However, the campers enjoyed making as many bubbles as they could much more so it turned out to be just paint all over the place.

I facilitated the cottage chat this evening which went really well. I received a ton of compliments from the staff. One of which came from a full time staff that has been doing these camps for about 7 years and said this was among the top three that he had ever seen.