Reflecting On Camp

So this post has been long in the works, because for a very long time I did not know how to talk about camp with the right words. This is my best shot.

I am very sad that Memorial Day is coming up and for the first time since 1997 I will not be present to help prep and start summer camp in some capacity. For plenty of reasons Patrick and I are not living at camp anymore and so that is not part of our lives from now on. (This is not the time or place to get into all of that, this is a time to reflect on a lot of good things.)

The day after my high school grad

Camp was the place, like a lot of my friends that I loved to be at during the summers, and the place I wished I had been all winter. I started working there when I was 15 and I just kept going back every summer. There are very few jobs and tasks that I haven't done while working there. And I don't really think I have had a job I loved more then what I did while I was working there.

seriously...EVERY JOB

My husband started working there where he was in high school too and ended up taking a year round job there. These are some of the best years of our lives. We lived the first 5 years or our marriage in a house there and loved it. (My parents met and got married while at summer camp too, I am not really sure why they let me go to camp since they know what happens there... needless to say my kids can't work at camp.)

The friends that I made at camp are forever, good and bad I experienced more life lessons then I can count while I was there.

In honor of the good times I camp, I made a Top Ten Camp Memories, (I know I am leaving out some really good ones, seven years is a lot to sum up in a top ten list)

(Honorary 11th place tie--The Statler Brother's on 4th of July and watching Ron kill a snake with a shotgun while wearing the American flag shirt.)
10. Stuffing Alison (my future roomie) in the dishwasher... why did she listen to us.
9.  Pirate Day and my old school Super Bowl XXIII hat.
8. Tommy and his special red pants.
7. Breaks when the campers weren't at the lake... time to sun.
6. The "comprehensive-plan"...a weight lose plan that really is what you make it... aka you make up your own rules.
5. Learning how to drive a stick-shift. The busted up Mazda I drove was terrible, and I stalled it out constantly all summer long, but it had a radio... (very embarrassing)
4. Driving around in the gator with Thomas Rodrigez Rigg on "safari" while lighting smug-pots... pit pit cheerio. (This barely made the list, I have only recently forgiven him for making me watch Hedwig and the Angry Itch)
3. Using the EMERGENCY PHONE to call while on an overnight hike to ask if somebody could run up a s'more kit.... spoiler alert: the s'more kit never arrived
2. The unofficial beach trip
1. Meeting Patrick and dating during the summer of 2002. (FYI we got married there first.)

Camp will always be part of us, and I am sure some time soon I will slap on some tie-dye and think of being up there.

Bethany side-note of the day- Bethany worked for a summer at camp too... she hated it. For those of you who know me from work, see if you can pick out the familiar face.