A Cookie Dough Party & Squirrel's Checkered Feet - Weekly Roundup 4

This one's coming a bit late because I simply haven't had time to make a blog so far this week! I was still in Tovariche last week, and we still had Wranglers and Saddle Up, but this time we also had Chocolate Chef! I've been very busy indeed, but I'm finally here with all the highlights of Week 4 of camp.

• We took the girls who were still at camp over the weekend to a park down the road from camp, and sprawled on the grass while they played. It was really relaxing and I got to catch up with Tink and London, which is nice as I barely see them at work, we're all so busy! We also demonstrated to all the arriving parents that we are very responsible counsellors by walking along the side of the main road as there was no pavement. SuPeR sTaFf.

• One of my kids asked me: "Are England years the same as ours?" - I was baffled and told her to go read up on basic astronomy.
• The kids loved the way that I speak, and I got called an awesome counsellor all week. It was great! My kids always wanted to sit with me at meals, and Coral said I was her favourite counsellor ever. I felt good about myself and my job.
• Luna set up a crime scene and did experiments with the girls to find out who had stolen all the hula hoops from the sports shed - the girls had so much fun working with the clues and doing different tests to find the culprit. My favourite part was when the girls realised that the perpetrator had tried to frame us for the crime and Olivia said, "THEY FRAMED US THE big weenies.." and it was so funny.
• Squirrel's feet tanned through the holes in her sandals; when she took her shoes off, her feet were checkered and all of us laughed for ages because of it.
• Late one evening, Piranha was stalling about going to bed because she was afraid to walk up to Sky Meadow in the dark. She was holding her flashlight under her chin and pulling a stupid face, saying, "Tell me I'm beautiful." over and over. It was, I have to say, incredibly funny.
• I wore my Markiplier shirt one day, and loads of the girls around camp high fived, hugged, and called to me because they like him too! It was very cool, even if he's not the most 'camperific' of people.
• One of our kids, Sam, accidentally broke her glasses and was horrified at what her mum might say - she promptly wrote her mum a letter saying "I'm really sorry" but with 30 'really's. Nemo fixed the glasses with pirate duct tape.
• Our cookout was amazing - we had it in the dining hall because there was a thunderstorm (surprise, surprise - a thunderstorm on the night I planned an overnight camp out!), and we ate tacos. Then for dessert, Kiwi came up with the idea to make a s'mores pizza! We took some dough, and put pieces of chocolate and marshmallows onto it, then cooked it so it all melted together, and sprinkled some broken graham crackers on the top. It was absolutely gorgeous and we all went into collective sugar comas when we were done eating it. 
• One of our units this week was Chocolate Chef, which Kiwi and I were leading. We made so many sweet treats that we were all stuffed by the end of the week. We made ice cream from scratch, cookies and chocolate brownies!
• At the end of the week, about half of my girls wanted me to sign their t-shirts. I felt really cool for a minute! I also got told I'm the best counsellor, and that I'm amazing. It's times like these that I feel most satisfied with my job.
• My kids decided that when I'm grumpy I am a ghost pepper because "they're the really spicy, evil ones!" - so if I was threatening to be mad at them, they would say, "No guys, be good! We want Dr Pepper, not Ghost Pepper!"
• As well as the two(!!) mice that lived in our staff cabin, occasionally some chipmunks would run in and attempt to steal chocolate or a potato chip. We soon saw them off, but they were kind of cute - if I'd have had my way I would've left them to it.
• Nemo got hired for third session! I was so pleased because I recommended her repeatedly to admin staff, saying that she was fab (she really is). In celebration, Squirrel nicked some cookie dough from the kitchen and we had a cookie dough party in her honour. Needless to say, we all felt a bit sick by the end of it.
• On Saturday Tink, London, Starry, Kiwi and I went to Burlington, which is the most populated city in Vermont. It's the most adorable, quaint place, and we spent all day wandering around and having a laugh amongst ourselves. There was a Ben & Jerry's shop (in fact, it's the first shop Ben and Jerry ever set up when they were starting out!) that we took full advantage of. We also tried out all the perfumes in Victoria's Secret, and had lunch at an Italian-American pub.
• London, Tink and Kiwi got crepes from a guy who London dubbed 'Pancake Man' and insisted on having a selfie with him - Tink then also had a selfie with him, and decided his name was 'Crepe Guy'. He was hilarious and just went along with how silly we were being, and we laughed for ages about it.
• We accidentally crashed a wedding. Tink, London and I were in an art gallery in Burlington and decided to go up to the second floor; two hot guys got into the elevator and were making loads of jokes (that we laughed very heartily at). Then one of them turned around to us and said, "So, are you going to the wedding?" and we giggled away, thinking it was another silly joke. Then we walked out of the elevator and... Well, it was a wedding. 

Week 4 was a blast, and now Week 5 is in full swing and we're having a lot of fun! Hopefully my update will be more on time next time.

Froot Loops In Cauldrons - Weekly Roundup 3

Second session started last Sunday; this time I'm working with Squirrel, Kiwi, J Crew, Nemo, Brownie and Rica! We had 31 girls in our unit, spread across three programs - Wranglers, Saddle Up, and Dolphins. I'm back in Tovariche, which is the unit I was staying in for pre-camp, and I love it there. Us staff are having to sleep in the unit shelter, which is the cabin in the background of this photo:

The reason we are staying in there is because we have so many girls, so we don't fit into the tents! However, the unit shelter is cool because it has lights and plug sockets, which are like rare luxuries now. The highlights:

• At dinner on the first night, the rice was served in really small bowls; Piranha and I immediately thought this was hilarious, and convinced the girls sitting at our table that we were only allowed a grain of rice. We passed the bowl around and everyone put one grain on their plate and it just looked so funny; I ate my piece of rice and said "I'm so full now, guys." which made my girls laugh.
• In camp rules, reasons to wake up counsellors are blood, bones, barf, and fire. We call them the 'three Bs' and 'the F'. We asked our kids what F stood for and one of them shouted out "Farting??" - it was absolutely hilarious, and all of the staff immediately launched into saying that if we were woken up because someone had farted in the night, we would not be happy.
• Kiwi's irrational fear of the bullfrogs - at night in Tovariche, all you can hear are the bullfrogs croaking away. I got used to them in Ojakle during first session, but Kiwi was not comfortable with the noise, and was deathly afraid of one getting in to our cabin.
• On the first full day, Nemo and I enlisted our Saddle Up girls to help us in a daring mission (stealing s'mores supplies). We posted our girls around the Ev and the dining hall as lookouts, and dashed into the annex to grab what we needed. The girls took their roles very seriously and the mission was a success!
• For her staff skit, Remy walked on and poured a whole container of water on herself. She then got two bottles of tie dye paint and tipped them all over herself. She did the whole thing without saying a word and everyone was hysterical by the end of it. It was the funniest thing I've ever seen; I couldn't look at Remy without laughing for the rest of the skits because she was just standing there, soaked, with red and yellow dye all over her t-shirt.
• The mouse at 5am - I woke up to the sound of rustling packaging. Thinking that another staff member was having a cheeky snack, I sat up, only to see a little mouse jump out of the box we were keeping our s'more ingredients in and run away across the floor. I admired his daring, the little rascal.
• Several times this week, I got to sit in a rocking chair on the front porch and just chill in the quiet - it was so peaceful to sit in the shade and look out at the flagpole field.
• "I'm going back to bed." - This has become my new mantra. I say it if the girls ask me lots of silly questions, or if I'm getting fed up with repeating myself. I said it several times throughout the week, and joked with the girls about keeping a tally of 'times Pepper wants to go to bed'.
• During our cookout, we were trying to encourage the girls to get wood for the campfire - Rica did this by yelling out of our cabin window: "What does the fox say? COLLECT MORE WOOD, COLLECT MORE WOOD." We also re-wrote 'Gas Pedal' to be 'Marshmallow'. And our cookout took four and a half hours to finish because there were so many of us to feed. The staff didn't get tonnes of food, so Kiwi and I became daring kitchen raiders, with Piranha's help.

• During barn time one day, one of our horses (Mulligan) was upset because he has a boo-boo on his back and had to stay in his stall. He got so upset that he was kicking his stall and we decided to bring him outside. Because I've been taught to lead horses by the barn staff, I held onto his lead rope while he pottered around, eating loads of grass. He was swishing his tail as he was doing this and - when Indi came over to look at his bandage - he accidentally hit her in the face with his tail, and I laughed at her for fifteen minutes.
• One morning, we let the girls have a sleep-in breakfast, which is when we get food to bring back to our units and eat there instead of going to breakfast earlier. Rica and I couldn't find bowls or spoons, so we ate loads of Froot Loops out of cauldrons, using ladles. Our girls couldn't stop laughing at us.

• I had a night off on Thursday and Kiwi, Bing and I had an adventure to West Lebanon. We had dinner at Ninety-Nine, which was lovely, and we had a laughing fit there over Bing watching the golf playing on TV and bemoaning the fact that the TVs weren't HD, and a strange sound that a bloke in the restaurant made, which Bing then mimicked really badly. We then went around a really cool comic shop, and popped into Walmart for supplies (I had lists from two different people). It was really good to get away for a few hours, and I had such a laugh with Kiwi and Bing.

• My kids absolutely loved my impression of an American accent - even other counsellors are impressed by it! I felt pretty cool when about 11 of my girls demanded that I do the accent for them; I did, and then spent about ten minutes just talking about things in England and how miserable it is, and they didn't stop laughing. They said I was the funniest person in the world, and I remembered why I decided to do this job in the first place ♥
• I have been given lots of friendship bracelets - in the picture below, from the rainbow one on the left, the bracelets were made by: me, London, Nemo, my secret buddy, Ducky, Phelps and one of my girls from session one. I feel so loved!

• At closing campfire, Tink and I lost our minds and had a laughing fit because we didn't know any of the songs and kept trying (and failing) to get the hang of the tunes. It was also funny when she handed me a fun-size Twix and I stuffed the whole thing into my mouth, then spent the next five minutes trying (and failing) to eat it subtly.
• My secret buddy this session has been fab so far - as well as giving me a friendship bracelet, she also left a pack of Sour Patch watermelon sweets in my mailbox. Written on the box was 'check the freezer'; I did and found a tub of Ben & Jerry's! It was the Milk & Cookies flavour, which I love. I want to find out who she is so I can give her the biggest hug and thank her.

Next week, Kiwi and I are running the 'Chocolate Chef' program. This is exactly how it sounds - we just get to make chocolate themed goodies with our girls, and eat said goodies afterwards! Kiwi and I are so excited for this because we love food, and this program gives us a ready made excuse to eat loads.

I am still exhausted and trying to govern 31 girls hasn't exactly been a walk in the park, but I'm still happy and I'm still enjoying myself! I hope to get a chance to ride one of the horses next week, that'll be cool; luckily J Crew is one of the barn staff, so I can speak to her before bed time and hopefully work something out! It is 30 days until I go to New York, and I cannot believe how time has flown.

Minion Band Aids, Kitchen Raids & Six Flags - Weekly Roundup 2

It's been another hectic week that has flown by. I've been here for around three weeks now, and I simultaneously feel like I've been here forever and for no time at all. I feel like I'm getting the hang of the job a little bit more, though I'm still not used to having basically no time off ever. It is, however, only 38 days until I finish here and go to New York City for a week! Here's some highlights from this week (our programs were Saddle Up and Just Coastin':

• We had another amazing staff skit, thanks to Sunny. This week she re-wrote 'Do You Want To Build A Snowman' from Frozen to be about our unit and camp, and it was even better than last week, as we also had Ducky accompanying us on her ukulele.
• Our overnight was rained out AgAiN - honestly, it's getting silly now. However, we were outside for longer than the previous times, so I consider it a partial success. We put the tents up while it was still dry, and had an outdoor fire on which we cooked some delicious tacos and doughboys. The kids were all happy and enjoying themselves, even if they did get a bit nervous about sleeping in the middle of the woods. Us staff had just started to settle down, when the sky opened up and it was suddenly torrential out of nowhere. Thus followed a panicked gathering of our girls and our stuff, and a mad dash in the pouring rain, across the docks on the lake, and into a van Squeaky drove some of the way. We'd only just gotten everyone back and in their tents when the thunder and lightning started - it was so mad, but so much fun. Maybe one day I will actually complete an overnight.
• I managed to convince some of my girls (and Burnzy) that I had Prince Harry's phone number and that we were good mates. I kept up this charade for a good ten minutes before I let them know it was a complete lie.
• We have a secret buddy system where you give your buddy gifts and notes during the session, and my buddy cheered me up so much! I first got a nice written note from her, with smiley face confetti that fell out when I unfolded it. Then I found some Despicable Me minions band aids in my mailbox, and was given a pair of purple floral sunglasses on behalf of my buddy later the same day. I found out today that Rivir was my secret buddy, when she walked up to me and handed me a pack of colourful scrunchies, and I gave her the biggest hug because she made life a little brighter this week.
• On Wednesday, Static, Lux, Burnzy and I took the Just Coastin' girls to Six Flags New England! That was a hilarious day; the staff got to ride coasters, we all ate loads of junk, I convinced one of my girls to face her fears of rollercoasters and go on the Batman ride (she loved it!), and I got photobombed by Scrappy Doo.

• London, Ducky and I spent our kids' swim time with our feet dipped in the lake - because the day was so boiling hot, the cold water was heavenly. We spent the whole time sitting that way and just talking and looking out at the lake.
• On Thursday night, we organised a spa night/kitchen raid with our kids. We had stuff for them to do their nails, bath salt making, face masks, and hair braiding. Then, having convinced our kids that no one knew we were in there and that we would be in Big Trouble if we were caught, we did our kitchen raid - we took ice lollies, orange juice, pink lemonade, chocolate chips, Fritos and marshmallows and had a mini feast. We then decided to leave a message from the pirates who had been spotted on the lake that morning, effectively blaming them for our kitchen raid. It was so hilarious because our kids actually thought that we were tricking everyone.
• A huge group hug from 17 of my girls at a time when a hug was most welcome.
• It was sad to say goodbye to our kids again because they were really great this week, and made me laugh a lot. It was a bit of a relief to not have any kids on camp for a minute, but strange after all the non-stop activity of the week.

Here's a photo of the lovely ladies of Ojakle:

Back (L-R): Burnzy, Sunny, Phelps, me
Front (L-R): Zenny, Ducky, Luna

This evening we found out our new units (I'm moving back to the unit I was in during pre-camp), and London, Tink, Smiley, Starry, Dré, Bing, and I went out for a meal to celebrate surviving the first session of camp.

Speaking of which, there are only 38 days left of camp, and I cannot believe it. I'm almost halfway done already, it's absolute madness. At the moment, I'm happy to be having this experience and to have met such wonderful people here.

Paid To Sit On The Beach - Weekly Roundup 1

This was the first week of 'actual' camp, when I got my first group of girls. We had moved up to Ojakle, another unit on camp property:

The programs we were in charge of were Saddle Up, which is a horse-riding program, and Road Trip, which is exactly as it sounds. We had 18 girls overall and, as well as me, the unit staff was Sunny, Phelps, Zenny, Ducky, Burnzy and Luna, a truly great bunch ♥ The highlights from this week included:

• On the first morning, Sunny had to wake up one of our campers, who was a heavy sleeper. She did so by going into her tent and singing opera.
• One of my campers handed me some cute purple flowers that she'd found. I wore them in my buttonhole all day. Three of them always wanted to sit with me at meals, and one liked to hold my hand as we walked to different activities.
• Staff skits - This was a lot of fun; the staff all had to come up with something to introduce our units to the kids. The waterfront staff ran through the audience with squeeze bottles and soaked all of us. My unit re-wrote Justin Bieber's 'Baby' (Sunny's idea) to be about the programs we were running. At the end of it, all the staff sang the staff song (the Friends theme); the whole thing was so much fun.
• Ducky and I were 'on taps' on Tuesday, which means that we're responsible if the kids need us between 9pm and midnight. We were sitting in the pitch dark unit shelter with an eerie red glow coming from the lantern we had under a towel. We ended up scaring ourselves talking about the 'Lady with the Lamp', camp's resident ghost. The night before I had seen something weird in the Sky Meadow, so we were both so jumpy!
• On Wednesday, I was paid to go to Hampton Beach with my road trip girls. Omega drove us as she's a lifeguard; she and I sat on the beach and watched the girls play in the sea for ages. It was so warm and relaxing, even if there was a thunderstorm on the way back. Also I got Dunkin' Donuts, wahoooo!

• The Ben & Jerry's factory - I couldn't be in Vermont without visiting the birthplace of my favourite ice cream. The tour was interesting, and made even better at the end when we got to sample a prototype flavour. We also visited the 'Flavor Graveyard' and mourned the discontinued flavours.

• Our overnight being a washout again. I'm convinced some higher power doesn't want me to have a successful campout. We cooked dinner in the fireplace in one of the cabins, I saw a cute mouse scurrying around, and we had to be rescued again by Cookie as there was a big thunderstorm. We spent the night in the Ev - Sunny sang and played guitar for us and we were all bundled up in our sleeping bags. It was like a huge slumber party.
• July 4th was a bit rubbish for me because I was unwell in the morning - Cookie (my boss) maintained that I was bitter over America gaining independence. I told her that the English are still cross about them throwing all our teabags into the ocean. The day picked up in the afternoon when we had an indoor footie game between the USA and international staff - it was one of the funniest things I've ever seen because everyone was scooting around on their hands and feet, the audience got really into it, and Jen scored the most epic goal for the Internationals without even looking.
• Helping Luna and Judge weed one of the campfire sites for our closing campfire - this involved us just uprooting weeds and lobbing them into the nearby bushes. Luna made me take a bite of a plant, which turned out to be lemongrass - it was actually really nice!
• Saying goodnight to my kids for the last time; I was actually pretty sad about it! I didn't think I'd miss any kids this summer but you do end up becoming fond of them.

That's it for the weekly roundup. I hope that I will get to write another one next weekend, when I should be getting a 24-hour break - in this job, 24 hours feels like a huge break because this is literally a 24/7 job. There's basically no such thing as being 'off the clock' here, which might explain why the days went so quickly.