Last week we had our last of 8 sessions of Camp War Eagle. What a summer! Great counselors, fantastic staff and decent weather (yes it was hot, but we had very little rain). Session 8 is always emotional for the counselors who only get to be a counselor for one summer and the head counselors who come back for a second summer to train/supervise the counselors. It was bittersweet seeing the War Eagle Welcome and Real World skits for the last time after seeing them a million times. As I mentioned in an earlier post I presented quite a bit at camp and I can't believe I presented 32 times this summer between my diveristy sessions and my out of state student sessions. What I remember most about session 8 is all the laughter...the staff grew so close this summer and we made sure to have a ton of fun. My favorite memory was Ella crying from laughing so hard at me laughing like Richard does and then Richard laughing and us both doing his awkward laugh - Ella lost all control of herself...it was excellent. One thing I won't miss about camp...the uniform...no thanks shorts, sneakers and polo...NO THANKS. Oh wait I have SOS in a few weeks and will have to wear my uniform, but it will only be for one day.
Friday night the professional staff and head parent/camp counselors all dinner and a wrap up meeting at Mark's house. Mark's fabulous wife put together a sensational Mexican dinner. Again a lot of laughs and enjoy eachother. I know for one I was so proud of our head parent/camp counselors for the stellar job they did and I am going ot truly miss them being in the office constantly (CODI DO YOU HEAR ME...I KNOW YOU READ THIS). Friday was a late-ish night, I got home a little after midnight after a exhausting week (camp combined with my NC trip).
Saturday I had to be up at 9:40am to get to the office to set up for the banquet. After that I ran some errands and got ready for the camp counselor banquet. I wore a SPECTACULAR orange dress than I bought in May at Ross for $20...It's heaven, no joke and I look SMOKIN' in it! It was fun to see everyone all cleaned up and get some pictures. The first part of the banquet which started at like 5:30pm was at the AU hotel and we have dinner (I tried creme brulee for the first time...yum), awards, freebies, pictures and then we headed back to Foy at like 8pm for part 2 of the banquet. Inbetween we got to change into comfy clothes. At the second part of the banquet we played slideshows, gave more awards, staff gifts, a HILARIOUS skit/roast that we put on making "fun" of the camp counselors, plus a suprise video from "Team Big Sexy" which featured Mark rapping (I will post the video as soon as it's online). Oh but that is not all...after all that - probably close to 2 hours we then started "speeches." Each of the 36 camp counselors gets 2-3 minutes to speak to the group (they usually give shout outs, talk about memories, cry, etc). There were A LOT OF TEARS THIS YEAR (suprisingly not a whole bunch from me...but I was wearing my fake eyelashes and didn't want to cry them offf haha). After all the camp counselors give their speeches then head counselors and staff give longer speeches. Honestly I love the banquet and hearing from everyone because it always reminds me how much I love my job and the changes I can make in people. Believe it or not the last speech ended at like 4:45AM. Then we had to say the creed and sing the fight song plus all the hugging and lingering. I didn't get home til 5:45AM. The banquet was over 12hours long, but I loved every second of it. I went home and pretty much went right to sleep despite the sun being out.
Sunday I slept from 6am til about 4pm because I had to be up for the Parent Counselor banquet. I pretty much walked Freddie, ate "breakfast" and got ready. I wore my cute dress from New Years which all featured a lot of orange. The whole PC banquet took place at the hotel and was similiar to the Camp Counselor banquet. We took groups pictures, awards, freebies, gifts, sideshow, video, dinner (I got my own yummy Creme Brulee) and speeches. There are less PCs and their job isn't as 24/7 as Camp Counselors so their speeches were a bit shorted Regardless the banquet lasted til about 9:30pm and I got home around 10pm. I went straight to bed.
Now that camp is over the office is SO much more quiet, but I am still busy with Welcome Week plans, SOS in a month, the University 1000 course I'm teaching and so other projects. The next few weeks without so many students passing through will be weird, but I look forward to another school year starting up!
P.S. Yes I gave you TWO blogs in ONE day since I was such a slacker!
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