Photo Reel

It is dramatically beautiful here on the shores of Lake Morey. We are surrounded by tree lined mountains that dissapear into the distance. Deer live in the woods, there's a bald eagle in the trees and chipmunks rule the grounds.

My campers have arrived and they are great! 3 girls, all aged 13. Two are seasoned campers from our younger camp, Aloha Hive, so they know the drill here. The third girl has never been to camp before and was incredibly shy and despondent. But in just a few days she came right out of shell and is now noisy and chatty and having fun. They are a great bunch to be around, and we have a lot of laughs together.

There are 3 girls and 1 councilor (fancy name for a staff member) in each tent, and 12 tents in each unit. My unit is called Pines and we have a brilliant group of councilors. We went on a unit night out after taps (camper bedtime - a lot of good stuff happens after taps!!) and sat on the docks in the moonlight sharing 6 tubs of Ben and Jerry's icecream. Ben and Jerry started their company in Vermont so their icecream is the most popular - not gonna argue if someone wants to hand me an entire tub of Half Baked! We also had a unit cookout where we hiked up to Winships, a clearing at the top of a hill overlooking the lake, made a fire and cooked dinner. Then toasted marchmallows to make s'mores which are AMAZING! We camped out under the incredible blanket of stars that night, and could see Jupiter and Venus really bright. 

  

The Lanakila Ropes Course

Our brother camp, Lanakila has a huge ropes course, and that is where i am spending most of my time. I spent a week before camp being trained with councillors from other camps within the Aloha Foundation, one of whom, Jenni, is also going to Australia for a year, so we are going to have a lot of fun together! 

My role this week has been the zip tower. So i climb 40ft up the Big Ol' Ladder and supervise from above until someone (or usually 10 at once) comes across and wants to go down the zipline and fly with Lanakila Air. Going off backwards is SUCH a rush!!!

We also have a trapeze. You climb the telegraph pole,  pull yourself up on top and balance with nothing to hold on to about 30ft high. That's a bit scary, but the next bit is worse. You leap off and try and grab the trapeze bar... my fingers have touched it, but i am yet to grab on. My goal for the summer - catch the bar!