Hey Island Lake Families! Wow, 1 more full day left in this session before our first changeover day on Saturday.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, time sure does fly by when we’re having fun.  Blink your eyes twice and it’s already over (Cue sad music and tears).  For those of you with children coming home on Saturday, I hope they have only amazing ILC experiences to share with you.

Do I even need to tell you once again that today was yet another day of blue skies and temps in the 70’s here in the 18462?  We woke up to some cool, brisk temps but it quickly warmed up in the morning and then we reached the mid 70’s in the afternoon hours.

In ILC sports, our 10^th  & 11^th grade girls went out of camp for a Wayne County volleyball tournament at a nearby camp. We placed 4^th out of 9 camps.  Proud of those girls.  Our 5^th grade boys played in a soccer game out of camp this morning, too.  Although we didn’t win, our boys played hard and they played well. I hear they made it very difficult for the other team to score on us.

Our annual Skatepark Competition took place during 3^rdminor today for our rad skateboarders and rollerbladers.  I will have the results and winners for you in tomorrow’s blog.  Our ILC Open is also finishing up during 3^rd minor today with only 1 more tennis match to be played.  I’ll give you a list of winners for all of the completed matches. Congrats to:

Boys Group 1 winner- Logan O.:  Boys Group 2 winner- Diego Sanchez:  Boys Group 3 winner- Ignacy Chylinski:  Boys Group 4 winner- Emiliano Prada

Girls Group 2 winner- to be played today (no girls group 1 round was played):  Girls Group 3 winner- Fiona Gibbons:  Girls Group 4 winner- Marion Karp

Yesterday’s riddle and answer was:  You will always find me in the past.  I can be created in the present, but the future can never taint me.  What am I?  Answer:  History. Congrats to Ben W. for emailing me the correct answer.  Alexandrea W. also said the answer could be “a memory” and I can see that fitting into the riddle, as well.  Today’s brain teaser:  What breaks but never falls?  What falls but never breaks?

Tonight’s evening activity is the much anticipated, super duper greatest extravaganza, that some may even call the greatest show on earth.  Yup, that’s right, it’s the Island Lake Circus Show!  Lots of our campers will be participating and the rest of our campers will be spectators enjoying the show.

Last night’s younger children’s play, “Frozen”, was a huge success!  Wow, we have some talented children at this camp!!!  Their acting and singing skills entertained the audience throughout the entire show.  Of course, the whole camp enjoyed quietly singing, “Let It Go” with Elsa. Enjoy some of the photos below as well as in Waldo and until tomorrow, ILCUTHERE!

Today was wait for it, wait for it,…another beautiful day in Starrucca, PA!  Shocker, huh?  We woke up to clear blue skies and cool temps in the low 60’s and it warmed up to the mid 70’s by the afternoon hours.  What a perfect day to play camp!

This morning 30 campers went on a day trip to Cooperstown to enjoy the Baseball Hall of Fame.  They spent a few hours walking around the Hall of Fame to learn about the history of baseball, America’s greatest pastime. They usually convince the counselors to let them get some pizza and fudge in town, too.  They just returned from this trip during our 3rd minor.

Today at lunch I surprised all of our campers (& counselors) with another Music Lunch for the session.  They were so excited to listen to music while eating and then sing and dance in the dining room until it was time to go get ready for their 2^ndmajor.  It’s always such a wonderful bonding time for our campers when have Music Lunch here at ILC.  You will see pictures posted on Waldo later on.

We have a few fun activities going on here at camp today, as well.  Group Leader Aideen is an avid field hockey player so she offered this activity to our campers in the 1^stminor to get them interested in it.  She had a pretty good turnout too.  Our Fortifying the Frontier kids in Pioneering had a big “FTF Game Day” during the 3^rd minor so they will had a huge number of kids playing up there today.  Tomorrow is our big Skatepark competition.  I’ll post the winners for you once this takes place.  We’re also waiting on one final match in the ILC Tennis Open.

A reminder of yesterday’s ILC Morning News riddle:  What has a head, a tail, no legs, and is brown?  Answer:  A Penny! I got some great responses to this one. Props to Rachel B., Brian G., Ben W., and Lisa A. for getting this answer correct.  Brian went so far as to also guess a dirty quarter.  Here’s today’s fun riddle:  You will find me in the past.  I can be created in the present, but the future can never taint me.  What am I?

 Tonight’s evening activity is our younger camper show, Frozen!  These kids have been rehearsing and working hard all session to put on a fantastic performance for the camp to enjoy.  We’re all very excited to see our little ones take to the stage to sing, act, and dance their hearts out tonight.  We’ll have lots of pictures posted for you on Waldo tomorrow and I’ll also post some on the blog.

Today’s special feature is a variety of photos from last night’s Dance Show and Magic Show. Enjoy and until tomorrow, ILCUTHERE!

Happy Tuesday everyone! Or as we say here at camp,  “What day is today?”  Can you believe we’re already in our 4^thweek of camp? We only have a few more full days left in this session.  I know I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again.  Time flies when we’re having fun!  Speaking of which, here’s a link to our week 3 video for your enjoyment:

I’m happy to report that the rain stopped overnight so we had a dry day today in the 18462.  It was overcast and dreary this morning but outdoor activities were able to resume once again.  This afternoon the sunshine broke through the clouds and temps reached a high of only around 72 degrees so it’s nice to have a break from the heat and humidity.

In ILC sports, yesterday our girls did very well in the gymnastics meet at another camp.  Jade O. performed exceptionally well as she came in 4^thplace out of a total of 14 camps.  This morning we hosted an in-camp fencing tournament.  Stefan K. came back from behind and won the entire competition.  I was told that our fencing campers really enjoyed this friendly competition.  The ILL Open is finishing up their tennis matches today so I will hopefully have the results for you tomorrow.  We also have a skatepark competition in the next couple of days that I’ll report more about once it takes place.

Yesterday’s riddle was a head scratcher:  I have four blades yet I draw no blood.  What am I? Answer:  a fan or a windmill!  Congrats to Meredith B. and Alexandrea W. for getting this riddle correct.  Today’s riddle is:  What has a head, a tail, is brown, and has no legs?  I give up!

Theater, circus, magic, dance, and music rehearsals are winding down as we begin our performance week tonight.  Abracadabra and a 5, 6, 7, 8!  We kick off this special week with our MAGIC & DANCE SHOW for evening activity in the theater.

Today’s special feature is from last night’s evening activity, Christmas in July!  Our campers had fun with face painting, karaoke, photos with Santa, cookies and milk, snowflake making, dancing to Christmas music, pin the nose on the reindeer, and more.  Check out the fun in the photos below and until tomorrow, ILCUTHERE!

HO HO HO!  Merry Christmas in July everyone (and Happy Hanukkah)!  Today we had a fun theme day to keep the spirit high.  Some campers brought holiday clothing to camp to wear, some made things in art, and we even had a Santa Claus come and visit camp.  Good thing the weather cooled off, especially for Santa in that costume.  Whoops, I mean what costume?  Santa is real, right?

Speaking of the weather, I’m happy to report that the temps have definitely cooled off here in Starrucca today.  We woke up to overcast skies and we only made it into the mid 60’s all day.  The rain started during 1^stmajor this morning and it has rained pretty continuously ever since.  This is our first real official “rainy day” here at camp. After experiencing that heat wave for the past few days, we’ll happily take this cooler weather.  As for the rain, well, hopefully today will be the only day we have it.

Today in ILC sports, our gymnasts went out of camp for an all day meet at another Wayne County camp. Our 9^th  grade boys played in a basketball game here at home this morning.  It was a close game but we came out ahead and won 27-24.  Go boys!

Being that this is our 34^th  summer of ownership at Island Lake, we currently have a couple of dozen campers who are children of our alumni.  These alumni attended ILC as campers in our early years.  As this group of 2^nd  generation Island Lakers gets larger and larger each summer, I like to gather them together for an annual photo.  Here’s our session 1 group of “alumni campers.”

Yesterday’s riddle was an easy one according to feedback:  A butcher is 5’11” tall and has a size 13 shoe. What does he weigh?  Answer:  Meat! Congrats to the following parents for getting this riddle correct:  Brian G., Joe S., Adira B., Ben W., and Jen W.  Here’s today’s riddle:  I have four blades yet I draw no blood.  What am I?

Tonight’s evening activity is Christmas in July!  We’re going to take pictures with Santa, offer Christmas Karaoke, cookies and milk, face painting, reindeer games (pin the nose on Rudolph), and lots of other fun holiday stuff.

Today’s blog special feature is MAGIC, SCIENCE, & VIDEO! Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and until tomorrow, ILCUTHERE!

Hi Island Lake families! For all of you who joined us here at camp yesterday, I hope you had a wonderful Visiting Day with your children. I especially hope you received tons of positive feedback from your kids and their counselors while also getting to see activities that your children have been participating in all summer long.  The weather gods were working overtime so although it was hotter than usual, we all had a fantastic day with you, so thanks for coming.

Speaking of weather news, the sun was shining once again today and the temps were super warm in the mid 80’s.  Well, until around 4:15 that is.  Then I’d say we were “blessed” with rain because it’s cooling the temps off nicely. The rain didn’t last long and they were back in action shortly afterwards.

In ILC sports, our 7^th grade boys and our 9^th grade boys played in a tennis match here at home today against another Wayne County camp.  I’m excited to tell you that both teams won their matches today.  Yay!  Our ILC Open finals took place this afternoon and all of the matches are almost complete.

A reminder of the riddle from 2 days ago:  What never walks but crawls or flies, and is often killed but never dies? Answer:  Time!  Ahhhhhh, tricky, huh?  Today’s riddle:  A butcher is 5’11” tall and has a size 13 shoes.  What does he weigh?  I’m sooooo proud to announce that I immediately got this riddle correct.  It must be an easy one, huh?  That or I must have heard it in the past.

Tonight’s evening activity is a camp-wide fav:  Mr. & Ms. ILC!  This is a special one for the books.  The girls’ bunks dress up male counselors and the boys’ bunks dress up female counselors to look, act, and perform as the opposite gender.  Mr. & Ms. ILC is a light-hearted, fun pageant and quite an entertaining show for everyone involved, including our spectators.  It’s all about being in the audience to enjoy this evening activity.

Since your kids still have tons of junk in the bunk, canteen will be closed tonight.  They’ll still have the opportunity to hang out at the gym until curfew, as usual.   Don’t worry about your children’s junk food coma’s, I’m doing my best to help them eat it all in within 3 days!

Our special feature for today is actually from last night’s evening activity, Squeaky Clean.  They are a rock & roll band and they’ve been coming to Island Lake to perform for over 20 years now.  It has somehow become tradition for our campers to dress up for this show, either by dressing in a onesie or,…wait for it,…wait for it,….by dressing up in shower attire!  And by shower attire I mean bathrobes, towels, hair twirlies, etc.  I just had to grab my camera and snap some photos from this event to show you all of the silliness and fun that our campers and counselors have at this social event.  Enjoy these pics and until tomorrow, ILCUTHERE!

Happy Visiting Day everyone! We hope you all had a WONDERFUL time here at ILC today.  Lots of parents, grandparents, siblings, and friends joined us to spend the day with their campers. Today was a fantastic experience for everyone.  I loved having the opportunity to see and speak with so many of you.  It means the world to hear what a wonderful summer your children are having here at ILC.

Our annual post-Visiting Day water fight was a huge success.  This event was a great distraction for those campers who had some difficulty saying goodbye to their parents.  Hot sunny day + cold water = happy wet campers!

Tonight’s evening activity is Squeaky Clean!  They’re a rock and roll band that performs here at camp every summer on the night of Visiting Day.  Squeaky Clean covers classic rock and roll oldies but goodies such as “Stop In the Name of Love.”  We are excited to sing and dance along with them tonight in the gym.  Canteen will be closed after evening activity since there is soooooo much junk food in the bunks.   Curfews will still be at their regular time for everyone.

I just want to take a moment to thank all of you who complimented me for my blogs.  I was overwhelmed by all of your positive feedback, so thank you very much.  I’ve been attending sleep away camp since the age of 2 (I’m 25 years old in case you’re wondering,…wink wink!), so camp is truly in my blood.  I live and die for this place and I love telling you all things camp so you can feel as if you are part of the ILC family here, too.

Ok, I’ll stop getting sappy now.  I hope you all had the most fantastic, stupendous, remarkable, memorable time here at ILC today.  Until tomorrow, the start of our final week of 1st session, ILCUTHERE!

Happy “Visiting Day Eve”! We’ve been preparing for this very special day tomorrow and we anticipate that it will be fantastic for all. Please peruse yesterday’s blog for more details about tomorrow’s festivities, as well as the mass email I sent to you yesterday.

After a couple of days of rain, we’re back to sunshine and blue skies here in the 18462.  We hear many of you are experiencing a major heat wave down in the NY metropolitan area.  Although it’s definitely hotter than usual here at camp, we are not experiencing anything close to what you are.  Phew!  The forecast shows another hot day tomorrow, so keep that in mind when packing for your visit here at camp.

We had quite a few activities going on in and out of camp today.  This morning we took close to 30 campers on a tubing trip down the Delaware River.  This is always a fun trip for our water lovers.  They get to tube and chillax in the river before returning to camp later in the afternoon.  We also had a hiking trip today for our pioneering kids.  Over half a dozen campers went to Apple Grove Park, near Honesdale, PA, to go hiking and swimming in the river.  Of course this trip wouldn’t be complete without a visit to an ice cream shop before returning to camp in the late afternoon.

In ILC sports, our 9^th grade girls had a tennis match out of camp this morning.  Our 6^th  & 7^th grade boys played in a baseball game here at camp this morning, too.  We won the game 4-3.  Our ILC Open continues for tennis today as the matches prep for the semi-final and final rounds.  I’ll know very soon who the winners are and I’ll share that info with you.

Tonight’s evening activity is the amazing, fantastic, superb hypnotist, Brad Henderson!  Our campers and staff will witness Brad hypnotize about 15 of our counselors.  This is another one of our campers’ favorite evening activities. They get to watch their counselors embarrass themselves while doing hysterically funny things in front of the camp. Tonight is also ETB, Early To Bed. Once our counselors are done making fools out of themselves on stage (hardy haha!), everyone will go back to their bunks to get a good night’s rest for tomorrow’s festivities.

Today’s special feature is ROCK SHOP & FISHING!  “Rock Shop and Fishing?” you may be asking yourself.  Why would I comprise those two activities together? Simply because I happened to go to the rock shops to take photos and I saw campers fishing off of the dock down there. So hey, why not take some pictures and combine the two!?!?  I hope you can see the fish they caught, too.   Until tomorrow, when we will see many of your smiling faces here at Island Lake, ILCUTHERE!

Hi ho, hi ho, back to majors and minors we go!  Only 2 more days until Visiting Day!  Pretty wild how quickly it snuck up on us, huh?  All camp parents should have now received an email from my account regarding this Saturday’s festivities.  There will be more info about Visiting Day further below in this blog.

Today is “Dress Like Your Favorite Counselor Day”.  Our campers are having fun dressing up like their counselors, group leaders, and department heads.  It’s something exciting to do on a dreary weather day like today.

Speaking of which, on the weather front we finally received the rain that our grass has been begging for. We had misty rain all morning with temps in the 70’s and then a bit of rain on and off in the afternoon hours.

Due to the inclement weather, our inter-camp games were cancelled today.  Our 6^th  & 7^th  grade boys were supposed to play soccer out of camp and our 6^th  & 7^th  grade girls were also supposed to play soccer here at camp this afternoon.  These games will be rescheduled.  Our ILC Open tennis matches were also put on hold due to weather but do not fret, our campers still have plenty of time to play their games before the end of the session.

Saturday is approaching fast and with that comes our one and only annual Island Lake Visiting Day! (Cheers in the background…woohoo…yay!) We know you’re excited to come to camp to see your children and we’re excited to have you join us.  We will have lots of activities and exhibits going on all day, along with a huge lunch buffet.  If you prefer, you can take your children out of camp for the day.

I’m sure you’re planning to bring lots of junk food, baked goods, and sushi to shower your children with affection, so please keep in mind that we discard all of the food 2 days later. Do not bring too much that your children have to throw away lots of great homemade brownies, cookies, bagged chips, chocolate, grandma’s secret recipes, etc.  We truly hate to waste food, so don’t shlep too much up here.  We kindly ask that you do not bring anything with peanuts or tree nuts in it.

Please refrain from bringing bottled water and drinks, too.  We have amazing well water here at camp that tastes as good as bottled water. Bottled drinks will also be discarded. Do yourselves a favor and save the hassle of carrying these heavy items into camp.

Visiting Day hours are from 9:30am-3:30pm.  If you leave camp for the day, please bring your children back on time for our other annual super duper, huge, extravagant water fight!  Parents are fair game if you’re still here for the water fight so just remember, quick and speedy goodbyes are easier on your children.  We expect that some campers will be in tears so our staff will be around to help them through what’s usually just a short moment of sadness.  The water fight is a great distraction to get children through their difficult goodbyes. Please work with us and know your children are in great hands here at camp.

Here’s a reminder of Wednesday’s riddle and the answer:  If you throw me out the window, you’ll leave a grieving wife.  But leave me in the middle of the door and you might just save a life.  What am I? Answer:  the letter “n”.  Just to break it down for you, remove the “n” from “window” and you get “widow”.  Add the letter “n” to the word, “door”, and you get the word, “donor”.  Here’s today’s riddle:  I travel the world and yet I go nowhere.  I stay in a corner but journey far and near. What am I?  What do you think?  A camper spotted this riddle on an early released copy of the “Morning News” here in the office last night and he came up with the answer almost immediately. Can you do it?

Tonight’s evening activity is GROUPS!  All of the girls groups will play a big game of “Are You Smarter Than Your Counselor”. It’ll be similar to the game show on tv. On the boys side, Groups 1&2 will play Crazy Games while Groups 3&4 will have a Pool Party.  If the pool party gets rained out then the older boys will join the younger ones for crazy games.

Today’s special feature is select photos from Sky Zone yesterday.  Enjoy and until tomorrow, Visiting Day Eve, ILCUTHERE!

Hi everybody!  Today was Lazy Day and we had a busy day out of camp.  Groups 1 & 2 went to Montage Mountain outdoor waterpark and groups 3 & 4 went to Sky Zone (an indoor trampoline park).  We returned to camp just before dinner.  It rained here at camp for awhile but hey, we weren’t here for it!  We just hit some rain at the end of the day so the Montage kids weren’t too affected by it. As of 7:30 this evening, the rain seems to have let up.

Tonight we are flip flopping things around and we are having canteen first and then evening activity.  We’re showing the movie, Elf, to the whole camp in the theater as an early celebration for our Christmas in July theme day next week.

That’s really all I have to report for now.  Tomorrow I’ll post some photos that I took at Sky Zone.  I got some great action shots of our campers jumping around.  Until then, ILCUTHERE!

Hello Island Lake families! Today was yet another stellar day here in the 18462.  We woke up to mostly cloudy skies (gasp!) with temps in the 60’s but do not fret!  By early afternoon the temps warmed up to the mid 80’s.  What an amazing day to “play camp”!

But wait, I’ve got a last minute weather update.  As I’m about to post this blog, I hear some thunder in the distance.  Could we possibly be getting some rain?  We actually need it for our grass and flowers so it wouldn’t be a bad thing if we had some rain during our 3^rdminor right now.

Tomorrow is our 3^rdand last Lazy Day of the session.  Is time flying by or what?  Before you know it, it will be Saturday and many of you will be here for our big annual Visiting Day. I’ll discuss Visiting Day in much more detail in my blog in a couple of days.  Tomorrow we are going to let our campers sleep in a bit and then have big brunch consisting of eggs, home fries, bacon, sausage, fruit salad, and sticky buns. Brunch will begin at 9:30am for our older kids since they are going out of camp first.  We will take Groups 1 & 2 to Montage Mountain for a fun day at the outdoor water park.  We will take Groups 3 & 4 to Sky Zone for an exciting afternoon of jumping on trampolines.  I’m going to Sky Zone with our older campers and I’m looking forward to getting lots of steps on my Apple Watch with all the jumping I plan on doing.  (Wink wink!)

Now back to today here at ILC,…our avid golfers went out of camp this morning to a local golf course to play 9 holes.  Our mountain bikers returned from their overnight camping trip around 2:30 this afternoon.  They told me that the trip was “GREAT!”  You heard it here first ladies and gents.  The boys had an amazing time on this trip.  It was tough to get more info out of them but they all consistently told me that they had a great time.  They really enjoyed spending lots of time biking and hiking the trails and sleeping out under the stars.

Riddle time! Yesterday’s riddle was:  I have no arms or legs, but keep me warm and I’ll soon walk away.  What am I? An egg!  Congrats to Ben W. for getting this correct.  He’s 3 for 3 recently. Go Ben!  Great job, man!  Here’s today’s riddle, which is a real stumper:  If you throw me out the window, you’ll leave a grieving wife.  But leave me in the middle of the door and you might just save a life.  What am I?  Hmmmm,…any guesses?

Tonight’s evening activity is GROUPS!  Here’s a breakdown of what everyone will be doing.  All groups of girls: Lip Sync Battle down in the theater.  I’m gonna assume that I do not need to explain this evening activity in detail, correct?  On the Boys side:  Groups 1 & 2- a big game of Dodgeball;  Groups 3 & 4-  Casino Night. Just to specify once again, do not fear, as no real money will exchange hands.

Tomorrow’s blog will probably be much shorter, as I’ll only have lazy day trips to report to you about. Well, that and evening activity. I’m going to attempt to take some photos while I’m at Sky Zone, and Matt & Ricki will try to take some pics at Montage Mountain.  No promises as to whether I’ll have photos to share in tomorrow’s blog, but I’ll do my best.

Today’s special feature is SKATEPARK!  Enjoy these photos of campers skateboarding and rollerblading on our ramps and rails. Sorry that some pics do not clearly show our campers’ faces.  I tried to take action shots while also attempting to take pics showing their beautiful facades.  There’s one particular photo of a boy (wearing the “RECKLESS” shirt) spinning around, doing a 360, as he reached the top of the halfpipe.  It was soooo cool to watch in person, but it’s hard to see the amazement of it in a still image.  Sorry!  Another aspect to factor into these photos was the lighting.  I apologize for the darkness in some of the pics, but I did my bestest.  Enjoy and until Lazy Day tomorrow, ILCUTHERE!!!