Today was the last day of the 2^nd session and unlucky us, we ran into quite a snag today.  This morning around 10am our power went out throughout the entire camp and it didn’t return until around 3pm this afternoon.  We apologize to any of you who tried calling us during that time.  Although it was a huge inconvenience to us in the office, our campers had a great time with the black out.  For some reason, they enjoyed “roughing it” during those few hours.  Now we’re trying to get our internet back up and running.  Once our internet is back I will post this blog.

Today we had only majors and then this afternoon we had super clean-up and packing time for those campers who are leaving tomorrow.  Later this afternoon we had our big Rock Concert in the gym.  The theme was the 90’s so the kids rocked on to the oldies from that decad.  Well, oldies according to the kids, yesterday’s music according to us!

Tonight’s evening activity is the older kids’ show, “Hairspray”!  No doubt they will do a fantabulous job on the show tonight.  Corie is an amazing director and Natalie has designed some beautiful sets (with the help of their talented staff, but of course).  Tomorrow you will be able to view photos of the show on CampMinder.

I apologize but with the craziness of today’s black out and preparing for tomorrow’s changeover day, I don’t have a special feature for today.  However, since this is being posted late, there will be another blog later on this evening.

Yesterday we had a camp-wide power outage that last from the morning hours into the mid-afternoon.  We apologize if you tried calling us but couldn’t get through.  We then had an internet issue which has since been resolved, so we are happy to announce that we are connected once again.

I just want to apologize to any of you who couldn’t get a hold of us yesterday.  I’m sure you all missed my blog oh-so-much. (Hehe!)  On a brighter note, all of the buses safely left camp this morning, so if your child is on one of them he/she should be arriving at your designated bus stop at any moment.

More to come later,…until then, ILC U THERE!

Today was the last day of our 2^nd session majors and minors schedule.  Tomorrow we will have only majors, along with super clean-up and an afternoon rock concert.  Last night’s performance of “Dear Edwina” was adorable! Those little ones put on quite a show with a fantastic set to go along with it.

With the sun shining once again, we finally had a beautiful day in Starrucca, PA.  Temperature were in the mid 70’s so we could not have asked for a greater day of weather.  We got hit with some drizzles at the end of dinner but it passed pretty quickly.

Lots of activities and events went on here at Island Lake today.  Our Shakespeare in the Park performance went very well with lots of spectators who signed up to watch this morning during 1^st minor.

We hosted a Magic Show in the magic building during the 3^rd minor and lots of campers signed up to watch the show this afternoon.  It was abracadabra great!  We had our Skate Park competition for our skaters and rollerbladers of all ages and levels, which was a wheely good time.

Our dancers headed out to another camp for yet one more dance competition today.  They did very well and placed 1^st in one dance, 2^nd for a couple of other dances, and 3^rd in another out of about 8 different camps.

On the waterfront today the sailors had a “Pirate Day” where they sailed out with waterguns and had a fun waterfight in the middle of the lake.  Quiddish ended up being postponed from yesterday to today so our campers and counselors participated in a big Quiddish match this afternoon up in the sports department.  The ILC Mud Run took place in the 3^rd minor today for all of our mojo fitness campers, as well.  They ran all over camp and completed obstacles along the way.

Our 9^th grade boys tennis team won their final matches today and are the champions in all of Wayne County.  Go tennis kids!  Our Island Lakers have been bringing home lots of championship wins this summer, and we’re extremely proud.  Today our 7^th grade girls tennis team won their semi-finals matches and they will play in the final championship round tomorrow.

Lastly, in arts and crafts news, they held a Freeze Dance Drawing Contest today and we hear it was a lot of fun.

Today’s special feature is a variety of SPORTS!  Enjoy!

Tonight’s evening activity is the Dance Show.  Until tomorrow, the last day of our 2^nd session, ILC U THERE!

Holy cow, there are only 2 more full days left in the 2^nd session!  Where has this summer gone? The saying is definitely true,…time flies when you’re having fun!  We hope your children are all having the most remarkable, amazing, fantastic, extraordinary, spectacular, wonderful, memorable summer with us here at Island Lake this summer.  We’re sure they’ll come home and share tons of great stories with you.  It’s just hard to believe that their wait for next summer will have to start all over again.

Let’s just focus on the here and now since our ILC summer is going so incredibly well thus far.  Today’s weather was kinda iffy & icky all day.  It’s been mostly cloudy with peeks of sun here and there.  We’ve had the threat of rain, but no actual rain to speak of other than drizzles at breakfast this morning.  Last night was another cool night followed by a warm day today with temps in the 70’s.

Our canoe & kayaking campers went on an overnight river trip today.  We hope the weather holds up for them but hey, if not, they’re already in the water getting wet!  Lol!

Today our sports kids took a day trip to Cooperstown to the Baseball Hall of Fame for a day of fun, fudge, and pizza.  Oh yeah, let’s not forget about the educational aspect at the Hall of Fame, too!

Our 5^th & 6^th grade boys basketball team headed out of camp this morning for a game.  We also offered Quiddish this afternoon for the minor periods.  That’s right, you read this correctly, Quiddish, as in the game from the Harry Potter books.  Bunk Cup points will be awarded to the winning teams and hey, flying broomsticks are optional!

Today’s special feature is ARTS & CRAFTS!  Below are some photos from our art pavilion this afternoon,…

Tonight’s evening activity is the younger campers show, Dear Edwina.  We’re excited to see those little ones perform on stage for their fellow campers and counselors.  You can check out lots of Dear Edwina photos tomorrow on our CampMinder daily summer photos site.

We’re also going to attempt to take some sibling photos tonight after dinner.  You can check those photos out on our daily summer photos over the next 24 hours, too.  Enjoy and until you all see photos of your smiling campers, ILC U THERE!

Happy Halloween!  Halloween isn’t until October 31^st you say?  Well, here at Island Lake Halloween is on August 1^st, at least this year it is.  Many of our campers and staff got into the holiday spirit and dressed up to trick-or-treat in all of the departments today.  It was a fun day for all.  Check out our daily summer photos on CampMinder for Halloween pictures.

Today was also MUSIC LUNCH!  I played music in the dining room and all of our campers and staff got up and danced to tunes after eating their lunches.  We enjoyed some great pop music followed by some good ol’ fashion line dancing (if you call “Wobble” and “Cupid Shuffle” ol’ fashion!).  The following are some music lunch highlights,…

We had some sports today, as well.  Our 9^th grade boys played in a tennis match against another camp and won every single match.  Go tennis boys!  Our 6^th grade boys baseball team played out of camp, as well as our 5^th grade girls soccer team.  We hosted an in-camp ILC Monster Dash today, which was a 5K run along with a “fun run”.

Our theater department hosted an Open Mic event this afternoon in the 3^rd minor.  Kids got up on stage and performed for their friends who were in the audience.  More good times!

The CIT’s had their trip out of camp today to the big, local, exciting town of Deposit, NY.  They went to see the new movie, “Guardians of the Galaxy”, followed by dinner at the Italian restaurant in town.  Camp was nice and quiet without our CIT’s here in the late afternoon hours (Hardy Haha!)

Tonight’s evening activity is the session 2 Circus Show!  Lots of campers will be performing on the flying trapeze, high wire, mini-trampoline, rolling globe, lyra, Russian Swing, fabric, swinging trap, triple trap, teeterboard, ground skills, etc.  The circus show theme,…Halloween!  We are now getting into our 2^nd session performance week and we will record every show for our parents to order on DVD after the summer.

Enjoy the rest of your day and until tomorrow, ILC U THERE!

Enjoy this link to the week 4 ILC video:  https://vimeo.com/102287854

Today was Lazy Day so everyone left camp for the day.  Groups 1&2 went to the bowling alley, groups 3&4 went to the roller rink, and group 5 went to the movies (“Amazing Spiderman 2”).  Everyone had a great day and photos will be posted on CampMinder tomorrow for you to enjoy.  Our photographer is on her day off today so we promise to post them as soon as possible tomorrow.

Tonight is our cookout so we will eat dinner outdoors at the picnic tables.  Evening activity will be a big Counselor Hunt for the entire camp.  The counselors all have to hide and the campers have to find them.  Some staff will be positive points and others will be negative.  The bunk with the most points (positive, of course) will win.

Tomorrow we start up with our regular activities until the end of the session, which is drawing near way too quickly.  Session 2 is over on Tuesday, August 5^th, so be sure to come to your appropriate bus stop if your children are going home that day.  The buses should arrive all of the stops sometime around 11:30am-12:00pm.  More details to come in the next few days.  Until then, ILC U THERE!

Today our regular schedule of activities once again resumed.  It was an amazing 3 days of Color War and Music, the blue team, took home the win.  The grey team’s winning streak has finally come to an end, as have the rumors that the winner of the rope burn loses Color War,…lol!  No matter what team they were on, everyone should be proud of their hard work and fun, exciting memories they created over the course of these past 3 days.

With our regular schedule back in gear, the sun has finally showed its face again.  Although last night was very chilly, the temps have been warming up all day into the low 70’s with partly cloudy skies.

Today our dancing girls went out of camp for a dance competition.  They did very well and placed 2^nd out of about 10 camps total.  Great job to our dancers!  Our 7^th grade boys played soccer here at home, as well.

Lastly, our 9^th grade girls tennis played in the finals here at camp this afternoon they won!  Our girls are the Wayne County champions in their age group!  We’re so proud of them.

Our athletes are now training for an ILC 5K run and Tough Mudder.  This Tough Mudder consists of obstacles all around camp including water and mud.  It should be a fun, exciting challenge for our “tough campers”.

Today’s special feature is the ROPES COURSE & GIANT SWING!  Check out the photos below,…

Tonight’s evening activity is Groups!.  Here’s a list of what each group is doing:

Boys:  Group 1- movie (with girls group 1);  group 2- horseshoes;  group 3- dodgeball;  group 4- pool party (with girls group 4);  group 5- field day (kickball & capture the flag with girls group 5)

Girls:  Group 1- movie (with boys group 1);  group 2- gaga;  group 3- campfire;  group 4- pool party (with boys group 4);  group 5- field day (kickball and capture the flag with boys group 5)

That’s about it for now  Tomorrow is Lazy Day so the kids are all excited for LTB tonight.  I’ll fill you in on our Lazy Day out of camp trips tomorrow.  Until then, ILC U THERE!

MUSIC!  The Blue Team!  Congrats to everyone who worked hard- the officers, counselors, and campers- to make this a fantastic Color War for all.  The Grey Team winning streak has finally ended.  (Lol!)  Now back to our regular schedule of activities once again.  More to come later today,…

Today is the 3^rd and final day of Color War.  It’s been a fierce but friendly 3 days of competition between Music and the Movies.  Although the Movies are still in the lead, anything can happen by tonight at the Sing.  The scores are close so whichever team puts together a better Sing will most likely win Color War.  More about the Sing later in this blog…

Last night a cold front came through camp and boy oh boy was it a chilly night.  The overnight temps were in the 50’s so our campers bundled up to stay warm in their bunks.  Today started out cold and cloudy with the sun working hard to peep its head out here and there.  While mostly cloudy all day, the temps hit close to 70 degrees, perfect for our Apache Relay this afternoon.

But first, back to last night,…the winner of Unique was the Grey Movies.  Movies finally won a big event!  Movies also won overall for the 2^nd day’s decorum points.  Going into the 3^rd day of Color War in the morning, Music was still leading by 495 points.

This morning we had team meetings and then went into the last day of sports.  Here’s a list of the sports the kids played in different groups:  dodgeball, tchoukball, gaga, soccer, basketball, softball, touch football, water basketball, and SCB (snatch club basketball which is a combo of soccer, kickball, basketball, and steal the bacon).  The overall winner of the sports this morning was Grey Movies.

After lunch this afternoon we had team meetings and then our big Apache Relay.  The apache takes several hours and involves a few hundred campers on each team.  They run all over camp and tag in each department to do multiple events before tagging to then run to a different department to perform more events.  The apache is a big camp tradition and involves lots of fun tasks such as eating saltine crackers and whistling Yankee Doodle Dandy, running around the baseball field bases backwards, singing the camp alma mater over the PA system, etc.  Our staff has some difficult tasks too, such as doing 100 push-ups and 100 sit-ups (different staff members do each, but of course).  The apache finally ends with everyone on the gym bleachers watching a camper from each team make a half court basketball shot.  Today the teams were neck in neck until the end and it was a very close apache.  Music beat Movies by only about a minute in total.  At this point Blue Music is still in the lead by a little over 400 points.  To see photos from today just check out our daily summer photos via CampMinder.

Color War closes tonight with our annual Sing.  Each team gets judged by their creative entrance into the theater.  They then take turns performing a March/Fight song, a Comedy song, a Skit, an Alma Mater song, and then they present their team’s Plaque.  The entire night is very sweet and somber as Color War comes to an end.  Everyone hugs, some cry, and we play the camp Alma Mater so everyone can come together and sing.  Patrick Dyer, our video program director, writes a song every summer with a different theme.  He creates slideshow along with the song for the camp to enjoy watching.  This summer, Patrick’s song will be about the color war teams.

And finally, once the scores are all tallied up, Trip stands on the theater stage and announces the winner of the Sing and of Color War overall.  The winning team will just up and scream and go crazy with excitement.  The other team will be sad for a moment but they’ll quickly get over it by the time they head to canteen for junk food (Lol!).  Since this blog is being posted prior to Sing, tomorrow morning I will post the winner for all of you.  Until then, ILC U THERE!