Happy 2^nd day of Color War!  Even though the weather hasn’t been ideal, our Movies & Music kids are storming through it (no pun intended) and rocking on!  We woke up to some rain that finished before breakfast, only to return in misty form during our morning Track & Field competition.  The rain returned after lunch during rest hour and team meetings.  It was on and off for the remainder of the day affecting some of the later afternoon sports.

Last night was a fantastic Rope Burn!  Both teams built professional-like fires in only a few minutes time.  Our campers cheered on as the fires rose higher towards the ropes.  The ropes each engulfed the flames until they eventually broke in half.  It was a tight race but someone had to win.  That winner of the Rope Burn was Blue Music!  Since the time differential was only about 4 minutes (the first rope broke in over 21 minutes), the points were only a different of 175 to Music and 125 to Movies.  Below are some photos of the Rope Burn festivities.

At the end of each day, DECORUM points are handed out to the team that the judges feels did a better job in a wide variety of things:  cheering, dressing up, banners, sportsmanship, etc.  Each judge hands in their decorum points to Trip, the man in charge of Color War.  Trip tallied up last night’s decorum points and the winner was Grey Movies!

This morning was the Track & Field and Tug O’ War.  The Track & Field events were for a variety of groups in each of the following categories:  softball toss, sprint, baton relay, medley relay (run, bear crawl, crab walk, back pedal, & cartwheel), long jump, progressive relay, off-road run, and punt, pass, & kick.  Each group then competed against one another in a big Tug O’ War.  The winner of the Track Meet was Music and the winner of Tug O’ War was also Music.

Another activity that lasts anywhere from 1 hour to 3 days is the “Find the Hatchet” event.  Trip hides the hatchet somewhere in camp and campers (who must be accompanied by a counselor) search camp high and low throughout looking for it.  Trip gives out a clue each day and to be honest, these clues are difficult to solve.  Once the hatchet is found then the clues make sense.  Today Blue Music found the hatchet in the tall grass on the soccer field.  Each day the points decrease so Music received the 2^nd day’s worth of points for it.  Congrats to Music for finding the hatchet!

After lunch we had rest hour and then team meetings.  After the meetings was snack break and then Battle of the Bands.  This battle was an enjoyable event to watch.  Our campers (& staff) played a variety of instruments and each group had a separate battle against one another.  Following Battle of the Band was today’s Sports.  Due to rain, they had to improvise and do a variety of different activities instead of the outdoor sports.  It still went well and the children had fun.

Tonight’s evening activity is Unique in the gym.  Unique is a trivia game where campers from each group from each team head to a table with light switches and are asked trivia questions.  When they know the answer they flip the switch and their lightbulb illuminates.  The first camper to flip the switch gets to answer the question.  Correct answers gain points for the team.  The trivia is a variety of topics ranging from camp trivia to music trivia to movies trivia.

Tomorrow I will reveal the winner of Unique, as well as the winner of the daily decorum points.  Until then, we’ll keep the Color War spirit alive and of course, ILC U THERE!

With Visiting Day behind us, Island Lake is all about Color War for these next 3 days.  Movies vs. Music has proven to be a great theme thus far with both teams making fantastic use of their team names.  Campers and staff are all about Color War right now and the energy is running high.

This morning we had team meetings and then sports for all of the age groups.  With lots of energy and excitement for Color War the kids played the following:  steal the bacon, dodgeball, gaga, soccer, ultimate Frisbee, softball, touch football, water basketball, hockey, volleyball, and chopped (cooking).  The winner of the sports was Blue Music.

This sunny afternoon we hosted the Swim Meet down by the swimming pool and the lake.  A variety of groups participated in the following on the lake:  canoe relay, kayak relay, standup paddle board, peddle boat relay, log rolling, freestyle relay, medley relay, kickboard relay, freestyle relay, sweat suit relay, greased watermelon, & swim to the island and back.

Here’s a list of activities that took place in the swimming pool:  penny fetch, water basketball, medley relay, kickboard relay, paddleboard relay, & freestyle relay.  The winner of the swim meet was Grey Movies.

After the swim meet ended we had a snack break at the bunks and then team meetings.  After the meetings and before dinner we then had a six period basketball game for our each group and then our staff to compete in.  The rest of the camp watched and cheered their team on to victory.  The overall winner of the basketball game was Blue Music.

Below are some photos from Color War, first when we broke it on Friday night, and the rest are from today.  For more photos, please view our daily summer photos through CampMinder.

Tonight’s evening activity is the Rope Burn for Color War.  The camp will head to the rope burn pitch down by the waterski lake.  Our campers will cheer our staff on as they build fires under highly hung ropes in attempt to see who can burn the rope in half first.  I’ll announce the winner of the rope burn in tomorrow’s blog.  Until then, ILC U THERE!

We hope you all had a WONDERFUL Visiting Day today here at ILC!  Lots of parents, grandparents, siblings, and more were here to spend the day with their campers.  It was a fantastic experience for everyone who joined us today.

Tonight’s evening activity is Squeaky Clean!  They’re a rock and roll band who 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’re 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 right now, but curfews are regular time.

Tomorrow is our first day of Color War!  Woohoo!  For the next 3 days Island Lake will be all about Movies vs. Music.  Looking forward to it!

Again, we hope you all had a fantastic day here at camp today! Until tomorrow when Color War begins, ILC U THERE!

Happy almost…drum roll please…happy almost Visiting Day?  Holy cow, how did this time of the summer sneak up on us so fast?  We’ve been preparing for this very special day for a long time now and we anticipate that it will be a fantastic day for all.  Please peruse yesterday’s blog for more details about tomorrow’s festivities.

For now, back to today.  Today was yet, say it with me everybody…today was yet another beautiful day in Starrucca, PA!  Temps were in the upper 70’s to low 80’s with hardly any humidity to speak of.  It was the perfect day for our 4^th & 5^th grade girls basketball team to come in 2^nd place in a big tournament out of camp.  You go girls!!!  Our 8^th & 9^th grade girls lacrosse team also played a tough game out of camp.

Today we hosted our in camp Improv Tournament finals.  We’re happy to report that the winners were…are you ready for this?  You’re going to love the name of this team.  Here we go…the winners were “The Jalapeño Smugglers (Hold the Spicy)”.  As you can see, our campers make up their own team names, parentheses included and all.  Those on this winning team were none other but Dustin Stabinski, Ben Weber, Paige Wasserman, and Lauren Mensch.  Good job you guys!  We hear that all of our improv teams of all ages, boys and girls, had a blast!

Today’s special feature is MAGIC!  Enjoy these photos of card magic, indoors and outdoors.

Tonight, at dinner, bunk plaques were presented for our Bunk Cup tournament.  We also enjoyed a “dance off” between boys bunk 21 and girls bunk 22.  It was pretty hysterical and the entire camp cheered these bunks on.  Ending this fun-to-watch dance off was the ILC chant of “BOYS ARE BETTER!”, only to be outdone by “GIRLS ARE BETTER!”  This has become a good ol’fun loving ILC tradition.

Tonight’s evening activity is everybody’s favorite hypnotist, Brad Henderson!  Right now our campers and staff are watching Brad hypnotize around 20 of our awesome counselors.  Since there’s a big surprise at the end (wink wink) and I can’t tell you what it is because it’s just that big of a surprise (wink wink), I’m going to end this blog for now.

More info to come your way as events occur in real time here at ILC (whoops, did I just throw in a “24” reference?).  Until tomorrow, when we’ll see all of your smiling faces bright and early for our annual Island Lake Visiting Day,…ILC U THERE!

Today was Lazy Day so our kids all went out of camp after our big mid-morning brunch.  The skies are party cloudy and the temps cooled off a great deal from yesterday to the low to mid 70’s.  I spoke too soon when I posted yesterday’s blog because more rain came through at dinnertime.  Some of our evening activities got changed at the last moment as they went indoors.

For today’s Lazy Day, boys and girls groups 1&2 went to Skate Estate.  They had roller skating, rollerblading, waterslides, miniature golf,  arcade games, and laser tag there.  Boys and girls groups 3&4 went to see The Amazing Spiderman 2.  Boys and girls group 5 went to the bowling alley where they bowled and played arcade games.  And of course, each activity has such great gourmet food that the kids all purchase with their extra spending money.

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 up to camp to live out your youth in 1 day’s time.  We’re excited to have you join us and see your children.  We’ll have lots of activities and exhibits going on all day, as well as a huge lunch buffet.  If you prefer, you can take your children out of camp for the day.

We know you all plan to bring lots of food and junk to shower your children with affection, so please keep in mind that we discard all of the food 2 days later.  Do not bring so 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 please don’t shlep too much up here.

Please refrain from bringing bottled water, too.  We have well water here at camp that is just as good, or even better than, bottled water.  Bottled water will also be discarded so please save yourself the muscular strength (not to mention soreness) of carrying these heavy items into camp.

Visiting Day hours are from 9:30-3:30.  If you leave camp for the day, please bring your children back on time for our other annual big, huge, extravagant Water Fight!  Parents are fair game if they’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 just work with us and know your children are in great hands here at camp.

Tonight’s dinner was a COOKOUT, so today’s special feature is just that, the cookout!

Evening activity for tonight is GROUPS!  Here’s the ol’ run down:

Boys:  Groups 1&2- pool party with the girls;  Group 3- capture the flag;  Group 4&5- movie

Girls:  Groups 1&2- pool party with the boys;  Group 3- movie;  Groups 4&5- messy twister with paint (huge life size twister board- fun for multiple bunks at once)

Have a great night and until tomorrow, ILC U THERE!

Happy Wednesday everyone!  Can you believe that Visiting Day is only 3 days away?  Where did the summer go?  It’s flying by way too fast.  Guess that’s what happens when you’re having fun.

Speaking of fun, last night’s evening activity was amazing!  The whole camp was in the theater and we started Miss ILC.  All of the male contestants (dressed as women) did a group dance to “Single Ladies”.  At the end of their dance they all then pointed to the curtains to bring out the judges and who was standing there when the curtains opened?  No other than the Revival Night henchmen!  The kids all screamed and ran out of the theater to the hill on the lake for the start of their favorite evening activity.  When Revival was over, a gunshot sounded off in the air, followed by a second.  Well, by that point about 50 children started running up to the gym, thinking that Color War was starting.  They were in for a shock when we called them back down to the lake and informed them that it was a fake break.  We’ve been doing fake breaks for days now, which has been fun as we’re teasing the kids about the start of Color War.

Last night was ETB, Early to Bed.  We had our staff meeting during rest hour while our campers were SUPPOSED to be writing letters home to all of you moms and dads.  No promises of course since you’ll be here in 3 days, but we hope they all wrote home to you.  Tonight is LTB, Late to Bed, since tomorrow is our Lazy Day.  Groups 1&2 (boys & girls) are going to Skate Estate roller rink in Binghamton, which also has miniature golf, waterslides, arcade games, and laser tag.  Groups 3&4 (boys & girls) are going to see the movie, The Amazing Spiderman 2 locally here in Deposit, NY.  Group 5 (boys & girls) is going to the bowling alley in Binghamton.  Should be lots of fun and we’ll try to remember to bring our cameras to post photos on our daily photos sight.

Today was our 2nd session tubing trip down the Delaware River.  It was the perfect weather for a lazy river stroll with temperatures in the low 80’s and the sun shining strong.  This morning we also hosted a boys 5^th grade baseball game here at camp.  Although they didn’t win, they played an amazing game of ball.  This afternoon we got hit with some rain that lasted only a short time.

Tonight’s evening activity is Groups!  Here’s a breakdown of what everyone is doing:

Boys:  Group 1- kong pong;  Group 2- nature hike on a pioneering trail;  Group 3- gaga;  Group 4- capture the flag;  Group 5- dodgeball

Girls:  Group 1- friendship bracelets;  Group 2- fab fun fair;  Group 3- aqua aerobics;  Group 4- movie & nails night;  Group 5- movie & popcorn night

Today’s special feature, SCIENCE, COOKING, & VIDEO!

3 more days until we see all of your smiling faces here at camp!  Until then, ILC U THERE!

Hi Island Lake families!  Dare I even say it?  Ok, here I go,…it was another beautiful day here in Starrucca, PA!  Today was very warm and sunny with temps in the low 80’s.  Lots of sunblock was used and water bottles being carried by campers to activities to stay hydrated.

We had A LOT of different trips and tournaments going on here and out of camp today.  Our pioneering kids went out on a climbing trip to Prompton Park.  They climbed rocks as high as 25 feet, as well as climbing “chimneys”, rocks enclosed around them where they use their hands on rocks to their sides, not only in front of them.  Our climbing kids also practiced their rappelling skills at the park today.

Some other out of camp activities that took place today were a golf trip to a local golf course for 9 holes and a dance competition at a nearby camp.  Our dancers of all skill levels in different styles of dance participated in this friendly competition and took home several 1^st place trophies.  GO ILC DANCERS!

We also hosted an Improv Tournament within camp for many of our little actors to participate in.  They placed themselves into teams of 4 and gave themselves group names for this friendly fun tournament.  The winning team earned points for Bunk Cup.

But wait, there’s more!  We also hosted a big 10^th & 11^th grade boys Volleyball Tournament here at camp today.  About 8 other camps came to compete with one another this morning into the afternoon hours.  Our boys played hard and put up a good fight.  We also continued with our ILC Open for our tennis kids today.  They have been playing one another to ultimately be the champion and earn a trophy, along with points for their bunk for Bunk Cup.

Happy Tournament Tuesday!  What is Tournament Tuesday you’re asking yourself?  Well I’d love to share that with you.  We have several events that went on during the minor periods today and campers earned points for their bunks for Bunk Cup just by participating.  For 1^st minor we had a fishing tournament for groups 1&2.  For 2^nd minor we had the following:  archery tourney, basketball skills challenge, fencing tourney, chess tourney, fishing tourney, soccer world cup tourney, 3v3 sand volleyball, punt pass and kick, and sports monsters kong pong.  Here’s a rundown of our 3^rd minor tournaments:  home run derby, 3v3 basketball tourney, golf skills challenge, archery long range challenge, sports monster’s gaga, hockey sills challenge, sand soccer challenge, mojo fitness challenge, and punt pass and kick for our older groups.  Wow, we had a lot of fun tournaments going on this afternoon!

Today’s special feature, TOURNAMENT TUESDAY!  Enjoy the photos below of kong pong, basketball skills challenge, 3v3 sand volleyball, and soccer world cup tournament.

Tonight’s evening activity is Miss ILC.  The girls dress up male counselors to look like girls and put on a beauty pageant.  Ok, I’ll tell you the truth,…the kids all think it’s Miss ILC, but shortly after it starts, guess what’s going to break out?  No, not Color War but Revival Night!  Everyone’s all time favorite ILC evening activity!  We’ll let your kids tell you about it on Visiting Day.  Well, I hope you enjoyed this long blog filled with lots of photos today and until tomorrow, ILC U THERE!

Happy Monday everyone!  Today was another great day here in Starrucca, PA.  We couldn’t ask for better temperatures in the mid to upper 70’s with little to no humidity.  This summer’s weather has been fantastic thus far (uh oh, I hope I didn’t just jinx it!).

By now, session 2 is in full swing and last night’s Social was a blast for all.  Just like 1^st session, the girls got dressed up and the boys showered and combed their hair (if we were lucky!).  DJ Dennis knocked it out of the park and had our campers and counselors up on their feet boogying the night away.  Many of our science enthusiasts went on the observatory trip last night, which we hear was out of this world (sorry, I couldn’t resist!).

Today we had a few different sporting events going on.  Our 8^th & 9^th grade girls softball went out to play a game this morning and shut out the other camp, 12-0.  Our 5^th grade boys basketball team went out this afternoon for a game of hoops.  Our 6^th grade boys doubles had a big win out of camp today, as well.

Tonight’s evening activity is GROUPS!  Here’s a run own of what everyone is doing:

Boys:  Groups 1&2- kickball & wiffleball;  Groups 3&4- dodgeball;  Group 5- kong pong

Girls:  Group 1- music videos for bunk cup;  Group 2- cupcakes in cooking (the kids will decorate cupcakes & then there will be a contest for the best one);  Group 3- gaga & improve games;  Group 4- finish bunk videos;  Group 5- campfire

Today’s special feature,…HORSEBACK RIDING!

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

Below is a link to our week 3 video for all to enjoy viewing.  Hope you love it!

https://vimeo.com/101303252

Hi, Island Lake families!  We had another gorgeous day here in Starrucca, PA; our temperatures rebounded from a crisp, cool morning into the upper 70s.  It was another beautiful and busy day here at Island Lake.  We took our girls 6th and 7th grade basketball team and our 8th and 9th grade girls’ basketball team out of camp for two exciting and closely contested matches.

In other ILC news, our scientifically minded campers have just left for a trip to the Observatory where they will gaze into the night sky at the stars and planets.  I know I’m jealous!!

Tonight’s evening activity is THE SOCIAL!  Our girls have a busy rest hour ahead of them doing their hair, nails and makeup for the special night.  Our boys will splash on some body spray and might throw on a clean shirt haha!  The DJ is setting up in the gym, and everyone here at Island Lake is getting his or her dancing shoes on!

Today’s special feature… CRAZY GAMES!  We talked about it last night, and boy howdy was it a rollicking success!  Our campers and counselors brought a level of enthusiasm usually reserved for Color War to last night’s activity.  Enjoy some photos from one of the most exciting evening activities in recent memory!

Until next time, ILC U THERE!!