Today is the 3rd and final day of Color War. It’s been a fierce but friendly 3 days of competition between 50’s and 60’s. Last night’s Lip Sync Battle & Music Videos were truly FANTASTIC! I kid you not, these campers and staff did a stupendous job choosing songs, choreographing them, and then performing them for their peers. The videos were adorable, light-hearted, and fun. Both teams did a superb job with this evening activity so it was extremely difficult for our judges to choose a winner. Ultimately, the winner of the Music Videos went to the grey 50’s and the winner of the Lip Sync Battle went to the blue 60’s.
Yesterday’s decorum points were close but slightly more points went to the grey 50’s. With the hatchet still out there as of breakfast this morning and the totals added up for the day, the team ahead by 271 point is the blue 60’s! During the team meeting time this morning the 60’s team found the hatchet over by the horse barn after receiving their 3rd and final clue.
Last night we had torrential rainstorms producing rivers flooding throughout our camp. The children stayed indoors while it down poured and were only allowed outside when the rain lightened up. We called curfew a bit early due to some lightening spotted. The rain was so heavy that our dining room flooded. Probably about 50 of our staff members, all non-bunk and support staff, rallied in the dining room around 9pm to sweep, squeegee, and mop the rain that kept pouring in under the doors. Our key maintenance guys were able to stop the water from continuing to flood the dining room and by 10pm the floors were finally drying up. It was an incredible team effort and we couldn’t have gotten through this without such amazing staff members volunteering their free time to help us out. We have so many special people here at ILC, both campers and staff alike.
Today’s weather report is sponsored by poodle skirts and tie dye t-shirts. We’ve had a mix of weather today. We’ve had rain clouds, we’ve had drizzle, we’ve had sun,…we’ve had it all! The temps started in the 60’s this morning and then gradually went up to the upper 70’s by afternoon hours when the skies finally cleared and the sun shined on us once again.
And now back to Color War. This morning we held our last day of sports. Here’s a list of what everyone did:
Group 1: Boys- dodgeball Girls- musical chairs
Group 2: Boys- theater challenges Girls- gaga
Group 3: Boys- chess tournament Girls- chopped
Group 4: Boys- touch football Girls- water basketball
The winner of this morning’s sports was the blue 60’s.
After lunch we had team meetings and then our big Apache Relay. The Apache spans over the course of a few hours and it entails a total of 167 tasks for each team to successfully complete. The kids run from one location to another throughout camp and tag a child in a specific department to do an activity/task. Once complete, they then tag another camper either in the same department or someone to then run to a different department to tag a child and perform another activity/task somewhere around camp.
The Apache is a big camp tradition and it involves all of our departments and then some here at camp! We include a whole lot of fun tasks such as unrolling and then re-rolling a roll of toilet paper before tagging another camper to run to the next department listed on the schedule. Other fun activities in the Apache are kayaking around the floating raft in the lake, filling a cup of water using a teaspoon, saddling a horse, beading a bracelet, typing “Island Lake Rules” in different languages in the video room, self-hit a homerun on the baseball field, run to pioneering with a jalapeno pepper in their mouth (Oy vey!), drop in on the half-pipe in the skatepark, deflate a tire in mountain biking, sing the camp alma mater over the PA system in the office, and much, much, much, much more. Our counselors also have some difficult tasks to perform such as doing 100 push-ups or hitting a baseball over the fence on the ball field. The Apache Relay finally ends with all campers and counselors in the gym sitting on the bleachers watching a camper from each team successfully shoot a half court basketball shot.
The Apache Relay represents a special thrill and excitement of Island Lake summer camp tradition! It’s all about fun during this event here at ILC, and it shows. In the end, the grey 50’s took home the win. I was following the 2nd team the whole time so I didn’t have a chance to take photos of this event. Please see our CampMinder page for many more photos from all of today’s events.
As soon as Apache was over we had one of our biggest surprises of the session- REVIVAL! The henchmen came out onto the basketball courts and the kids all ran down to the waterfront to enjoy one of their favorite non-Color-War-related ILC festivities. We promised our campers all session that we would do Revival so we had to surprise them when they least expected it. For those of you who don’t know what Revival is, just ask your children when they get home. (wink wink!)
Color War closes tonight with our annual Sing. Each team is judged for 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 bittersweet and somber as Color War comes to an end. Everyone hugs, many cry, and while the final scores are tallied we play the camp alma mater so everyone joins together to sing. Since Color War is at the end of the entire summer, it’ll be that much sadder for everyone.
And finally, once the scores are all tallied up, Oliver, who is in charge of Color War, will stand on the theater stage and announce how proud she is of everyone who participated these past 3 days. Then she’ll announce the winner of the Sing and the winner of Color War overall. The winning team will jump 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. Since this blog is being posted prior to Sing, later tonight I will post the winner for all of you on Facebook and Instragram. Until then, ILC U THERE!