So I had this idea last night as I was writing letters.  I actually write real handwritten letters to people all summer because when I am at camp it really seems like the thing to do.  That mentality probably comes from when I was a camper and the only form of communication that we had was letters.  I like writing, and writing letters at the end of the day is a great way to decompress (especially after a day like today).

I suppose though, that you are wondering what the idea actually is.  Along with writing letters I also like to get mail, also, the walls of my cabin are kind of bare.  So, I thought that I would put out a proposal for post cards.  I don’t really know how many people read my blog, but if any of you out there write me a postcard from wherever you live or are spending your summer then I will send you back a nice handwritten postcard from Maine or New Hampshire.  I will even sweeten the offer and say that if you write more than one postcard this summer I will send you back more than one.

Now I suppose you are going to ask why I would do this.  As I said, I like to write and I am happy to write to anyone who writes to me.  I also think that writing by hand is a dying art and I would like to keep it alive for as long as possible.  It is also fun to get mail from other places.  This certainly is not the most expensive of summer opportunities and it is cool to get neat post cards.  Maybe if I get postcards from any of you I will scan them and post them on my blog.

If you want to send me a postcard and participate in my summer postcard swap, you can find my address below.  I made it a graphic just for a little sense of security.  Of course, in order to write you back I will need your address, and I figure the best way to do that is to either email me or use my contact form here.  If you don’t care then i suppose you could just leave your address in a comment.  In any event, let’s have some fun with this!

Inspired by prompt number five over at Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop: “What summer means to your family.”  I do have to say, I consider myself very lucy because I have a job where I get the summers off, so I can actually do things in the summer.

If you actually follow my blog you probably can see that I spend a lot of time (especially lately) talking about summer camp.  Camp is what I do for the summer and what I have done for the summer since 1994 (overnight camp that is).  I missed three summers at camp due to college and work, but other than that I have been a camper or staff regularly.  I also did day-camp pre ’94, but I seem to not usually count that in my camp experience, though it was a fun time and I do remember bits and pieces of it.

When I talk about camp, I really do think of the camp community as family.  In fact, there were a couple times when I almost used the words “camp family” in the first paragraph of this post.  Thankfully, my real family saw the wonderful things that camp had to offer and decided to send me to camp.  I suppose I should also be thankful that I also enjoyed being at camp.  There are very few things that I would rather be doing during the summer than being at camp.

I have been to three different overnight camps, one as a camper from 1994-2001 and two as staff.  The camp that I currently work for is actually two camps, a boys and a girls camp called Indian and Forest Acres (respectively).  Since the first day that I set foot on the campus at IA and FA I have felt welcome and at home.  The people here really are like my extended family or my summer family.  It is so amazing how that happens, to walk in to a new place and to feel accepted and welcomed in like family is just unbelievable, and that is one of the most special things about these camps.  There are people here who I know that I could call on when I need something at any time of the year.  These are people who I see for only two months out of the year but they mean a great deal to me.

So, when I think about what summer means to my family, it is really a twofold question.  To my biological family it is usually a time to relax, take some time off from work, watch the dogs play, and spend time together.  We spend time at our home in New Hampshire and go hiking and such and we also often spend time at my uncle’s home on Martha’s Vineyard.  It is a time to go to baseball games with my grandparents who have been taking us grandkids since we were old enough to walk.  Going to the Red Sox games is always an experience with my grandparents and it is a lot of fun.  It is something I look forward to every summer.

To my camp family, summer is life.  We like to say that we spend ten months of the year looking forward to the two that we live together.  As soon as you step foot back on camp you feel like you never left, and even the campers who are new get welcomed with hugs and open arms.  The summer for this family is a time of learning, growing, bonding, and fun.  Amazing lifetime friendships are kindled and every summer, without fail, every camper and staff member discovers something new about himself/herself and his/her friends.  In some ways I feel like camp is really the time and place that you can really be who you are and who you want to be.  Staff and campers here do things that they would never do in front of or with their friends at home.

Summer is a time to be free, to run around and play.  It is a great time of year to explore both the world around us and ourselves, and I hope that it will always be something that I can really take advantage of!

Summer in Maine (or anywhere in northern New England really).  This is the time to look out for moose.  Every summer at camp we have one intrepid staff member who comes to camp with the exclusive mission of seeing as many moose as possible in the eight weeks that we are at camp.  With the number of moose around where the camp is, one would think that this is not a hard thing to do.  In reality, it can be quite the challenge.

Last night was our first night off since staff week began (not that the powers that be really care what I am doing after dinner) so it was the first time that Mike could head out and go moosing.  I am not really sure if “moosing” is actually a real word, my spell-check doesn’t like it, but that seems to be the term that everyone uses when looking for moose.  Mike is also very particular about his moosing trips and goes out almost every night of camp, sometimes with campers and sometimes just with his family or a couple friends.  If other people see moose but not him, that is about the worst.  Las year I had about four or five sightings before he had his first….

One of the favorite spots for moosing is about ten minutes up the road from camp on one of the little Maine back-roads.  The road runs between some marsh-y land and and a river.  Right around dusk and just after dawn are the times to really get out to find some animals so we often leave on moosing excursions after dinner.  Up at this location there is even a little place to sit and look out over the fields than can keep you pretty well hidden.  It is usually an active spot, many people hang around there or show up there looking for moose.

So last night Mike took off with his family and left me back at camp.  I of course got on the phone and managed to swing a pickup to get out on the first night of moosing.  We drove around out there for over an hour without any sightings, and right around sunset I decided to make some art and shoot some barn and sunset photos.  After a couple more loops around the area, his family was starting to get hungry so we gave up and headed off to town so they could eat (I had eaten at camp).

As we headed towards North Conway we passed the Asst. Director of the camp who was out moosing with some other staff people.  Seconds after passing we got a phone call from him, wanted to know if we had seen any moose.  Well, you already know the answer to that question.  However, by the time we got to the restaurant we got another phone call and they informed us that they had seen three moose right where we were.  One right in the middle of the road where I had been shooting sunsets!  Twenty minutes!  I guess you can’t win ‘em all.

With that, the game is now on for the most moose sightings this summer and the best moose photos!

I have been talking about it for months, probably since the end of last summer, and now it is finally here.  ”What?” I hear you ask.  Camp.  I am back for my third summer at Indian and Forest Acres Camps in Fryeburg, Maine.  Indian Acres (IA) and Forest Acres (FA) are brother and sister camps separated by 2.2 miles and the Fryeburg Fairgrounds.  I blogged a little bit from camp last summer, so if you dig back through my archives you should be able to find a little bit.  Hopefully this summer, with my blog in a new (hopefully permanent) home I will have the time to blog more about the camp experience.

I have been a camp person all my life.  I started back in 1994 at Yavneh, a Jewish summer camp in New Hampshire.  I went there as a camper through 2000 and then in 2001 I went on their 6-week Israel program.  After that summer in Israel I headed off to work at Micah on the recommendation of my sister.  I spent three summers there and then took a 3-summer hiatus from camp.  After the Les Mis year at PTC I was able to return to camp, this time to IA/FA as they are owned by a friend of the family who asked me to come.  Needless to say, I love being back at camp, and I love being here.

We often talk about how the kids go home and spend nine months of the year waiting for the two that they spend here at camp.  This holds true not only for the kids but also for the real camp people like myself.  I love my real job, but there is nothing that compares to working at a summer camp.  I think that this is one of the most rewarding jobs that there is.  When you see kids get so excited about the things that they do at camp, the new activities they try or the friends they make and the fears that they master, there is no great feeling of pride than knowing that you helped get them there.  The real camp people are not in this for the money, we don’t really get much, it is the other rewards that make the job worthwhile.

When I arrive at camp I always feel like I haven’t left.  Almost everything seems to be exactly the way it was.  Unfortunately today, that meant the rain as well, but we are hoping that this summer will be a little drier than last.  The things that I left in my cabin are still there, other things that were left around camp are still around camp.  Some things probably shouldn’t have been left around camp but were…  Within minutes the old routines fall back into place, and life continues as if there hadn’t been a nine month break in the middle.

I think that summer camp, in some form, is something that every child should get to experience.  I know that camps like IA/FA and the camps that I attended are not always the most affordable summer solutions, but the benefits of camp on children is just amazing.  Seeing how much children grow and learn in eight weeks is amazing.  Then when you see those same kids come back year-after-year and you continue to watch them, it means even more.  There is so much that kids can take away from the experience.

So, I am here, gearing up for the summer.  I have some unpacking of my own stuff left to do and lots of other things to take care of around camp.  We have some time before the kids get here, but now that I am here, I know that the end will feel like it came so fast.  One day at a time and make the most of every day, that is the key to a great summer.

My summer that is.  Yesterday I officially said my goodbye’s at the theatre (just for the summer that is), packed up my junk and this morning I made my trek over to the east coast.  Pretty normal travel day all things considered, 6AM wake-up, have Sunreon pound on my door at 6:20, load up my junk into her car and head over to The Red Moose for a cup of coffee and a breakfast burrito.  I can’t remember if I ever mentioned this little coffee shop before, they haven’t been around that long (I believe since December) but they have great coffee and great food.  They are also practically right across the street from my house which could be a dangerous thing.

The traveling today was pretty painless.  I still think that it is a pain in the ass to get from the door of the airport to the door of the plane, but when you fly early enough in the day getting through security is pretty efficient.  In general, flying on Southwest is pretty efficient.  They seem to really be able to get you from one place to the next without much hoopla.  They also have pretty good fares.  I do love sitting in the terminal and on the plane during boarding listening to the agents and flight attendants try to explain to people about the open seating.  There are some people who really just don’t get it.  It isn’t that hard to understand is it?

As we loaded up the first plane (SLC to MDW) I ended up sitting next to a very interesting gentleman who works for the VA hospital right across the street from the theatre.  We shall call him D for the sake of privacy.  It turned out that he was also flying from SLC to MHT, though his reasons for the trip were not quite as upbeat as mine.  He was a very nice man and we had a great conversation for most of the flight.  In fact, by the time that we stopped chatting I only was able to make it about halfway through the new “Alice in Wonderland” movie.  In the end I suppose that isn’t terrible because now I can watch it on a screen larger than my iPhone.  I never did see it in theaters, and I was totally OK with that.

We arrived at MDW a couple minutes early which is a good thing because the layover was only 35 minutes.  I probably should and cold have grabbed some food, but since people were already lining up to board, I figured that I would hit the head and then get in line.  I ended up sitting with the D again and another interesting person who I believe was around my age.  This flight, which was only around 1:30-sin in length, the tree of us chatted the entire time.  I don’t think that I have ever had that much interaction with the people that I have been sitting with (who are not friends or family) on an airplane before.  In the end, D and I exchanged cards, and will probably connect again when I get back to Utah.  He has kids who he would love to see get involved in the arts, and he knows some people at one of the youth theatre organizations that he wanted to put me in touch with.

With an on-time arrival in Manchester I met my parents and I finally got to meet the new puppies.  They are sooo cute!  They are crazy hyper, like all huskies, but they are a lot of fun.  However they did manage to pinch my old Red Sox cap from my bag and chew it up.  It is a little sad, but I am sure that I will get over it (and get a new cap).  So, since it is Friday, I think that I will leave you with one of my father’s photos of the puppies.  The white one is Ava, and the black/silver one is Zoe.

Zoe and Ava on the back porch

I suppose that I should also mention that for the rest of the summer (until mid August) I will be on the east coast, primarily in Maine and New Hampshire working at Indian and Forest Acres camps.  My blogging may be a little more erratic over the summer, but I will keep you all up to date!