Hey, Camp Parents!

New places, new people, new fears. All these phrases can be used to describe the first day of college. The feeling of moving on and forward can be exciting but can also be nerve wracking and in some cases downright terrifying. Wouldn’t it be great if instead of experiencing nervousness on the first day of college, you could be confident and excited because you’ve already experienced it before? At Everything Summer Camp, we believe that by attending summer camp as a child, your child actually develops life skills they can use later on when preparing for college.

Children learn to work together at camp and become part of a team and a community. They are exposed to other children from different backgrounds and experiences and learn how to share space and ideas respectfully. They learn teamwork and how to peacefully work through conflict if it arises. By attending camp as children, college students can learn to better coexist with a roommate and become a part of the community at their college or university. Camp puts children in environments to try new things and put themselves out there. This kind of setting typically translates to open-mindedness when they get to college. They are more willing to put themselves out there to making new friends and trying new activities. Camp gently edges children out of their comfort zones from an earlier age.

Homesickness is something that is common in both camp and college but by attending camp, children learn how to overcome homesickness from a younger age. The sooner young adults at college can adjust to being away from home, the sooner they can adjust to the college setting and start to have a great experience. Camp teaches children responsibility and independence as well, something that college students need in spades. For many students, college is the first time away from their families and they are in full control of their decisions for the first time as well. Camp can instill the independence that college students need early on but can also encourage them to make good decisions over bad ones. Camp fosters confidence and new perspectives in young children that blossom even further when they attend college. Finally, there will be several trials and tribulations that your child will most likely face when they attend college for the first time. Whether it’s their first all-nighter studying for an exam, trying out for a new team or club, or dealing with roommate issues, there will be some bumps along the road for your child.

By attending summer camp, children learn how to persevere through problems. They learn how to make mistakes and how to come back from those mistakes on the other side stronger and better for it. By powering through their mistakes at camp, children learn how to pull through in difficult situations later on while attending college. At Everything Summer Camp, we have everything your child could ever need to have an incredible time at camp. We hope that those memorable experiences stay with your child far into the future and that those memories help your child through their college experiences and beyond.

As always, thanks for reading, Camp Parents!

- John

Happy, Honey Bee Day!

Today we celebrate a day started by beekeepers FOR beekeepers and to develop awareness of the community about the facts and the benefits of honey. Observed on every third Saturday in August, this day is designated to honor honey bees and those noble beekeepers.

Honey Bee Day was started almost a decade ago by a little group of beekeepers. They made their dream come true by petitioning for a formal proclamation by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) that honored honey bees and beekeeping alike.

The bee industry community has made great advancements thanks to Honey Bee Day which has opened up the opportunity for beekeepers across the nation to share methods, education, and further efforts to share the best in beekeeping techniques among one other.

Did you know that honey bees contribute a lot more to the world than just honey? A LOT more. I’m sure you know that bees pollinate our crops, but did you realize that an entire third of the food we eat hinges on this furry, little insect actually?

That’s right! We rely on honey bees for an incredible list of produce such as apples, avocados, blueberries, broccoli, cranberries, cherries, cucumbers, grapefruit, melons, onions…the list goes on and on. Certain foods, such as almonds, rely entirely on honey bee pollination.

There are some beekeepers that produce and sell honey while other beekeepers’ business is all about ensuring there are bees to pollinate our farmers’ crops. Without them, so many crops (like the ones listed above) would disappear completely from our grocery stores.

Send your appreciation out to honey bees and beekeepers far and wide! Support your bee love with Burt’s Bees products from Everything Summer Camp—check it out by clicking here. And, as always, thanks for reading!

- John

Hey, Campfire Kids!

Happy National Campfire Day to everyone! Of course, we all enjoy keeping warm around a fire on a cool night! But it’s even more fun when you can do it while sitting in a circle of friends, sharing stories and getting mesmerized by the flames. And don’t forget the cherry on top with some delicious hot chocolate or roasted s’mores! After all, they’re as much a part of the campfire experience as the firewood is.

The campfire continues to be fed in order to keep on burning, but how did the flames first start growing and reaching upward? How does a fire get started?

Well, some people prefer to stand on the shoulders of society and bring a lighter when they go camping—or maybe they opt to ‘rough it’ with a book of matches. But there are other folks who really want the woodsy challenge and experience of making a fire from a more primitive fashion.

If you want to go all out with the bear necessities, all you really need in order to stoke a spark is a couple good pieces of wood along with some tinder and a good woodcutting knife. Creating heat through friction from rubbing wood against wood is a difficult, but eventually productive method.

Flint and steel with charcloth is a popular choice for people who want to cut the challenge back a little bit. They bring these items along so they can strike the flint against the steel.

This striking shoots sparks into your prepared pile of tinder with the charcloth on top. Hopefully the charcloth starts to burn enough from the sparks that it can pass the heat along to the tinder below and get that burning. From there, you can start burning your smaller twigs and sticks before moving onto your firewood.

So make the best of the today’s holiday and go enjoy the beautiful weather of the great outdoors. Stay safe and good luck, campin’ folks. And, as always, thanks for reading!

- John

Hey, Family Folks!

Time and time again, we’ll hear throughout our lives that family comes first. It’s a good rule by which to live. But who’s all included in your family? Mom, Dad, and your siblings, right? Mmm…better put Grandma and Grandpa on the list too. What about your aunts and uncles? And what about their kids—your cousins? Family reunions wouldn’t be the same without all of them!

Maybe you can put together a last-minute family reunion today to celebrate National Cousins Day. If hanging out is so feasible due to time or distance, you can always send your cousins a message to wish them a Happy Cousins Day and let them know you’re thinking of them.

How many cousins do you have? The answer is probably more than you think. When we use the word cousin, we tend to think of only the children of our aunts and uncles. However, the term cousin actually refers to a much broader sense of relation—it actually refers to any relative with whom you share a common ancestor.

And, because the list of who your ‘cousin’ may refer to becomes so long, cousins of your own generation are broken up into three different groups:

First Cousins
First cousins are simply the children of siblings—your aunt and uncle’s children.

Second Cousins
Second Cousins refers to the children of first cousins; so your own kids and the kids of your first cousin would be second cousins.

Third Cousins
When your children have children of their own and the kids of your first cousin have children of their own, those children will be third cousins to each other.

And what about when two people are not from the same generation? This is indicated by adding the term ‘removed’. For instance, my first cousin has two funny little boys. Those guys are my first cousins once removed. Twice removed indicates two generations between people, and so on.

It gets a tad confusing and a little hard to keep track of in your head. But truly, you have A LOT of cousins. In fact, there’s a chance that you’re cousins of some sort with someone you don’t even know if you share the same last name. The likelihood of your relation goes down depending on how common your last name is, if your family has ever changed their last name, the last name refers to someone’s son (i.e. Johnson or Jefferson), or a number of other factors.

Yes, you may even live next-door to a distant cousin and not even know it. When you start to dig into genealogy and your own ancestry you often find that it really is a small world. Be sure to wish a Happy Cousins Day to all your relatives and, as always, thanks for reading!

- John

Hey, Moonbrains!

As much as that may sound like an insult, I say it with the dearest affection. For, if you’re a fan of the Moon, then I’m a fan of you! And how do you NOT fall into a lifelong love with the Moon?! It’s full of romance, mystery, and holes…okay, I mean craters. Well, actually, no—I mean holes! What am I saying here? Do I really think the Moon is full of holes? Well, kinda. Today is Moon Day. Let’s investigate:

So what makes me think that the Moon is full of holes? Well, the fact that it’s hollow.

Sigh. That probably just dug me deeper. I can understand how crazy that sounds, but it’s true! At least, that seems to be the case. See, not a lot of people know that on our first mission to the Moon, when the landing device hit the surface prior to the astronauts touching down themselves, they reported back to the scientists at NASA that the impact caused the Moon to reverberate. They said it “rang like a bell”.

It wasn’t just Neil, Buzz, and Michael who observed this “ringing” either; it was the entire NASA team that sent those guys. Thousands of credible people saw the readouts of this heavenly body reverberating which leads us to only one real conclusion we can make: the Moon is hollow.

I think the reason this sounds so ridiculous is because when we think of something being hollow, we tend to consider something like an inflated beach ball or a blown egg. However, if the Moon is, indeed, hollow, it’s likely not totally empty on the inside, but more so full of cavernous tunnels. And that stands to reason since we cannot see the bottoms to some of the Moon’s deepest crater impacts.

Yep! It sounds pretty crazy—I agree. But there IS substantial reason to believe that the Moon might not be as solid as we figure it to be. It’s a crazy world we live in, indeed. Embrace it and, as always, thanks for reading, Moon Lovers!

- John