Hey, Camp Fans!

We’re celebrating our best year yet for the ‘Share Your Camp Story’ Contest at Everything Summer Camp. Your camp stories were great! It was such fun reading through them all. Now I’m eager to share them with our online community and post each submission right here on the Blog!

I’ve finished announcing our ten lucky winners who took larger prizes and now I’m sharing the rest of your submissions. The following post is from Mary H.C. who wrote in to tell us about her camp experience. Here’s her submission:

My Time at Camp DeSoto

Have you ever been to camp before? Well, I just went to Camp DeSoto for a month. Can you believe it was a month? I was shocked I even survived a month at camp with no friends or family.

I’d like to share my story about it with you. At Camp DeSoto we got to do super cool and fun activities I don’t get to do at home like archery, canoeing, rock climbing and much more. But I guess that’s what any old camp would do, so I’m going to tell you why Camp DeSoto is very special. At camp we get to do fun night activities like Christmas in July and Olympics. Some activities are horseback riding, huckleberry, swimming, and canoeing.

One of the best two days at camp were Palooza day and Christmas. During Palooza day the whole day was backwards and in the morning we got dinner which was pizza and soda. We also did all our activities backwards. At Christmas in July, we got to decorate the whole gym and put Christmas decorations everywhere. We also had a secret Santa and made gifts for them. It was a blast to see everyone so happy.

The most memorable thing about camp was the memories that I made with my friends and that I got to experience the same camp tradition my mom did. I hope I can go back to camp next year!

Thank you so much for this great entry, Mary! Palooza Day sounds like it was !GNIZAMA and—you’re right—Christmas in July makes Camp DeSoto sound like a pretty special place! Glad you had such a great time! If anybody else is interested in Camp DeSoto, you can give it a closer look by clicking here and, as always, thanks for reading!

- John

Hey, Camp Fans!

Here at Everything Summer Camp, we work with more than 270 camps and we’re eager to share what excellent camps each and every one of them is. Today we’re shining our summer camp spotlight over some good, classic Pennsylvanian land. Perhaps you’re familiar with Camp Shohola? Let me give you the virtual tour…

In the mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania, the beautiful natural setting of camp abounds at Camp Shohola. Showing 160 boys the time of their lives each summer keeps Camp Shohola a nice, small camp where everybody knows one another.

Between adventure and sports, there’s lots of fun on the Shohola land with activities like Archery, Backpacking, Baseball/Softball, Basketball, Conditioning, Flag Football, Golf, Equestrian Horse Riding, Lacrosse, Martial Arts, Mountain Biking, Outdoor Biking, Riflery, Rock Climbing, Roller Hockey, Rugby, Skateboarding, Soccer, Tennis, Volleyball, Wrestling, and more!

Fun abounds in the water of the beautiful 70-acre Lake Greeley where campers can exercise their Swimming skills and have fun with Boating, Canoeing, Fishing, Kayaking, Lifeguarding, Sailing, Waterskiing, and Windsurfing.

Shohola campers also get to try their hand at cool artistic activities including Cartooning, Murals, Painting, Pottery, Rock Band, Rocketry, Stained Glass, Silver Shop, as well as Woodshop. And they offer a pretty cool tech program that they call CommTech. Pick up cool experience with Computer Programming, Photography, Radio Broadcasting, Robotics, Video Production, Web Design, and much more!

The campground at Shohola is a complementary campus of well-maintained facilities that accentuate the beauty of the natural surroundings. Just about every day is framed on “The Hill” at the center of camp—the cabin grove most campers (except for the Working Seniors) and counselors reside for the camp stay.

Camp Shohola is the brother camp to Netimus whose camp spotlight has already been published—check it out by clicking here. And to get a closer look at Camp Shohola, check out their website by clicking here. And, as always, thanks for reading!

- John

Hey, Smiley Readers!

Nice pearly whites! Smiles are infectious, rewarding, and communicative. We know a lot about smiling. For instance, we use 42 muscles in order to smile, simply smiling can put us in a better mood, and this facial expression is most recognizable as a welcoming, warm show of friendliness or love.

But for as much as we know about smiling, we don’t know for sure how it is that smiling came to mean what it does among us humans. After all, we’re the only animal on earth that do it. And, what’s more, the act of baring teeth across the animal kingdom typically is used to threaten or display a warning.

So when most other animals across the world use the visibility of their teeth as a sign of danger, how did humans start interpreting this gesture as a show of friendliness?

Our smiling faces have been traced back 30 million years in which our earliest ancestors started using a sort of code among each other. Human ancestors along with other types of primates were able to distinguish the difference between baring one’s teeth with a frightening open mouth and showing your clenched teeth with barely opening your mouth at all.

A show of clenched teeth was meant to indicate to predators that you were harmless and submissive. The idea is that different species developed their own inside understanding of this gesture—especially so in human beings.

Obviously, in our modern day, a smile has come to mean much more than just a sign of submission. In fact, smiles have taken on a versatile role in our culture, capable of communicating such emotions as love, happiness, delight, pride, hatred, even embarrassment.

Be sure to share your friendly smile with those you love today and enjoy celebrating National Smile Day. And, as always, thanks for smiling—errr—I mean, reading!

- John

Hey, Camp Aficionados!

We had our best year yet with our camper response to our annual ‘Share Your Camp Story’ Contest at Everything summer Camp. And, as usual, your camp stories were fantastic! I’m eager to share them with our online community and post each submission right here on the Blog!

Now that I’ve finished announcing our ten lucky winners who took larger prizes, I’m sharing the rest of your submissions. All entrants win a $15 gift certificate to our online store simply for participating. The following post is from Ann B. who wrote in to tell us about her daughter’s first camp experience. Here’s her submission:

Arrival Day

It was the crunch of the grass, the soothing sounds of the lake and the wonderful feeling that she had finally arrived when she placed her trunk in the tent that made my daughter Julia A.’s summer. Camp was everything she had imagined it to be and then even more. Julia‘s excitement started months earlier the moment she got to pick which session at Hive she wanted to attend, which trunk she needed, and what she wanted to put in that little blue slice of home she would take there. Julia made many new friends, rode the zipline, and ate s’mores by the camp fire. She wrote me letters of exciting adventures, hikes, crafts, and even about a sailboat that had capsized in a storm (very exciting!). Her tent family bonded in their headlamps over with late night card games played on a trunk and on overnight trips where she got to canoe for the 1^st time. I received letters from her counselor about how she was growing and learning to articulate her feelings but it was the letters and postcards Julia wrote to her brother at home that made me realize how much she really loved it there. When Julia came home, she was a little taller, wiser, independent and more sure of herself. It might have been her first year at summer camp in Vermont but it certainly won’t be her last!

Thank you so much for this great entry, Ann! It’s great to hear that the Hive experience was such a positive one for Julia’s first year at sleepaway camp! Hive Camp sounds like a pretty special place and if anyone else would like to check it out closer by clicking here. And as always, thanks for reading!

- John

Hello, Omnivores, Herbivores, and Carnivores alike!

That was a pretty all-inclusive greeting I just started out with, there. It pretty much includes every living thing on the Earth (except for plants and fungi). But, really I’m just talking about people—I didn’t expect any animals to be reading this Blog anyway. Whether you’re familiar with the above three terms, or not, you definitely belong to one of them.

Today is Vegetarian Day.
Vegetarians (or herbivores) don’t eat meat but will eat other animal products like milk and eggs (unlike vegans who cut out all animal products). Pretty much no humans are carnivores—eating an all-meat diet (though some people have attempted this which is not doctor recommended and cannot be a healthy option). Then there are omnivores who eat both plant-based foods as well as meat.

The vast majority of people in the world would be classified as omnivores. But no matter which of these diets you ascribe to, it’s a great idea to observe Vegetarian Day. Here are three good reasons why:

Meat in the Middle
Our meat industry has become so oversized that it has taken a serious toll on the environment. You don’t have to go 100% vegetarian to make a difference (though you might feel better if you do); if the world observed Meatless Mondays throughout the year, it would be the equivalent of removing 273 million vehicles from the road for those 365 days!

Dream of Leafy Greens
When considering our dental hardware as well as the length of our intestinal tract, it shows that we are not biologically meant to eat meat. Obviously meat has been a great source for us to resort to when necessary, but unlike true omnivores (such as raccoons or bears), our bodies are simply not built the same. Not only that, but consuming less meat has been proven to reduce the risk of heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, and more.

Creature Compassion
For anyone striving to be more conscientious about their diet, Vegetarian Day is a great opportunity to really think about the meal you’re having and how it got to your dinner table. Despite a meat industry that poses so many threats to our environment, people tend not to think about where their food came from. Observing Vegetarian Day can help to break down this cognitive dissonance and have a deeper appreciation for the animals of our world that we love so much!

So get your healthy dose of vegetables and other plant-based foods in observation of Vegetarian Day and enjoy looking into the options of this alternative. If you aren’t used to it, you might find yourself surprised at the boundless options you still have after nixing the meat. And, as always, thanks for reading!

- John