Hey, Hectic High Fliers!

Summer is a demanding season. There’s so much that we want to fit in that we run ourselves ragged in our attempt and may forget to actually enjoy any of it. After all, too much of a good thing quickly transforms into a bad thing. Take today for a great lesson in making yourself take a break—especially those of you who are always moving and always occupying your minds. It’s Relaxation Day and, believe it or not, it can feel like hard work to actually allow yourself to relax—especially when we’re prone to constantly exercising our bodies and our brains. Often times, we choose to simply stay in the mode of motion as opposed to switching gears and giving ourselves a break.

Even when we consider ourselves to be relaxing, we’re usually still being active in some way or another (reading a book, watching TV, playing video games, talking on the phone, and surfing the Internet all demand a good amount of work from your brain, despite how relaxed your body may be through the duration of these activities. No matter how relaxing they may seem, they’re still ACTIVities nonetheless).

Of course, we give our bodies and minds a break every night when we go to bed, but we need that time for recuperating from the day—it’s a deeper kind of rest. Wakeful relaxation is important too. Allow your mind’s rampant activity to dissolve, focusing on just one thing. Creating visual art can be a means of therapeutic relaxation, but even this can become too active.

Really try giving yourself a break today. Take a relaxing bath, sit in a comfy chair, or go lay in the grass and try not to let your mind wander too much. Just focus on enjoying the moment without any demands or problems to contemplate. It’s not always so easy, but it’s incredibly refreshing when you can make it happen. Go ahead—REALLY relax today and, as always, thanks for reading!

- John

Hey, Back-to-Schoolers!

We may be a summer camp shop, but you can always find the perfect school accessories on our site too. Made for the classroom, our new Chalkboard Footlocker Trunk is a literal chalkboard for fun doodles, writing messages, or creating a real work of art. An exciting change-up to our traditional camp trunks, Chalkboard Trunks make a refreshing splash in the world of school.

Of course, we have a nice-sized selection of school backpacks and daypacks from trusted brand names like JanSport and Columbia. Joining their ranks recently is Under Armour with their comeback pack, the Storm Hustle II. Check it out right here!

We’ve also made some recent additions to our lovely Lockers 101 selection to make your school locker look fantastic! Check out the Style It! Stackable Locker Shelf as well as the Style It! Magnetic Storage Bin in the awesome White Scroll pattern. And don’t forget the Magnetic Three-Pocket Locker Organizer for convenience on your way to class. Check out the whole Lockers 101 selection right here.

Name Labels are a smart idea for school clothes. Labels are a surefire way to avoid any confusion in the locker room after phy ed. They’ll also be helpful come the days of winter when kids bring their snow pants to school for changing into at recess. A classroom full of unlabeled snow pants are sure to cause a problem. Certainly label your boots and your shoes and any other of your school articles of clothing.

Lastly, we offer a great selection of Rain Gear for those drizzly—or pouring—mornings at the bus stop and wet recesses. Keep your kid prepared for wet weather with top quality rain gear from leading manufacturers like Columbia, Frogg Toggs, and Red Ledge. Stay dry at school with Columbia Jackets, currently on sale.

Be ready for this school year with great fun and functional gear, supplies, and accessories. And, as always, thanks for reading. Get back in style!

- John

Hey, Readers!

Did you know that reading is GREAT for your mind and body? The activity alone is an incomparable exercise for your brain—like pumping mental iron. It’s able to decrease stress levels by 68%. It can help establish a better sleeping pattern. And it can even help you relate better to others around you in you daily life. WOW! Thanks, Reading!

Celebrate all its great benefits today—it’s National Book Lovers Day. A day to make any avid reader excited, Book Lovers Day urges you to grab a good book and delve into it in your favorite chair or maybe a quiet spot outdoors.

Everything Summer Camp may be a one-stop shop for all your summer camp needs, but we also offer a wealth of fun toys, games, and—yes, books for good ol’ camping fun. Take a look at all the great titles we have available on our online store:

Choose Your Own Adventure
Everything about camp is an adventure. You can keep with the spirit in your reading material with Choose Your Own Adventure books. Entertaining younger generations since 1979, Choose Your Owns are awesomely interactive and great fun at camp and beyond. These books do a great job encouraging independence for campers who struggle with leaving home.

Camp Confidential
Lose yourself in this engaging series during your summer and other camping trips. With great installments like ‘Natalie’s Secret’ and ‘Alex’s Challenge’, you’re sure to devour these stories of the lovable characters attending Camp Lakeview and, eventually, Camp Walla Walla. Page after page of plot twists, misadventures, and hilarious moments are sure to keep you engrossed!

Great Titles
This Department is jam-packed with great information about how best to send your kid off to camp. Expert advice from Doctors Chris Thurber and Jon Malinowski lie within ‘The Summer Camp Handbook’, offering invaluable guidance in all kinds of topics like packing efficiently, avoiding homesickness, and more. We also have fun storybooks to introduce the idea of camp to kids who are too young for it just yet but see it on the horizon. And other titles too.

So have fun perusing all the great books we have available and celebrate Book Lovers Day in summer style! As always, thanks for reading.

- John

Hey, Lighthouse Lovers!

Not only picturesque buildings, but symbols of hope, lighthouses are beautiful towers designed to emit light great distances with the purpose of helping pilots at sea navigate their ships through dangerous waters in the blanket of night. With radio, GPS, and other means of modern communication, lighthouses are now more-or-less poetic relics of our technology preceding the digital age, but still they stand like gentle giants peering out to the distant horizon.

Today we celebrate Lighthouse Day. Trips to visit a local lighthouse are a popular family activity in the summertime—not to mention a great way to observe Lighthouse Day! I recall a handful of trips my family made to check out lighthouses in our surrounding area. It was an awesome experience each time.

To celebrate on the Blog today, let’s explore the past for a little history lesson on lighthouses. As is the case with many things, the history of the lighthouse goes back farther than you likely expect. The very first lighthouse was built around 280 B.C. in ancient Egypt. An enormous bonfire was lit each night at the very top of the tower which stood taller than 450 feet! The beacon was visible from over 30 miles away!

This Egyptian Lighthouse was so big that it was included as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It was toppled by an earthquake in 1303 A.D.

Since ancient times, people have experimented with the materials to use in lighthouse construction. Early American lighthouses were short for towers and made out of wood or stone. The bulk of the towers built before 1800 have either fallen or caught fire. It was understood that lighthouses would have to be made sturdier and the 17th Century started building tall towers like they had in ancient times.

Gentle giants of the coast, they were made of brick and cut stone. It became customary for a lighthouse to include living quarters for the keeper of a lighthouse—after all, somebody had to be there day after day to light the lantern and perform all the general maintenance duties to keep the lighthouse in operation!

Eventually, lighthouse towers were constructed from iron and concrete and automated signals have done away with the need for a keeper or those quiet days they used to live along the shore.

Lots of lighthouses still remain in operation as the only tangible and reliable means of navigation—whereas radio or GPS signals can be lost—but a growing number of towers are being decommissioned and their lights are going out.

Lack of funds has led to lack of maintenance and lighthouse structures have been left to weather the elements without the help of human hands. Rough weather over time has already toppled abandoned lighthouses and these towers will continue to fall as time wears on their neglected foundations.

In short, lighthouses will certainly span your lifetime, but they won’t be around forever. Appreciate the opportunity to explore these interesting towers of our history and, as always, thanks for reading!

- John

Hey, Summer Campers!

Summer camp has been around since 1861, so it goes without saying that there are a lot of former summer campers out there in the world today. Some have gone on to become famous celebrities. Former summer campers have populated the music business, professional sports leagues, television and movies, etc. Remembered forever in our hearts, today we’re talking about a movie star who the world lost earlier this year: Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Yes, in his younger days, Philip enjoyed summer stays among the 122 acres at Ontario County’s 4-H Camp Bristol Hills in New York. 4-H Camp Bristol Hills is a division of the Cornell Cooperative Extension on Ontario County. He went to camp alongside his younger siblings Gordy and Emily in the 80’s. And by 1987 he worked as a camp counselor.

Rather active as a kid, Philip had a great time playing sports at camp, especially his favorites, baseball and wrestling. When he went to see a stage production Arthur Miller’s play ‘All My Sons’, however, Philip realized his true passion was the theater. “I was changed—permanently changed—by that experience,” Philip later recounted. “It was like a miracle to me.”

He was chosen to attend the New York State Summer School of the Arts when he was 17 and it was there that he befriended people with whom he would later collaborate on important projects that shaped his acting career. One of his colleagues, a Bennet Miller, is quoted for noting, “We were attracted to the fact that he was genuinely serious about what he was doing. Even then, he was passionate.”

After receiving his drama degree from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in 1989, Philip started appearing in supporting roles all throughout the following decade. He eventually made a reputation for himself as the actor who only did supporting roles—he’s in a lot of movies! But as he stepped into leading roles, he blew audiences away with his portray of author Truman Capote in the 2005 film, ‘Capote’ which landed him an Academy Award for Best Actor.

He only continued to impress audiences as he really grew into his career. Unfortunately, his career and life were cut short due to heart failure in February earlier this year. The world is sure to miss his charming presence on the big screen.

- John