Hey, all you Doppelgangers!

Has anyone ever told you that you look just like….If you’re somebody’s twin, then today was quite literally made for you! Today is National Lookalike Day. Lots of people pride themselves on their impressively close appearance to famous celebrities or even cartoon characters.

If you’re one of these people who seem to be a celebrity’s long-lost twin, today is a great day to really show people just how similar you look to your particular celebrity. Do up your hair like they wear it, dress in clothes that they wear, and get bonus points for attempting to talk and behave as they do too!

The world is full of people who look alike. Often times, doubles can have a lot in common because of their similar appearance. For less than four dollars, you can sign up with a website called Twin Strangers to gain membership with over a million other people who are searching for their doubles. You’re bound to have a match among a million-plus!

But the Twin Strangers website and posing as a celebrity with whom you share physical qualities are more-or-less meant for adults. An approach to today that’s a bit more fun for kids is to simply dress up as your own twin. Whether you’re biologically identical or just happen to be the spitting image of your best friend, brother, sister, or whomever else, today is always a fun day to celebrate.

Similarly-looking pairs can make today especially mirroring by dressing the same in order to accentuate their identical appearances. The day will typically ensue with confusion from friends and teachers at school about who is who; you may even cause some head-scratching at home. Have fun with the day as you sabotage one another’s identity and, as always, thanks for reading.

- John

Hey, Camp Folks!

There’s nothing we love more here at Everything Summer Camp than seeing families through to a wonderful summer camp experience. That’s why we post about shining examples of great camps across the country such as this one—Camp Pontiac is sure to show you what summer fun is all about!

This camp is located in Capake, New York among the Berkshire Mountain foothills—the perfect landscape for an unforgettable summer getaway! Just 100 miles away from Manhattan, Camp Pontiac’s 150 acres have been showing kids glorious summer stays since 1922.

Don’t miss out on all the great opportunities that they have in store for you at Camp Pontiac. Offering all the traditional sports like Baseball, Basketball, Football, Soccer, and plenty more, that’s just the tip of the activities iceberg. With a beautiful 65-acre spring fed lake, the lakefront provides campers with fun fishing, kayaking, swimming, sailing, and lots more.

They also have a well-rounded list of indoor activities like Arts & Crafts, Photography, and their Yoga/Aerobics class. And—best of all—the adventuresome activities like Archery, Ropes Course, Hiking, Camping, Rock Climbing, Zip Lining, and a multitude more.

You won’t run out of things to do at Camp Pontiac—that’s for sure!

Pontiac cabin leaders are typically about 21 years old and undergo a careful background check before getting hired. The main goal for staff members at Camp Pontiac is to help their campers feel good about themselves on a daily basis.

Campers are sure to feel right at home in their comfortable, updated, and attractive cabins. The campsite also boasts a theater and set design, a studio for yoga and pilates, a 280-seat movie theater, six spacious dining rooms, and so much more!

Check it out for yourself right here and, as always, thanks for reading!

- John

Hey, Camp Fans!

Everything Summer Camp is here to help pump you up. Well, we can give you a few tips anyhow. Summer camp is certain to be chock full of strenuous activities that challenge your stamina, flexibility, and strength. That’s why I’ve been posting about fitness every Monday this month—to help you do what it takes to see that you’re fit for the rigorous lifestyle of summer camp.

The first post covered a number of exercises that are helpful for multiple, traditional sports and other athletic activities at summer camp. Last week I gave helpful exercises specific to horseback riding.

Now let’s talk about rock climbing. There’s no better practice than actually climbing—no argument here. But even before practicing, there are great exercises you can do off the wall. There are a number of different ways you’ll want to have conditioned your body to be the best climber you can be. After all, climbing makes good use of all different parts of your body in all different kinds of ways. It breaks down like this:

Upper Body Strength
Climbing, of course, takes a world of Upper Body Strength to hoist yourself into higher and higher positions. Any kind of muscle-building exercises will work—push-ups, pull-ups (if you have a bar available), or weightlifting (if you have the proper weights) are great ways to build strength in your arms and shoulders. Even more intricate of an exercise are Hand Grips. These will help develop the muscles in your fingers for difficult-to-hold-onto-rocks.

Lower Body Strength
Sometimes when climbing, you’ll need your legs to make impossible strides upward and to push the rest of your body to the next point of pausing. Jogging is always a great way to build up those leg muscles. You’ll also want to incorporate some of the exercises we recommended for horse riding like Front Squats and Forward Lunges. Exercises like these are sure to sculpt your leg muscles for the job.

Flexibility
Stretches alone are a great means of training your body to be able to make far reaches and gliding steps. Sitting with your legs outstretched and touching your toes is one great way to extend the span of your stretching. For those with a chin-up bar available, you can practice what is called a ‘Deadhang’ in which you hold yourself up by your fingers. If you have a Finger-Board, that would be most convenient.

Rock climbing is fun, but extremely strenuous work. Make sure you’re ready for it when you head off to summer camp. Make sure to tune in next Monday to get great exercises for swimming and, as always, thanks for reading.

- John

Hey there, all you mistake-makers!

Don’t worry—everyone makes mistakes. In fact, I’ve already hit the ‘Backspace’ button at least five times just typing to this point in the post. Mistakes are inevitable—bound to happen multiple times on a daily basis. They come in all shapes and sizes, transpiring on a small-scale or as a grand goof-up. Typically, the bigger they are, the harder they are to reverse, but, luckily, a lot of small mistakes can be undone.

Today is National Rubber Eraser Day—a day where mankind’s triumph over written mistakes are celebrated! Thanks to this rubber invention, we can make all of our spelling errors, math mistakes, and drawing slip-ups disappear with just as much ease as when they first showed up. Here’s how the mighty eraser works:

When you put marks down on a piece of paper, flakes of pencil lead are dragged across the paper’s fibers and cling to them along the way. Those flakes will stick around for decades so long as they’re left undisturbed, but erasers are able to pick those flakes up from off the paper fibers because the rubber of an eraser is stickier material than the paper fibers and the flakes of pencil lead find their new home on the eraser.

Boasting a near-magical capability, erasers may surprise you for how long they’ve been around. While rubber erasers have only been in production for the last 250 years (roughly) other means of erasing have been around since ancient times. Erasers were not originally made of rubber, but instead of a food that’s probably in your house right now—BREAD!

But unless you’re looking for a snack while you’re undoing some mistakes, rubber erasers are definitely the way to go.

Certain trees excrete rubber to discourage insects from making a feast out of them. This excretion was discovered back in 1770 by a man named Joseph Priestley who noted that a specific type of ‘vegetable gum’ had a great ability to ‘rub out’ pencil marks.

This ‘rubbing gum’ eventually developed the name rubber, so erasers spawned our name for this material. The word ‘eraser’, however, is really only common in the US and Canada. Almost anywhere else you go, people call them ‘rubbers’. Make sure to appreciate the magical abilities of erasers today, and, as always, thanks for reading.

- John

Hey, Campers!

We find celebrities who were once summer campers like yourselves all the time here at Everything Summer Camp because there were so many of them who went to camp. Some of them went on to become famous people.

There are musicians, athletes, actors and actresses, as well as all kinds of celebrities who were once summer campers! Did you know that Galadriel Stineman was once a summer camper too? Though you may know her better as Gwen Tennyson from the action movie, ‘Ben 10: Alien Swarm’.

Yes, Galadriel is an alum of the North Central 4-H Camp in Carlisle, Kentucky. She spent some of her best summer days a couple hours from her home in Cincinnati. Running across 350 acres of rolling hills and wooded campgrounds just off of Lake Carnico, there she learned great lessons about community life and independence.

She attended Newport Central High School in Kentucky back in 2002 where she developed her interests in cheerleading, dancing, and horseback riding. She was involved in the drama club back then, though she never played a starring role in the school plays. After completing high school, she went on to attend the Northern Kentucky University. She graduated in 2007.

Her debut role came in 2009 as a dancer in the remake of ‘Fame’. But her breakthrough didn’t come until later that same year when the Cartoon Network animated series ‘Ben 10’ announced its third film release. She landed the role of Gwen Tennyson.

Galadriel is only in the beginning stages of her career, but she’s already making a great name for herself and keeps on going! She’s appeared as a recurring character a dozen times on the family sitcom ‘The Middle’ playing Cassidy Finch.

Summer camp certainly helped Galadriel realize her dreams. Where will your dreams lead you? You can get an idea at summer camp. As, always, thanks for reading!

- John