Hey, Camp Fans!

While we here at Everything Summer Camp make all of our personalized products right here in our own, local facility, it does not happen at our Main Building. We have two facilities which are very close to each other. Just a few blocks away and over the railroad tracks is our second building—the print shop.

You may recall me introducing you to Nate, the manager of our print shop, in one of our posts past. About a year ago I talked a little bit about him and a lot of what he does around the workplace. Today, however, I want to scratch a little more off the surface to give you a better picture of what makes Nate tick.

Well, Nate was born and raised in Chippewa Falls where he continues to live currently. A Chippewian(?) his entire life, Nate’s only recently come close to ‘living’ in another town as he stayed in Bloomer while undertaking the construction of his new house himself!

Nate’s wife Katie and their two boys Eli and Alex (two and six) as well as Ella, their chocolate Lab/Doberman, patiently resided in Bloomer for the time being while Nate would spend some nights with them in Bloomer and the rest of his nights in a camper that he purchased for sleeping at the construction site.

His family was extremely excited to enter their new castle this year around the end of January.

And now that Nate can actually sleep inside his house, he plans on putting the camper to good use for camping trips with his family. He has fond memories from when he was younger of his family’s annual fishing trips that they’d take at Whitefish Lake in Canada. He’d like to recreate a camping tradition with his family now.

Thanks for reading, Camp Fans!

- John

Hey, Camp Preppers!

One of the key decisions you and your camper will have to make about camp is determining what the length of the camp stay should be. This part of your summer camp preparation is extremely important. When a camp stay gets to be too long for a child, homesickness is the inevitable response.

So how do you know what the right length of time is for your camper’s camp stay? The age of your camper is always a good place to start. Most overnight camps won’t take campers unless they’re at least seven or eight years old.

Typically, the younger the child is, the shorter the camp stay should be. However, this isn’t always the case as every kid is different. Some seven-year-olds could go all summer away from home while some preteens may struggle with a two-week stay.

Another thing to take into account besides age is your camper’s experience in being away from home and how they seem to handle it. You can gauge this with sleepovers your kid has at a friend’s house or a weekend stay with a relative. Try talking to your kid after stays like these about any feelings of homesickness that they had and let them know that it’s normal to miss being away from home.

It’s always helpful to children when you can give them a concrete idea of how long their camp stay actually is. Letting them know that a week-long camp stay would be like the family trip that you took last year to visit Uncle Max is an excellent tactic to help your kid prepare for their time away.

Involving your camper in the decision about the length of their camp stay is also a smart way to decrease their feelings of homesickness during the time away. It’s imperative that a kid WANTS to stay the full length of their camp stay. If they feel forced to stay longer than what they are comfortable with, you are risking intense homesickness for your child.

When it comes down to it (especially when given a more ‘concrete’ idea of how long a certain period of time is) talking to your kid openly about it is the best route to take. Kids are usually pretty good at knowing how much time away they can take.

As always, thanks for reading.

- John

Hey, Camp Fans!

In the spirit of the approaching summer camp season, we can’t help ourselves but to have a little fun during the workday here at Everything Summer Camp. That’s why we’ve started this new series of Blog posts called Camp Libs. With a salute to the classic Mad Libs (found here at Everything Summer Camp), I thought I’d write my own little stories with a bunch of ________ ripe for the filling.

(plural noun)

I first went to Mark, Vice President of Everything Summer Camp, with the first ‘Camp Lib’ draft I wrote up. I had him fill in the blanks with the appropriate parts of speech (noun, verb, adjective, etc.) and so now I’ll share with you the result. You can write your own words down for the blanks as well if you like. Just use the following list of requested words and enjoy the ‘Camp Lib’ below!

Remember—a noun is a person, place, thing, or idea; a verb is an action word; and an adjective is a word that describes something.

• Verb ending in ‘ing’

• Adjective

• Plural noun

• Plural noun

• Verb ending in ‘ing’

• Verb ending in ‘ing’

• Noun

• A number larger than one

• Plural noun

• Plural noun

• Verb without ‘ing’

• Plural noun

• Plural noun

• Noun

• Noun

• Noun

• Plural noun

• Adjective

Here’s Mark’s Camp Lib:

Lots of kids enjoy mowing to camp every summer. What’s so darling about summer camp is that it’s a strong institution geared toward boogers and cucumbers. The traditional summer camp is all about a woodsy setting with days spent snowing, pooping, and sitting around a toenail.

But how did summer camp come to be? It’s a bit of an odd practice, isn’t it?—kids spending 522 weeks out in the potatoes away from their unicycles. After all, by definition, our society has, from the beginning, built houses, towns, and cities to wash itself from the wild kisses of nature.

So why do parents send their hamburgers away to camp? The answer is that, throughout the rug of the human race, we’ve developed a deep toothpick for Mother Nature. The more we grew away from the chicken wing, the more we missed it.

But now, thanks to summer camp, kids can acquire good values and healthy fur balls through the natural camp environment and spectacular cabin leaders.

Thanks for reading, Camp Fans!

- John

Hey, Campers!

Today’s blog post features Reese Witherspoon who, at one point, was a summer camper at Camp Monterey—a camp for girls in Tennessee. It wasn’t long after her experience at summer camp that she landed her first feature role as the female lead in the movie ‘The Man in the Moon’. She was only fifteen when she starred in it.

That same year she made her way onto television for the cable movie Wildflower. Appearing in roles here and there throughout the rest of the nineties, she hit a pivotal point for her career in 2001, playing the role of Elle Woods in Legally Blonde and then again two years later in Legally Blonde 2.

Reese has been in other box office hits such as Sweet Home Alabama, Twilight, and she won an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, BAFTA, and a Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role alongside Joaquin Phoenix for her portrayal of June Carter Cash in the biopic Walk the Line.

Reese has seen success since she turned seven when she was selected to be a fashion model for a florist’s commercial. This gave her the motivation to take acting lessons and eventually pursue her acting career.

She’s known to be expressively proud of her Southern upbringing that taught her responsibility, good manners, and “a sense of family.” She’s also known to be a method actor in her films. That means that she tries to act out her roles in her own everyday life—not just in front of the camera.

It’s easy to see that Reese is very passionate about her acting career. When she starred in the movie, Election, she may have played her character too well. After receiving a rank on the list of 100 Greatest Film Performances of All Time, she found it difficult to find work. She even commented about her struggle, “I think because the character I played was so extreme and sort of shrewish—people thought that was who I was.”

Several years ago, Reese started her own company called Hello Sunshine which has put out several acclaimed television series. She also produced the films Gone Girl and Where the Crawdads Sing which were both adapted from novels. Forbes Magazine listed her among the World's 100 Most Powerful Women in 2019 and 2021. Wildly successful, Reese Witherspoon is one of Hollywood’s timeless actresses.

Until next time, Campers!

Hey Camp Fans!

Check out today’s Throwback Thursday to get great information about co-shopping for your summer camp prep. Having your kid help out with shopping, packing, and general involvement in the preparations is certain to put a positive spin on their summer camp stay. ‘Throwback’ to April 24 of last year to learn from summer camp expert, Chris Thurber, easy ways you can involve your child in summer camp prepping.

- John