Hey, Camp Fans!

No matter how many different items of camping gear we carry, here at Everything Summer Camp, our pride and joy will always be our C&N Footlockers. Our big, strong, durable trunks, unfortunately, may not always be what you’re looking for to send your kid off to camp with—it’s understandable. Our camp trunks are large, and sometimes, you might not have a place to go with it after camp is over.

Well, we’ve already thought of that. It’s the reason why we offer our amazing Pop Up Soft Trunk™ duffel bags. Once summer camp comes to an end, Pop Up Soft Trunk™ can be collapsed to lie it flat for easy storage underneath a bed or tucked away in a closet!

This summer you can take this soft footlocker that’s got plenty of pockets to camp with you. The Pop Up Soft Trunk™ is just what you’ll need to move your camp gear with absolute convenience and ease! Rolling on smooth inline skate wheels, the Pop Up Soft Trunk™ is the best soft trunk for you at summer camp!

It may not be a C&N Footlocker, but you can certainly live out of this soft trunk with comparable comfort for the duration of your camp stay. This wire-framed Pop Up Soft Trunk™ is built to last. It maintains its traditional camp trunk shape even after you empty its contents. The frame is really what separates the Pop Up Soft Trunk™ from other ordinary duffel bags.

And now you can personalize your Pop Up Soft Trunk™ with a set of customizable name patches. You can choose your camp logo (if available) or icon, background color, and text. The Pop Up Soft Trunk™ can accommodate two small patches, one on the front and one on the top. This Patch Set includes both patches. Thanks for reading, Campers! Till next time!

Hey, Camp Preppers!

At Everything Summer Camp we like to make things as convenient as possible for you. We like to think we do a pretty good job at that. Well, now when you’re purchasing your camp trunk, duffel bags, or any other camping gear from us it’s even easier than it was before!

Today I want to tell you about a new payment method you can use to shop on our Web site. It’s called Bill Me Later. It’s a PayPal service. Secure, instant, and reusable, Bill Me Later is a credit line that lets you make a purchase on our Web site today and pay for it later. It’s perfectly safe and you don’t need to carry another plastic card around with you in order to use it.

Thousands of online stores use Bill Me Later as a payment option. All you have to do is enter your date of birth and the last four digits of your Social Security number, then accept the terms. Bill Me Later is subject to credit approval. Your approval should take just seconds. After that, just set Bill Me Later as the preferred method of payment and you’ll be through PayPal checkout in no time.

To get Bill Me Later yourself is incredibly easy! All you have to do is log into PayPal.com and apply for an account with Bill Me Later. It should only take a few seconds. It’s that easy!

After you make your purchase using Bill Me Later as your payment method, you’ll get a welcome email. Then some time around ten to fourteen days after we ship your order, you’ll get a billing statement in the mail (or by email if your opened your account through PayPal or eBay).

If you need to see when payments are due you can easily log in to PayPal.com to look at your purchases. Also, it’s wise to link your PayPal and Bill Me Later accounts. Till next time, Camp Fans!

Hey, Summer Camp Fans!

We spend so much time on these blog posts talking about the great companies that we work with here at Everything Summer Camp—bragging for them, praising them, expressing our gratitude to be working with them. But once in a while, I want to spend some time talking about our own company.

So, you know what’s great about Everything Summer Camp? Everything—of course. However, out of all the great things about us, one notable perk to being a customer of ours is the Lifetime Free Repair Warranty we have on all of our C&N Footlockers. That means we’ll repair any one of your damaged footlockers for you, for free—guaranteed for life. You are responsible for the shipping costs and we are responsible for repairing your footlocker. The only thing not covered is cosmetic damage.

Sound good? It gets better than that! When I say we’ll repair any damaged footlocker for free, for life, you should realize that when we manufacture our footlockers, we intend for them to stand up to a lot. That’s why we say we stand behind and on top of them. Because the cute camp trunks that we construct over here are in reality big, bad strongboxes. These trunks are built solid—no doubt.

So, that’s a pretty amazing deal, right? Well, hang on—it gets even better than that. Check it out—90% of the time there won’t be any shipping involved! No repackaging, mailing, or any hassle because almost all of the parts on our trunks can be repaired by you, in your home using nothing but a Phillips screwdriver! We will send you the necessary parts and instructions for free.

When you purchase a C&N Footlocker we want you to know that you’re covered – for life. That’s just one of the many great things about us at Everything Summer Camp!

Hey there, Camp Enthusiasts!

It’s my absolute pleasure to tell you about one of the amazing companies with whom we here at Everything Summer Camp have the absolute pleasure of doing business. At twenty-six years old, some might consider Everything Summer Camp a young company. But that’s nothing compared to our friends over at bobble.

If we’re young, then bobble’s a baby. It was only three years ago that they got started. And since 2010, bobble’s retail network has grown with ferocity! You can find a bobble water bottle in more than 35,000 stores across each and every one of the United States. They’re in nearly thirty-five countries spanning five continents! In only three years, bobble has sold millions of water bottles the world over!

That’s quite a feat.

The good folks that work at bobble are like-minded, creative individuals with a love for design and the planet. Their reusable, filtered water bottles both change people’s drinking habits for the better and help to remove millions upon millions of discarded, single-serve, plastic water bottles from our planet.

bobble has given the world a sustainable, reusable, portable, filtered water bottle. bobble makes a good point that tap water, unfortunately of wavering quality, has become a second-rate source of water despite the fact that it’s free and widely available. The smart design of a portable, filtered bobble water bottle is you can still use tap as a source of water without concerning over the water’s purity!

Single-serve plastic water bottles all sell nothing but the concept of pure water. But you don’t know that bottled water is really any purer than the tap that comes out of your faucet! That’s why the filter is kind of ingenious! After achieving so much in their first three years, you might wonder to yourself, what else can they do?

To answer the question in their own words, “We’ve only begun. We’re peering around every corner, at each item in our everyday life, and asking ourselves, can we do better?…More often than not, the answer is yes.”

Thanks for reading, Camp Fans! Till next time.

- John

How to Ensure Success by Taking Care of Your Own Stress

It’s normal to be anxious about how your son or daughter will do at camp. Yes. That’s right. So relax. It’s normal. And if you’ve read my blogs on homesickness prevention and followed my advice, then chances are your child will thrive at camp. (Behind on your prep? No time to read more? Check out this anti-homesickness DVD: EverythingSummerCamp.com.)

I know you. You’re still worried. Will Sam make friends? Will Pat pass his swim check? Will Robin change his underwear? Will Francis take his medication? I’m a parent, too. I know what it’s like to fret about your kiddo’s future. I also know that fretting openly generally ramps up my kids’ angst.

If you’d perused clinical psychology journals in the late 1990’s, you’d have read Lisa Capps’s research on anxiety transmission from parent to child. Her studies showed that when parents spoke nervously to their elementary school children about things that could go wrong on the walk to and from school, the kids developed school phobias of varying intensity. Worry, as it turns out, can be contagious.

The key for parents who may be worrying about what might go wrong at camp (and that’s all of you reading this) is to share those concerns with another adult. Your son or daughter needs to hear a consistently positive message of confidence and optimism, such as: “You’ll love camp” and “I know you’ll do great” and “It’s gonna be a terrific experience” and “I can’t wait to hear about your new friends and the new things you try.”

With your spouse, partner, colleague or best friend, you can say, “I won’t sleep soundly until I get his first letter” or “I’ll be checking the camp’s website every hour” or “I don’t know what I’ll do without him” or “I’m not ready for her to go away this year…I should have waited until next summer.” But beware of sharing those thoughts—and other nervous notions—with your child. You’ll create worry where there wasn’t any.

If I’ve convinced you to keep your public pronouncements positive, I’m pleased. But now you’re wondering, “What if—after all I’ve done to keep my concerns among trusted peers—it’s actually my child who rings the alarm bells?” I’ve already told you the answer: Express confidence, optimism and positivity. The trick is being ready to respond.

Almost every child headed to summer camp for the first time will ask, “What if I feel homesick?” Well-intentioned parents will sometimes make the monumental mistake of saying, “If you feel homesick, I’ll come and get you.” But think about the subtext of that remark. What you’re really saying is, “I have so little confidence in your ability to cope with this normal feeling, that I think the only solution is for me to come and rescue you.”

That shaky message is not what any youngster needs to hear, directly or indirectly. So be ready with: “There are many things you love about home, and I’m sure you’ll miss some of them. You’ll probably be having so much fun, that you’ll barely notice any homesick feelings. But if anything starts to bother you, I’m sure you’ll know what to do. And remember, your counselor or cabin leader is also there to help.”

Still have a few unanswered questions? You’ll feel better if you had the answers. So now is the time to read everything the camp has sent you. And check out the website one more times. Then call the camp director if there are still lingering pre-season queries. Remember, information is the best antidote to your own anxiety. And when that’s under control, your child will sense your calm. That, too, is contagious.

Enjoy the summer!