Hello, hello! It’s Humming Bird here, with updates on a fabulous Cabin Night last night!

Every cabin enjoyed some stellar quality time together, with activities ranging from campfire s’mores to making glass beads!

Loons made beautiful finger painted art in the backyard! LCH enjoyed a classic twist on time camp favorite by putting s’mores in ice cream cones, while Avalon made a painty slip and slide! Gimme Shelter performed an initiation ceremony, consistent with their Birds of Prey theme, and Bermuda Triangle did an egg drop from the treehouse! Chateau Fiasco had a surprise movie night in the farmhouse, and French Quarter made pizzas in our beautiful outdoor pizza oven, with help from Carmi! Forbidden Planet took a blind hike, ending in some glass bead-making and s’mores! Wombles embraced their super hero theme by making capes! Down Under went on a scavenger hunt, ending with s’mores, and Paquatahnee enjoyed the tipi zipline! Shangri-La did tye dye and batik in the Animal House, and Valhalla enjoyed campfire songs and s’mores around a cozy fire! Wabanaki made s’mores and a quilt, and the Camelot secret agents went on Mission 001– an obstacle course that led to– you guessed it!– s’mores! Taj Mahal had a goddess initiation with a fire and s’mores! Halley’s Comet played team-building games, the Fiddler’s Green superheroes made capes, masks and shields, to protect our beautiful camp, and Deer Meadows went rock climbing in Camden! We are just so excited about Cabin Night that we need all of the exclamation points!!!!!!!!

As you can see, last night was pretty fun here at camp! But the fun doesn’t stop there! Today is Aloha Tuesday! “What’s Aloha Tuesday,” you ask?? Why, Aloha Tuesday is the best day of the week! We wear Hawaiian-themed shirts and other apparel that we feel embodies the spirit of Aloha, and at evening meeting, campers and counselors alike play the ukulele and marvel at the Aloha spirit that is ever present here at Hidden Valley! Coinciding with Aloha Tuesday is No Mail, No Meal! Campers use letters and postcards home as a ticket in to dinner tonight. But never fear, if any camper doesn’t have a letter or postcard already written, counselors are stationed at the dining hall doors with blank paper and pens so everyone can eat! Parents, be on the lookout for updates from your happy campers!

After a delicious dinner tonight, we have a rolicking Meg’s Rodeo! Counselors will be stationed around Deer Meadows field, running different events for campers to participate in! Of course we’ll have old fan favorites like Blind Llama Sculpting (clay pictionary) and the Laugh Sheriff– I hear he’s pretty hard to crack this year! But there will also be some new classics, like the Tissue Box Wiggle, in which campers tie a tissue box of ping pong balls to their backs and must wiggle the ping pong balls out of the box, with no hands!

We are so excited about all of the fun things coming up for us here on this beautiful, sunny Tuesday, and can’t wait to show you all the pictures of our Rodeo!! Look out for them tomorrow!

Aloha!
Humming Bird

Goodmorning, folks! Olive Oyl here with your first day of classes news!

We had a lovely Pine Grove last night, held in the Rec Hall due to the schvitz, featuring lots of beautiful music, goofy stories, and old camp traditions. We gathered in the Front Yard for a procession to the Rec Halll, in a similar way as we do when we walk up Tipi Hill, which served as time to reflect in silence as we think about the amazing summer that lies ahead. We heard from most cabins on camp, with Valhalla doing the Pickle story, Wombles leading us in the Princess Pat, Loons with the Baby Shark song, and French Quarter doing the LL Bean song. We had Shangri-La with a twist on the Hermie the Worm story featuring a camper playing Saxophone and another playing the part of Hermie in a sleeping bag. Fiddler’s Green created an instant camp classic with the Burrito chant and LCH led us in the Pizza Man, an old camp favorite. We also had plenty of sing-a-longs, with Wabanaki leading Wagon Wheel, Taj with Build Me Up Buttercup, and Meg and Peter leading us in the round “Oh How Lovely Is the Evening.” It was a wonderful night full of time for reflection, looking towards the future, and sharing in camp traditions new and old.

After a day of schvitz, it was amazing to wake up this morning with some sunshine for our first day of classes! We had a super yummy breakfast of egg bar, sausages, fresh fruit, cereal and toast. After fueling up for the day, we gathered in the backyard for our first official camp meeting! We met all of the special characters for this summer, the Clean Queen who informs us about laundry schedules, the Snack-tronaut who helps us out with snack fifth period, and we’ll soon be meeting the Birthday Prom Queen! We also heard from Gimme Shelter with the Bird Fact of the Day, and of course Taj with Thought du Jour and Chateau Fiasco with the Spirit Animal of the Day!

Campers are currently in their first period classes, doing anything from Alpaca care to Ukulele. We’ll have a busy day of our new classes, join together for lunch, then have a much-deserved rest period, then off to fourth period and interest groups. This evening we’ll have Cabin Night, where cabins get a chance to bond, get to know one another and their counselors, and do something fun! More info and photos on cabin activities to come tomorrow. For now, check out some photos of the first day of classes and our adorable camp animals!

With love,

Olive

 

Salutations, from a fun-filled orientation day at Hidden Valley! This is Humming Bird reporting on a schvitzy day here at camp– it never rains at Hidden Valley, it’s only a heavy schvitz! Allow me to give an overview of how orientation day works for us!

We begin with a beautiful breakfast, provided to us by our incredible dining hall staff. We celebrated this Bagel Sunday with– believe it or not– bagels! We also chowed down on some soft boiled eggs, and we got a special treat of hot chocolate, provided to all inhabitants of our community!

After a hearty breakfast we continue on to Morning Meeting, where Meg and Tom play a beautiful morning tune on their dulcimers– what a relaxing treat for all of us! Some campers will even make their own dulcimers at camp!

From youngest cabins to oldest, campers are signing up for classes to take these next two weeks, in the fire-heated red barn. From rock band to soccer, to glass beads and more, we are all ready and ecstatic to begin our classes tomorrow!

Every camper has their photos taken in the Hilton Dance Studio– as opposed to our sunny day spot, right in front of the Health Lodge (OUCH!). As soon as the camera goes “Click!” campers are whisked away to the next-door Rec Hall, where our seasoned nursing staff check every head on camp for Ookoos (lice).

Even the Dining Hall has been able to adapt to the weather! Lunch today was a comforting meal fit for the schvitzy day, of mac ‘n cheese (pictured below), chicken, and salad, with delicious cookies for dessert. Now that we’ve all eaten, we head to rest period to discuss our cabins’ rules, ensuring all new residents of the cabins are in agreement. All fed and rested, our campers now have enough energy to take their swim evaluations!

Rather than preparing for swim evals in the Foothills Dance Studio, campers are gathered in the PD barn (an HVC first!), where a cozy fire is burning. Seated around the fire, campers are learning about our three levels of swimming ability– which determine what areas of the pool and lake campers can swim in, and which waterfront classes a camper can take, like windsurfing, boating, or just plain swimming! Then campers jump into the pool– always supervised by our trained lifeguards, of course!– and flip their fins around the water.

After this quick dip in the pool, campers return to their cabins for more bonding, unpacking and showering– and some warming up! We will enjoy another scrumptious meal with our cabin groups at dinnertime, and then head to the rec hall for a beautiful Opening Pine Grove Ceremony.

What’s that you say? What’s Pine Grove? I’ll tell you! At the beginning of each session, we gather together as a camp community around a beautiful campfire. Each cabin has the opportunity to share a silly story, a classic camp song, a pensive poem, or anything, really! Personally, I’m hoping to hear about the Princess Pat and her Rickadandoo tonight!

We’ll all get to bed early tonight, so we’re well rested for our first day of classes tomorrow!! Look out for more updates to come!

Toodaloo!

Humming Bird

P.S. Our teen program, Community, is going swimmingly! Yesterday, when they weren’t moving in to Blodgett, the beautiful off-the-grid house where the program is based, the campers bound their own journals, wrote in their freshly bound journals, and got to know each other a bit better! Today, they cooked the first of many Community breakfasts (doesn’t it look yummy?), got oriented to camp, and prepared for pine grove! Their first community service project starts tomorrow, and they couldn’t be more pumped!

Hello, one and all! Olive Oyl here with a late night update for you folks at home!

It was an exciting afternoon of arrivals, with our three New York buses plus various airport and car-traveling campers trickling into camp. There were many beautiful moments of joyous reunions (featuring hugs and yelps) and time to catch up after the long year spent apart. Once all of our cabins were complete, we gathered in the backyard for our very first evening meeting! We heard the first “Hey, you guys!” of the summer, met our fabulous PD team, and learned all about the dinner groups for the summer (they’re different parts of the brain! so cool!). We then ate a delicious meal of fried chicken, potatoes, green beans, salad, and carrot cake for dessert. Yum!

This evening was opening night skits, where a wacky group of aliens looking to start a camp led us through all the class offerings at Hidden Valley. Tomorrow campers will have a chance to sign up for classes ranging from Tea Party cooking to Geocaching. We’ll also be doing swim evaluations, chatting with the nurses, and getting to know our counselors and cabin-mates. We can’t wait to get this summer started!

Be sure to check out lots of awesome photos!

Goodnight,

Olive