It's Counselor Staff Training! They're All Finally Here!

After a whole a long,

Cold, fall-winter-and-spring without them...

Summer Camp is finally Summer Camp again...

Because the counselors are here for Staff Training!

(We don't just greet them with tree cookies, but with regular cookies too.)

Yes!

At long last...

The whole team...

Has assembled...

From all over the globe...

And is finally here...

All together...

At 4-H Camp.

Returning counselors who haven't seen each other in a while hug!

Brand-new counselors who've never seen each other before hug!

Old friends laugh!

New friends laugh!

Because the new and the old...

Are coming together...

To start something that's never quite happened before...

 

As we work together...

To begin creating something special...

For the Summer of 2018.

And how do you start something...

As immense...

And unconquerable... 

As a whole summer season?

Easy!

Piece of cake!

The same way we start anything at Camp!

With name games,

Of course.

It all...

Always...

Starts with some name games.

And then,

Immediately after that, we play MORE name games...

And pretend to be barnyard animals.

And then we keep... 

Pretending to be barn yard animals...

Until we ALL know each others names and are a...

United, Smiling...

Smooth Functioning...

Summer Camp team.

It literally works everytime.

And how do we start to END a day that starts a summer?

Why, the same way...

We start to end any day at Summer Camp.

With some peaceful time on Vespers Island...

That includes just a little music... 

And just a little life-lessoning.

And then we're off! 

Off to face the rest of the evening...

And the rest of the summer...

Taking the first trip back across Vesper's Bridge of 2018...

And taking the first steps of their not-so-long journey...

Back to the Dining Hall Porch...

As well as the first steps...

Of the pretty massive journey...

That spending a summer...

Living together in the woods...

As a counselor at 4-H Camp...

Always seems to turn out to be.