A Week at Camp: Rebecca's Last Full Day.

I'm definitely feeling that this is my last full day here at camp. My hair was pretty ugh-inducing when I woke up this morning. I didn't pack my straightener, and I packed shampoo, but I haven't washed my hair since I've been here! Gross, I know, but I'm just so tired at the end of each day that I barely manage to put on my PJs and fall into bed. I think everyone gets a little grungy and sweaty-looking looking at camp, so hopefully no one notices me. But just to make things worse, I seem to have lost my ponytail elastic and I can't find another, so I'm stuck wearing my nasty hair down! Ugh!

The camp schedule is different on Shabbat, and it kept throwing me off all day. Breakfast was at 9, instead of 8, and it was just cold cereal with a side of cartoons (yes, I've enjoyed delicious hot breakfasts every day here, even if they are obscenely early, it's worth it for pancakes, sausages, French toast, etc. - Rebecca is getting spoiled!). Lunch was at 12, instead of 1, and I would've missed it completely if a counselor hadn't told me just in time!

In celebration of Shabbat, they opened the blob and the waterslides on the lake!
Needless to say, the kids were pretty thrilled. :)

In addition to celebrating Shabbat, two campers are celebrating their bar and bat mitzvahs today. During lunch, the mitzvah boy and girl were treated to a traditional Jewish hora. Some strong male counselors lifted them up on chairs, and everyone else danced around in a circle, clapping their hands. I'd seen horas on TV before but never in real life, so I really enjoyed it! For some reason, the theme for dinner was "Western Night." A lot of people wore cowboy gear, we all ate very messy ribs, and country music played. I admit, I got pretty tired of Western Night when the campers started screaming college cheers (LSU and Bama passions were running high) and singing along with "Cotton-Eyed Joe," which made me flash right back to high school. Ugh. Fortunately, after dinner, we had havdalah services sitting in a big circle on the lawn beside the lake, and the music there was much better.

Shavuah tov, may you have a good week
May you find the happiness you seek
Shavuah tov, a week of peace
May gladness reign and joy increase

One of the staff told me that they love hosting bar and bat mitzvahs here because it's an excuse to throw a party. And what a party they threw! After havdalah services, the counselors set up a little carnival on the lawn and under the breezeway. There were all sorts of different games, face-painting, palm-reading, a bounce house for the smaller kids, and a concession stand giving away popcorn and sno-cones. Somehow, Rebecca ended up helping trying to help work the sno-cone machine for part of the evening. I didn't mind... until I realized that everyone else at the sno-cone stand was Israeli! They kept giving each other directions on how to work the machine in Hebrew (speaking French has never felt so useless!) and Rebecca was totally lost until one of them dumped some crushed ice in the machine, turned to me, and said, "This is what snow looks like! In Israel!" Haha. But I got free of that soon, and then I just wandered around enjoying the carnival and stuffing my face. I ate 2 sno-cones and 4 bags of popcorn! By then, it was really too dark for photos, but I had to take one of this ride/game thing that I thought was SO bizarre:


The kids (here, the bar mitzvah boy) put on a velcro suit, fling themselves at this bouncy velcro wall, and try to stick themselves to it. How weird is that? They didn't have these things when I was a kid!

It was a great, fun way to end my last full day at camp -- and once again, I'm totally exhausted!