I’m going to sleepover camp in about 2 weeks – 15 days from today to be exact. I’m really excited! My mom went to the same camp and now I’m going to that exact camp. I think my parents are sad that I’m going to be gone for a while.

On Sunday I got to go up to the camp for a special day trip! It’s about 3 and half hours away from home. It was a great day! It was so fun!

I have been at the camp before for an alumni weekend with my parents and I got to see the cabins – they had bunk beds. The cabins are painted really pretty. I hope I get to sleep at the top of the bunk bed because I have never slept at the top before. Something really cool is that when you sleep in a cabin you write your name and the year on the wall. The walls are all covered with names of campers from many years. I can’t wait to add my name to the walls of my cabin.

When I got on the bus to go to camp I sat beside a nice girl named Robyn. When we arrived at camp all the counselors were waving at us! When we got off the bus we were put us in two groups – blue and red. I was in group blue. We had to make up a cheer to show red how awesome we were! Our cheer was “We’re team blue and we’ll scare you, boo!” I loved that cheer so much!

Then the counsellors put us in 3 groups I was in group 2, we were going to do activities. The first activity group 2 did was dancing. That was fantastic! At camp there is dancing every Friday night so it was really cool to learn some of the dances. The second activity was sports. We played a really fun game and we also played soccer. I think I was great at that! After that activity we did art where we made a beautiful dream catcher. It takes your bad dreams away and replaces it with good ones. I loved making them!

After that we had lunch, we had stir fry! That was super good!

After lunch we went to the lake and we went tubing and swimming. We first went on a boat and went tubing and then we jumped in the lake. The water was so warm!

That’s when we had dinner. We had burritos! That was so good. We had to go home right after dinner. I knew that I was really going to miss camp – the people, swimming, the cheers. Everything. But I’m going to go back soon . I’ll be there again in 2 weeks and this time I’m going to stay there for 12 days.

I was really happy to learn about all of the different things that my camp is doing to be eco-friendly:

• They don’t use paper towel in the bathrooms so there is less waste.
• Every morning a group of campers clean up the beach.
• They take pride in the beauty of camp and use what is available in their natural surroundings.
• In arts and crafts the dream catcher we made was made from sticks.
• Older campers are making a farm to grow fruits and vegetables.
• After a meal table scraps are collected and given a local farmer to feed his pigs.
• They buy as much food from local farmers as they can (which is a lot to feed about 200 people.)
• They ask us to bring only biodegradable shampoo, conditioner and soap.
• We are asked not to bring bottled water but use reusable water bottles.

I just can’t wait to go to camp for the first time! But I should tell you, I’m also really worried that I’ll feel homesick and miss my family. Can you give me some advice? If you have advice or suggestions for me, I would love to hear what worked for you or your kids.