MAC had a full day of outdoors. Here are some shots that were taken at “Wide World of Animals” at the National Zoo in Washington:

When everyone returned to campus, they had a theme dinner in lower Ford. There were some pretty silly outfits.

And all the senior boys and counselors got together to take some “bro shots”:

Then the campers all headed off to Hurricane and Tornado prep for their final songs and cheers tomorrow. The night ended with a movie (Swiss Family Robinson) in the Burgin Center. What fun!

The JAC campers spent the morning at an alpaca farm! I joined them and it was awesome. We learned all about how alpacas live and got the chance to feed them hay. Yay!

Camp is coming to a close…only two days left…but they’re probably the most adventure-packed of them all! The kids are in for some real excitement. More updates to come tomorrow!

zoe

I also stopped by wizard training where they were drawing their own hybrid magical creature. Here’s a clip of one of the campers describing his creation:

Then, this evening, everyone played Capture the Counselor!!! This is a pretty important game at Mercersburg… the counselors hide in trees, bushes, and other nooks and crannys around campus and the campers run around looking for them. Once the counselors are found and tagged, they are then dragged off to jail. Each counselor is worth a certain number of points and whichever team (the Hurricanes or the Tornadoes) finds the most counselors wins! Some of the counselors put up a good fight though…

I also stopped some campers while they were searching and got some group shots:

All in all, it was an awesome day for the MAC-sters. And I have to say that I’m pretty excited for tomorrow’s adventures…The campers don’t know what’s in store for them yet but they find out I’m sure they’ll be thrilled!!

In other news, I stopped by the ESL classrooms this afternoon to find them hard at work:

And after meeting up with ESL, I photographed JAC as they did a hockey/tennis rotation AND some abstract painting:

The kids really are having a lot of fun. They are getting close with each other and with the counselors and are trying lots of new activities every day. It’s exciting to see everyone getting along and pushing themselves to try new things!

-Zoe

Then, after lunch, everyone had enrichments. I followed the digital photography class around as they took portraits of each other. I took these polaroids of the group:

I also stopped by “The Craft of Art” where they were painting picture frames and masks:

And I went to “Wizard Training” just in time to see a few incredible card tricks:

Derek covered “Joy of Cooking” where they were making their own personalized pizzas:

And ”Edible Experiments” where they were making ice cream:

And “Center Stage” where the campers were having a blast planning their end-of-camp skit:

What a great afternoon!

For dinner, the kids got to have a cookout on the Ford Patio. After they ate, they played games like four square, frisbee and pretzle pie (a game with a ball that’s basically an excuse for everyone to get sprayed with the hose!)

But these games weren’t even the most exciting part of the night. Tonight is the camp out! The kids sleep in tents on campus. Before heading off to bed, everyone walked over to the astronomy shed and looked at Saturn through a huge telescope! What a treat! Derek is going to upload these pictures and create a stop motion video…he got some pretty awesome shots of the kids as they saw the second largest planet.

That’s all for tonight! It’s been a busy day and we’re all ready for a good nights sleep. More updates to come tomorrow.

zoe

Here is the Climbing Speicialist, Brian, helping a camper get ready to scale the wall:

MAC also had a lot of adventures today. This morning, the Hurricanes and Tornadoes got dressed up in their best red and blue gear to battle each other in the Camp Wars. They played basketball, volleyball, kickball and ultimate frisbee. Check out the fun!

After lunch, the campers headed out to Cowan’s Gap to cool off in the lake:

It was an awesome end to another incredible week at Mercersburg Summer!

Today was such a great day for both MAC and TAC. First thing this morning, the MAC’s met on the track for the Marathon. There were all sorts of unusual challenges like bobbing for apples, a watermelon eating contest, wheelbarrow racing, toilet paper wrapping and even oreo-face-stick-slide-eating. (Yeah, it was pretty crazy.)

After lunch, they started Water Wars. They played “drip drip drop” (the equivalent of duck duck goose but with dumping pitchers of water on people’s heads)

Then they had fun in some green pudding slime and on the slip n’ slide:

Later in the evening, I stopped by for the TAC affirmation circle and final campfire. The girls had some really nice things to say to each other and afterwards they cut the yarn and made bracelets:

The final campfire was really fun. The Hurricanes and Tornadoes did their final cheers and the campers sang the campfire songs for the last time. : (

Zoe

Then after lunch I headed to Rutledge Hall to photograph some ESL classtime. In the first class, the kids were building towers out of paper. The tallest won! (But then they had to describe the structure of their tower in detailed English
…It was pretty tricky but looked like a lot of fun)

In the next classroom the kids were working on subject-verb agreements in groups. Check it out:

In the afternoon the ESL campers had  some hard earned free time. They could choose to swim in the pool or play basketball in the gym:

For dinner I met up with the MAC campers. They were having a cookout on the Ford Patio. Tim cooked all the burgers and hotdogs. Mmmh:

After dinner, the excitement really started. The kids got the chance to play some games and cool off under the hose!

All in all, it was another awesome day at Mercersburg. Tomorrow is the last full day of camp, and I bet the kids are in for some  unexpected treats.

Zoe

I wonder where that saying came from?

Oh! Anyway, blogness. The MAC campers had all kinds of fun in Enrichments this morning. They made SLIME, painted and did magic tricks, among other things! You’d probably like to see some pictures… Fortunately, I have some. =]

We’ll start this thing off right: with SLIME.

It’s just water, glue and Borax with a little bit of food coloring, but in terms of Fun to Effort, it’s off the scale.

In my opinion, it’s kind of sad that something that looks so cool and is so fun to play with is not edible. Cool things should be edible. Like lobsters. =]

Yup. SLIME:

Yup, it’s great. It sticks, it stretches, it bounces, it jiggles, and it washes out of clothes rather easily. You just can’t beat it. =]
Next, we had painting. Painting clay, to be exact. These campers made the clay figures in previous Enrichments, and today they colorized them. =]

I know it’s a bit of a strange angle, but the figure displayed above is definitely a dog. A pretty good dog, too, though it’s hard to tell in this shot. Just sayin’. =]

Okay, another session. The following are from the Wizard Training Enrichment. Campers learned card tricks…

And had a brief wizard duel!

That was ended pretty quickly, though. There was a magical mixup right after these pictures were taken. The first duelist (top picture) turned into an albino ocelot, and the second (bottom picture) shrank to roughly half his usual size.

Both duelists took the situation very well, and we had them changed back within the hour. Now if we could just get the first camper to stop chasing squirrels…

We hope to try again in a few days, hopefully with better results.

One day, I hope to get one of the aspiring wizards to turn my slime into a lobster. Now THAT would be magical! =]

-Derek

Derek caught a fish and showed it off to the kids:

Check out more of the fun footage on youtube:

Zoe

Today, Derek and I followed the TAC’s around for a few hours to check out their exciting enrichments. I started at “Iron Chef” where the kids made their own specialty pizzas and cooked them in the Ford Dining Hall with the help of Sarah Jean:

They took some funny photos when they were waiting for the food to be ready:

I also visited the “Art Attack” classroom where Rachael and the kids were working with clay:

They showed off their cool tie dye t-shirts that they made earlier in the week:

Derek caught some great action at the “Mad Science Lab”:

“The Laugh Factory”:

And the “Adventure Camp Record Room”:

All the classes looked like a lot of fun! After hanging out with the teens, I stopped by Tippets Beach to photograph the ESL campers having a blast on the slip n’ slide. Check out the fun below:

For dinner, I met up with the MAC juniors on the ford patio for a delicious cook out.

Some of the boys played four square while they waited for the food:

It was a jam-packed day and we can’t believe how quickly time is flying by! (There are only three full days of MAC and TAC session two left)   : (   But we know that the campers have tons of fun-filled adventures ahead before they go!!

Zoe

Dinner was another exciting event. The kids had a theme dinner on the Ford Patio (some of the campers were dressed as barbies, and others as pirates.)

 The counselors had a big surprise in store after everyone finished eating. Cassie, Kip and Elena showed up on a pirate ship! (Well..technically it was a golf cart…) BUT they did a great job transforming it into something awesome and piratey!

Then the campers headed off to practice their Hurricane and Tornado songs and cheers. The evening ended with movie night in the Burgin Center! The campers got to continue the pirate theme with the movie “Hook.” They got all bundled up with their sleeping bags, pillows, and stuffed animals. What a great end to the weekend!