Tuesday 1st August

No way is August already here! We officially leave camp this month! How insane!

As our bunk won the superbunk clean up, i literally think that ALL day we... I mean the counsellrs just prayed for our ice cream from the cow lick as it was that hot! When the time finally came, our 7 campers, us 3 counselors and our 1 super CIT got in a camp mini bus, and our head counselor Naomi drove. I think the kids just wanted service to call their Mums haha, bless them.

I had a cookie dough and choc chip ice cream! It was delish!

The rest of the bunk then went to watch the rock shop concert, however, I watched the One Act plays. These are short 15 minute plays.

They were really good, one was based on a murder play within a play, the second was based on extremism and the last was about an astronaut!

Afterwards, I got ready to go bowling with the gang, it was a really good night with great company!

Wednesday 2nd August

Today was a very rainy day, you wouldn't believe we were in America haha!

A very average day at camp, I felt very exhausted to say the least haha.

In the evening I got to see Robbie play violin with his little junior lodger, it was so cute! Robbie has never played violin before but loves it so much that he ordered one from Walmart. I'm not entirely sure how he's getting that home, but thats another worry for another day haha.

Afterwards, we headed to canteen for pizza and ice cream, yay.

Thursday 3rd August

The shows are finally here!

Today was the last normal running day of session 3! How crazy, time has flown!

In the morning, I helped Robbie with the face painting for the Cats dress rehearsal.

Tonight, we went to see the show crazy for you. It was a middle camp show and was really quite funny. It was pretty much a tap dancing show too which was good, it took me back to my tap dancing days at Clairemaries.

In the evening Tye took Fran, Ciara and I to McDonalds in Hancock, and we sat in the staff room and watched the majority of White Chicks.

I also booked a hotel room near the Empire state for Robyn and I when we come back to Manhattan from Boston.

*Top Travelling Tip* If you catch booking.com at the right time during a sale, it is much cheaper per night to stay in a hotel near Times Square than it is to stay in the Hostels! The hostel is the best option to stay the night before you get picked up for camp, but not necessarily if you're staying for a few nights prior.

Friday 4th August

Today was the first official visiting day for the parents to see their children. It's always so great to see the childrens beaming faces when they see their parents for the first time in 3 weeks. It's also the day where as counselors, you can get quite homesick.

I spent the morning in art, however, I went to go see the circus show in the afternoon which was amazing! It was Peter Pan themed!

It literally gives you a lump in your throat, the children are so talented.

For the rest of the afternoon, I met parents and helped set up Nature Crafts for the art show.

Here is our finished Star Wars diarama! I'm pretty proud of it.

After the Art show, a very tired and hot Jade went to the Arena to help Robbie with the Cats makeup again. Everyone knows how much I love makeup here haha. I really enjoyed it and I wish I could do it more often.

Tonight, we wanted to go see Sugar in the Scott theatre, although it was standing room only so we ended up going to see Bullets over Broadway which is Abby's show. It was a funny show, and I never realised how much of a phenomenal singer Abby is.

The circus Firefly show was tonight, but one of my campers didn't want to go, and it was my duty night so I had to miss it again which was a shame. But hey, there is always Session 4!

Saturday 5th August

One of our campers whom has stayed for 2 sessions left mid morning today which was sad. You get so attached to these girls.

Alice and I then went to see two of our girls in the dance show. I was so proud of how good Maddie's dancing has progressed over the 6 weeks. She even ended up in the front row for one of Peanuts dances. Peanut is one of the greatest dance teachers. He has trained the best!

It was then time for Maddie to go home, I started filling up when she was leaving.

After lunch, Steph and I watched "We Will Rock You". It was yet again, outstanding. The cast only work on the shows for 14 days!!

It was then time for dinner and to see an evening performance show. I helped Robbie with the Cats face paint again, which was great yet again. Robbie did a fantastic job at designing the faces.

Steph and I were suffering from headaches and exhaustion, so we ended up laying in the dark for 2 hours whilst the shows were running. I know it's not ideal, but it was potentially going to be the only down time we were going to have throughout the weekend.

We said goodbye to another camper, and waited for the girls to get back from Canteen and pretty much went straight to sleep.

All in all, our third festival weekend of the summer was a great success. I really loved these girls to pieces.

So tomorrow is changeover day, and session 4 begins. I'm not going to lie, i'm very exhausted and can't wait to see my parents in a couple of weeks!

Hopefully my session 4, week 1 blog post will be more prompt next week.

Lots of love,

Jade xoxo