Smiles are the language of love at camp. A smile says I’m glad you’re here or I’m proud of you. A smile can say “you’ve got this” or “don’t give up.” And most of all, a smile says “we love you” and “my day is brighter because you are a part of it.”

After our first full day of Session B, I am proud to report that we have shared A LOT of smiles. We woke up this morning to a slightly overcast sky that offered a chill in the air that had campers snuggling together at Reflect at the Rock. We were worried about rain, but the sun quickly warmed the mountain and beamed brightly for our Session B panoramic photo after breakfast. After smiling til our cheeks hurt, cabins raced to get a popsicle on the way to their second period. The temperatures were in the high 80’s for most of the day, and the evening brought the perfect North Carolina breeze to soothe our campers to sleep.

Favorite Details of the Day:

• Reflect at the Rock - Reflect this morning reminded us all that camp is a place to try new things, meet new friends and push ourselves. Failure is not a reason to quit, but an inspiration to try again. I shared some wise advice from my grandfather many years ago. “Don’t be afraid of taking a chance. Remember that a broken watch is exactly right at least twice every 24 hours.”
• Meals - Breakfast was the scrambled eggs, bacon and hashbrowns with fruit bar, oatmeal and grits. Lunch was sloppy joes, tater tots and steamed broccoli! Dinner was chicken fajitas, corn and black beans.
• Dessert was Gus’s Place candy, which is the BEST dessert any camper could ask for.
• EP - Tonight’s EP was Jurassic Park Cabin Challenge. Cabins dressed in theme and ran all over camp to compete in everything from musical ice buckets to trivia or tic-tac-toe relay. Cabin 34 took the victory in the finale of tonight’s EP!

I loved watching the happiness of our campers on camp today. I loved seeing the new smiles on the faces of our first-year campers as they walked around with their new friends. While we have a lot of returning campers this session, there was a joy on everyone’s face as if they were enjoying each activity like it was their first time. The smiles tell the story that we are writing here at camp this session. They show you the pride of hitting the target at archery, the joy of a serve flying over the net at tennis or the surprise from sitting in a bucket of ice at Riverball. They do not show you the events that led to these joyful moments. They don’t show you the struggle of missing the target completely from the first two arrows, or the 4 previous serves that went straight into the net or the strike out a camper had in the first inning before the bittersweet ice bucket. At camp we measure growth through the process and not the product. I am happy to report that the smiles only tell you part of the story, and these stories are truly worth 1000 words.