Camp has been so busy this past week that I haven’t had a free 5 minutes to blog!  We’ll start off with our annual superstars competition this past tuesday.  Campers spent the day competing in various sports skills events, ranging from free throws and soccer skills to jumprope and frisbee throw!  At the end of the day, all of the points were added up and the top 8 in each division competed in a obstacle course finale.  The winner of each division would be crowned the title of “2008 Lakota Superstar” and will be receiving a t-shirt during the reunion in January.  The winners were (in order from braves to chiefs) Alex Quadrozzi, Brian Dubinsky, Mallory Russo, Zach Ames, Shana Ranauto, Jordan Reid, Sydney Oshinsky, Brian Kasdan, Rachel Alfassy, Jason Dubinsky, Jessica Jachemczyk, and Max Linden.  Thanks to all of the CITs for running the days events!

The fun doesn’t stop there.  The next day was our trip day!  Braves, Hawks and Scouts went to the Bronx Zoo and had a blast!  Some of the favorite exhibits were the Madagascar exhibit and the birds of prey (with the most popular one being the bald eagle).  The campers were also excited to see the gorillas and the reptile house.  Trackers and Warriors had a two part trip.  First we went to Medieval Times for a feast and show.  For the first time all summer everyone was allowed to eat a full meal with their hands!  Our section was rooting for the blue knight, who lost in the joust but in the end we were all winners.  Our very own Emily Nitzberg was honored by our knight and given the Queen of Love and Beauty sash.  After the show we headed 15 minutes down the road to Powerhouse Studios in Paramus.  We came in and had to walk through a hallway with spinning walls and stars all over.  Then we were directed into the game show room for the main event - the Bullseye game show.  The group was divided into two teams and the goal of the game was to get the most bullseyes by answering questions and winning challenges.  These included trivia questions in many subjects, a music game, human scrabble, and many more events.  After the game, we were invited to the other room which had an arcade with free play, soft drinks, and a ton of cool scenery!  There was an exact replica of the De Lorean from Back to the Future, 6 foot oscar awards, dinosaurs from Jurassic Park, an Indiana Jones wall that shoots air when you walk past it, and other fun objects from movies.  The Chiefs and CIT’s are still on their trip to Boston and the surrounding area and having a blast from what I hear.  When they get back I’ll have one of them write all about the trip, and try to gather some of their own pictures together to post on the photo site.

Just when the campers thought you couldn’t cram any more excitement into one day, they were surprised to find out we had a huge event planned for them back here at night!  As lots of you saw in the photo gallery we had a show by Geoff the bubble juggler.  He made bubbles of all different shapes and sizes including something that nobody thought could be done, a square bubble!  The campers were mesmerized by his show, and aside from all of the cool tricks he also brought a positive message with him.  Instead of the magic words abra cadabra, he used “anything is possible” and had the audience repeat that several times throughout the show.  He also explained his journey of how he became the “bubble juggler” and showed us all how he could make his famous square bubble while everyone else said it was impossible.  He brought up several campers on the stage to help him out with his show.  At the end everyone was surprised to find out we had a special treat - every camper had the chance to be put in a huge bubble!  We posted a whole folder of the pictures from that on the gallery.

Just to give everyone an idea of what is coming up here at camp, tonight we have wildlife wendy and her exotic birds doing a show for the campers.  She came yesterday and has been walking around the camp giving the kids a chance to see some of the birds and even feed a baby one!  Everyone is excited for that show tonight.  Of course the rookies are arriving as we speak so they will be excited once they find out what we have in store for them.  The fun continues tomorrow night with a Luau at the lake!  Festivities include a tiki pole ring toss, hula hoop contest, finding buried treasure, exotic drinks (non-alcoholic of course), hula dancing, and other fun activities.  Sunday my DJ company, Mystical Entertainers (here comes the plug - available for bar/bat mitzvahs and sweet 16s), will be running our 2nd Disco of the summer, which is always a big hit.  Monday we have our annual college Hall theme night.  This year’s theme is music through the decades and the kids will get a taste of many different genres of music by walking from room to room in the building.  Tuesday night the upper half of camp will be going bowling and the younger half will be doing activities in camp.  As you can see we haven’t slowed down one bit here at camp, and are all keeping busy with one exciting event after another.  Stay tuned for the Chief CIT trip blog which will be coming in the next few days.  Hope everyone is having a fun summer, I know we all are!