sum·mer camp

1. Webster Dictionary Definition:  a camp providing recreational and athletic facilities for children during the summer vacation period.

   
   
2. Urban Dictionary Definition:  A place where parents send their children summer after summer. usually the place where a child experiences their first kiss, first boyfriend/girlfriend, lots of firsts. a place where everyone is your bestfriend, all the counselors are your family, and you trust everyone. a place where there are no secrets, everyone knows everything.
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5.      As a mom sending your kids to summer camp will be either a hard decision or a really easy one.  You either can't wait for a little summer freedom or you will spend your summer freedom writing letters, and waiting for the daily pictures to be posted! (As you can imagine, I was the 2nd mom).  Either way, this will be the best thing you can do for your child as well as yourself. 

     As a child you are either the kid who waits patiently (or not so patiently) all year long to get on that greyhound bus or the kid who cries until mom and dad have to physically put you on that greyhound bus. (As you can also imagine, I was the 2nd kid).  Don't get me wrong, Camp Interlaken memories were some of my best childhood memories, for me, it was just the anticipation of getting there!  You have the best friends of your life at camp, not to mention having counselors who you looked up to like they were G-d.  They laughed with you, cried with you, protected you, and watched you grow.  Little did the campers know these counselors were just kids themselves learning and growing as the summer went on.

   Because they were my best memories for 8 summers of my life, we sent all 3 of our kids to experience the same camp as I did when I was their age.  I felt extremely lucky to have a husband who didn't understand the "camp thing" to still support me in sending off all 3!! Each of our kids had a totally different experience. Dani went for 8 summers, Jake went for 4 summers, (because hockey trumped camp), and Sadie went for 2 weeks, as she is my homebody, and I was proud of her 2 week challenge! None the less they all have their own special memories.

Entrance to Camp Interlaken

This year will be our camps 50th reunion for everyone who attended Camp Interlaken JCC in the Northwoods of Eagle River, WI.  I will go, and relive my best childhood memories with my daughter, my sister, and 2 lifelong friends...no husbands, they just "wouldn't get it". (Mine will be fishing in Canada at his own camp with the rest of our kids.)   In my imagination, on the way up, we will eat our candy, chew our gum, sing old camp songs, stop for lunch (maybe to include a beer on this trip to camp), and slowly drive through Minoquoa for fudge and finally arrive at "The Camp Entrance!" where the buses turned in...  And this is where the summers come flooding back...

6 hour bus ride with your friends, sony walkman, countless cassettes, pillow, and bags full of candy. Which we knew would be taken away when we arrived... (~Treif (טרײף)  — is the Yiddish word for food that does not conform with the Jewish dietary laws of kashrut). 

 Song session, Ski Point, skipping around the room, Shabbat Walk, The Bridge, The Back Road, Lake Swim, Tush Ball, Flag Rectangle, The White Chairs, Chugs, Schticks, Amanut...

                                                                                               (Activities, Skits, Art)

These are only a few of things that if you went to Summer Camp you will never forget.  Because I went to a jewish summer camp many of these things are in hebrew and very traditional...But no matter if it was hockey camp, YMCA camp, Church Camp, or any other, you have experienced them all in some way, they are your lifetime memories of summer camp.