Another fun day at Camp! (By Josefina, Kaya, and Kit)

Hi everyone! Camp PineLake has been going great, and it's been fun staying in a cabin with the rest of our friends. Today when we went to the dining hall to eat breakfast, I decided to say hi to some of my new friends from cabin MarshRidge. I found Anna and Mindy sitting in a table on the far end of the room. When I walked over to their table, they were enjoying their orange juice while giggling about something. I got a little curious, so I had to check it out. They abruptly stopped chatting when I walked over. "I didn't know they had hot chocolate here!" Anna said. "What are you guys giggling about?" They looked at each other, and realized they had to tell this story. "Okay, so yesterday we were so excited about going to camp, that we forgot to clean up, and on top of that, we just weren't the tidiest bunch of girls from the start! So anyways, this morning I wanted to find this awesome sweater that would be great for hiking today, but since I hadn't really unpacked, and I was in a hurry, I had to rip up my whole suitcase to find it. Well, you get the point... the room was an utter MESS! I knew I was going to clean it up before breakfast but... well.... I didn't" I was confused. "What's all the remorse about a messy room?" "We haven't finished telling the story yet!" Mindy continued. "We were just about to leave when all of the sudden, a rap sounded on the door! We opened the door, and it was the inspector lady, Marger Pittz! We were all so worried!!! We stepped back and looked at our cabin, and all we could do was brace ourselves. Marger puckered up her lips and took a big breath to begin her lecture! She was outraged, and she went on and on and on about how old we are, and our responsibilities." I was a little surprised to hear that this was what they had been giggling about, but I was glad they told me because I thought I should warn the others about this Marger Pittz woman. It just doesn't seem fair how she came in unannounced like that! "Well, I need to grab some breakfast, so nice talking to you!" Needless to say, I quickly forgot about Marger Pittz as I finished breakfast and got ready for today's activities! Kaya, Julie, Angela, and Kirsten were excited to go hiking. I decided to go do some volleyball, and we all split up to our own camp events and activities. 

Now I'll hand it over to Kaya who went Hiking!

Hi everyone, today we went hiking up Mount Winnik on the campsite. It was a lot bigger then I thought it would be! Lucky for the rest of us, I brought a canteen filled with water and a peanut adventure bar for all of us to split. Everyone thanked me for being prepared, and I was just glad to be able to help. Julie, Angela, and I focused on climbing up the mountain while Kirsten had to stop to examine every beautiful flower she saw, so she didn't make it up nearly as fast as the rest of us. Once she found a rare Winnik climbing beetle! When we all made it to the top, the view was breathtaking! When we got back all we wanted to do was rest. I was too tired to do horseback riding today, so I'll be sure to do some tomorrow. 

But for now, I'm going to hand it over to Kit, who went horseback riding today. 

Hi everybody, Kit here. Marie Grace and I went horseback riding today. She was a bit more experienced then I was! It was still a lot of fun though. When we got to the camp stables, Mrs. Fraanz the stable manager (who had obviously dyed her hair), helped us get riding helmets on and show us the trails. It was a beautiful day, and riding a horse turned out to be quite fun. Mrs. Fraanz said the horse's name was speckles. She was very nice and Mrs. Fraanz said she loves campers! The best part about it was when we got to the Winnik creek! It was hidden under the shrubs a bit, but it was such a beautiful place. The creek water was refreshing when we dipped our toes in it. Mrs. Fraanz brought a water bottle with a filter with her, and after explaining that you should never drink creek or pond water without a special filtered bottle, she let us each take a sip. It was very good water! The only crazy thing I tried to do was tickle Speckles, but she wasn't that ticklish! It was a great day though!

When everyone was done with their camp activities, we got back to our cabins. Samantha noticed two signs on the camp bulletin board! There was a sign up sheet for Battle of the Cabins and the camp talent show! Battle of the Cabins was going to be a competition spanning a few days where each cabin was their own team and competed in friendly sports competitions with the other cabins. I was excited about that! The talent show also looked exciting, but as soon as everyone else saw it, we all knew we wanted to do it, but we didn't know what we wanted to do. The possibilities could be endless!

If you have any ideas on what we should do for the talent show, comment on our posts, say it in the chat box, or email us at dolltalk@aggossipblog.com. 

It all sounds very exciting!!!

Our first day at camp! (By Kaya)

After the bus picked us up, it stopped so we could all load our suitcase and belongings into the cargo section on the side of the bus. Then, we got in and found seats among the screaming pile of other girls we didn't know. This was quite the new experience for all of us, and we were all nervous and excited about sleep away camp. The bus ride went along like this. Kit spent a few hours getting her fingers stuck in a Chinese finger trap, (and then trying to get out of it) "Sergeant" Samantha decided to write the post you saw yesterday about our hectic morning, Jessica listened to her favorite singer on her iPod, and Carely tried small talk with the girl sitting next to her. They seemed to be getting along fine. Molly was reading a book, and Nikki was watching the cheesy movie they were showing on the bus TVs (Well before it made her fall asleep) All I wanted to do was take a nap. The rest of us were simply focused on trying to avoid Josefina, who had gotten a little too carsick! While we weren't doing that, we passed time with good ole rock, paper, scissors, shoot! and thumb wars. 

Soon we pulled up at camp, and everyone on the bus stopped what they were doing (even Josefina) to cheer for the sign that welcomed us to Camp PineLake! I turned around, and there were at least five other busses behind ours complete with more screaming girls. My nerves came back a bit when I wondered how far all these people had come to get here. The bus stopped, and a Woman in an official outfit walked onto the bus and introduced herself as Cassi Kirk. She looked around twenty five, and had a vibrant smile, and vivacious energy. She welcomed us with "Three Cheers for PineLake" and then told us that she was one of the camp councilors who would be overseeing the events. There would also be one councilor in each cabin to guide each group of girls. 

Soon, all six busses unloaded quickly! We all carried our bags with us and followed the signs to a big, grassy field overlooking a lake, the main buildings, some cabins, and of course, pine trees! There was a wooden platform with a microphone on it in front of where we were sitting. A woman in her late 40s walked up to the podium, and introduced herself as Barbara Kirk. She gave us all a warm welcome to camp, and told us all the specifics, like when we were having meals, information about the camp, and the general rules and expectations. Barbara said that a woman named Marger Pittz would come in to everyone's cabin unannounced sometime during the week that we were here to make sure that we kept the room tidy. Then we got divided into cabins. The counselor for each cabin would call out the names of about 16 girls and they would follow her to their cabin. I started to get worried then. What if I got put in a different cabin than all of my friends and I didn't know anybody! Not to worry, though because after about 5 cabins being called, Cassi Kirk called my name amongst all the other girls. I was relieved! But after knowing this, I still hoped I'd be able to meet someone new while I was here. 

Cassi pointed out our cabin, then said she would be back later to check on us, but she had office work to do now. We all waved goodbye then walked in. We looked around our cabin, and there were three rooms with a common room in the middle. The cabin was tiny, but very cozy. Then, we all noticed that there was another girl here besides us, and she was already settled in to the top bunk! She saw that we were looking at her, so she introduced herself. "Hi, I'm Marie-Grace!" We all felt a bit embarrassed because we still hadn't talked to her yet. Kit broke the silence with a blaring, "Hi, I'm Kit!!!" The rest of us followed and soon we were laughing. Marie-Grace explained that she had went to Camp Pine-Lake every year, and this was her fourth time. She told us all about the bathrooms, and the yucky food. Her favorite part, she said was swimming in the lake, and then we all said that sounds like fun! We rushed into our bathing suits and jumped right into the glistening lake, laughing all the way. We would have swam forever, but then Cassi called us inside to dry off, before the whistle called us into the dining hall.  

Cassi told us that we wouldn't want to miss dinner tonight, because it was Frankfurters and beans. After dinner, we all agreed with Marie-Grace that the food definitely was how she said it was, not good! We ended up telling her all about how much we missed Carely's delicious home cooked mashed potatoes (which, by the way you can see in the Cooking with Carely tab on the blog!) Soon we were telling her everything, and it was clear that she was turning into a great friend. Then Cassi walked in, and told us about the two whistle call - pajama time, and the dreaded three whistle call - you better turn the light out! She told us that we should probably unpack and get our beds ready. It was way harder then it sounded! While most of us struggled to pack everything out of our tiny suitcase, and straighten up our blankets and sleeping bags, Marie-Grace (who had already unpacked) sat cuddling Coconut. (Did we mention that we brought the dog?) It was dark and cold outside, but it sure was cozy inside our cabin. Marie-Grace felt like our best friend by now as we laughed and told ghost stories in the moonlight. Camp was going great. When the three whistles sounded, we blew out our candle, and went to our own little rooms, and yes, we fell asleep!

A Frantic Day! (By Samantha)

Hi everyone! I hope your summer has been going great. Ours hasn't been too busy, but it's still been very fun. Today though, was the busiest, and most insane day that we've had all summer, involving a deadline to meet that seemed almost impossible! I'm even writing this post now on a bus with a bunch of other girls that I don't even know! Let me tell you about it. So last night, we all decided to watch the olympics after dinner, and it ran very late. None of us wanted to go to bed at a good time, because the races and gymnastic floor exercises were too exciting for us to want to miss. I finally got to bed at 12:30 AM. That wouldn't have been so terrible if tomorrow hadn't been-- i'll tell you later. I was still very tired in the morning from staying up so late, so I slept past my alarm clock. Normally, I get everyone up in the morning around 8 (well, because we don't want to get too lazy during the summer!) but now, none of us were waking up. Two hours later, Jessica finally woke up. She said she tried to wake me up by nudging my shoulder, but I must have been having a good dream, because I wasn't awake until I felt Kit doing a cartwheel on my bed!

I was a bit grumpy to have been waken up! "What is the big problem? It's summer, we should be relaxing!"I grumbled in a groggy morning voice. Jessica and Kit both looked at each other, then looked at me. "We forgot that we were going to summer camp today at noon." they both said sheepishly. OH NO!!! How could I have completely forgotten! We were going to pack the week before, because packing for a trip with all 15 of us takes a very long time! "Oh no." I said to them as I just realized the other crazy part about today. "We only have 1 and a half hours to pack and be at the bus stop!" "AAAAAH!" We all started screaming! But then we realized that the only way we were going to make this happen is if we all had a plan! I stood firm, and started distributing official orders to everyone!

Kit - Go wake everyone up!
Tell Kirsten and Angela to start washing all the dirty clothes we want to take with us!

When people started waking up, I gave out even more orders!

Felicity and Kaya - Go up into the attic and find the family suitcase!
Jessica - Find the sleeping bags!
Nikki - Help her shake off the dust from the sleeping bags!
Marisol - Find the towels, flashlights, and bugspray we need to bring to the camp!


Just about then, I heard a huge crash coming from the attic, followed by reassuring cries of "EVERYTHING'S FINE!!" Then they came down, Felicity and Kaya holding the sleeping bags, and Kit holding her old skateboard. "Hey Kit, nobody told you to go to the attic, let alone make a mess! Kit apologized, saying "Well, I finished waking everyone up, and I found my old skateboard. I want to take it to camp! Felicity and Kaya who were covered in dust now, were not amused.


I looked at the clock, and we were down to twenty minutes, and we hadn't even started packing yet! I yelled in my fiercest military voice,

GET BACK TO WORK! And, also, put all the stuff you want to bring on my bed so we can quickly pack it.

Soon, everyone finally realized that there was no messing with me right now, and we all had to work quickly to meet this deadline. The next problem was that now there was a huge pile of clothes and items on the bed and we all had to somehow fit it into our average sized suitcase.

Just then, Kit walked in with two things we didn't need to bring, her skateboard and her typewriter and put them on the bed. I talked her out of the typewriter but not the skateboard, so I knew that the next time she left the room I was going to have to hide it. I put it in a good place, but I'm not telling you, in case you would email Kit at dolltalk@aggossipblog.com  to tell her where I put it. Don't worry, she'll find it after camp.

Soon, we were all by the bed, folding clothes, and taking out unnecessary objects, and I was loading them into the suitcase. We had quite the assembly line going on! We stuffed everything in the suitcase and we ran out to the end of our neighborhood, taking turns carrying the suitcase. I felt like the olympic racers in the track and field events! When we finally made it to the curb where the camp bus was coming to pick us up, we all collapsed and giggled! We packed for all 15 of us to go to sleep away camp in only an hour and a half! Now we could just relax again and be excited for our fun time planned at Camp PineLake! Soon the bus came to pick us up, and as I speak, we're now in the middle of heading there. I'm excited for all the new friends we are going to meet there, but for now I hope that everyone will stop calling me Sergeant Samantha! They think I was acting like quite the millitary leader this morning, but hey, at least we made it to camp! I'll be able to use the computer sometimes there, so I'll try to keep the blog updated about our time there.

See you soon!
x Samantha