Midsummer Musings: Music Camp

Music camp went as well as expected. The kids worked hard and played nice (for the most part). I only had one incident where I had to intervene and lay down the law with one camper. But all in all, I had a very good group this year.

Our theme this year was writing a musical around the Creation story (Genesis 1, 2). We also had quite a bit of technology where a fair amount of music was done electronically and there was a Power Point slideshow going on in the background.

We had a several hikes, as usual, including a biodiversity hike where we would go out and photograph as many different species of plants and animals as we could find in an hour. We would then go back to the camp and - with books and internet - try to identify as many of the species as we could. Our group had managed to find an Abert's squirrel - not real common, but not as rare as its cousin, the Kaibab squirrel.

The weather actually was a bit cooler - even cold at times - this year. It wasn't so much the temperature, but the windchill. On Wednesday morning, a steady breeze came up and it didn't let up all day. Normally we have one day at camp (usually Wednesday) where we pick up a sack lunch and take our groups somewhere outside on the grounds or just outside of camp. But it was so cold this year, everyone opted to eat in the dining hall.

The show was written and rehearsed. Unfortunately, as well-behaved as my guys were, they weren't as focused, and had some difficulty learning their parts. It was down to crunch time. But T and I gave them a good pep talk, and they were all able to step up to the plate. They did alright.