Wow, I’m really impressed by all of my guys in the Boy’s Unit. Each and every day, both campers and counselors alike make me so proud to be their leader. This session’s group has had the loudest “Thunderation” cheer all summer; they’ve only had a few times to practice it. One new tradition that we have started this summer is the BU (Boy’s Unit) Button. The button is awarded to Boy’s Unit campers who exemplify outstanding qualities of brotherhood and unity. I have already seen some potential candidates for this session.

For our unit days, the boy’s have: skipped out on summer school testing, fled from/turned into zombie’s, saved the world from alien invasion, and swindled merchandise  as pawn shop ownersand last week we  jammed out in our very own mini music festival.

Until next time.

Bryce

Hey Everybody, I hope everybody is enjoying their week. I know that I sure am. This morning (Wednesday) we had some pretty windy weather. On most skills the wind doesn’t really affect the running of their skills, but on the waterfront the wind makes some skills a whole lot more fun and makes other skills a whole lot more tedious. The sailing was amazing this morning. We took out our Barnett 1400s and were tearing up the lake all morning long. Personally, I’m slowly learning more of the technical jargon that goes into sailing: points of sail, spinnakers, cunninghams, boom vangs, things of that sort. I took the explorers all the way down to the east end of the lake where not many boats get to go and Grace Blumberg was doing some serious hiking with her boat. Lots of fun all around sailing today. Boating and Canoeing, however, had a rough go of it today. The kids had a good time though. They got a free ride from our guards and were enjoying the fast moving wind and water.

Now with the big storm past us (I’m knocking on wood), we can take a deep breath and get back to things as normal. It is tough to think about the fact that we have cleared the halfway point of the summer, and we are beginning our stretch of the final three weeks. So much has happened this summer, but at the same time the days and weeks have flown by so quickly. Yet, we are not a staff that gets too sentimental until the final kids leave in August.

This week, we have some really exciting evening activities coming up with “Predator vs. Prey” tomorrow night and “Survivor Night” on Wednesday. “Predator vs. Prey” has cabins in either a bug, frog, snake or hawk group. These groups must make their way around camp to find food, water and shelter in order to survive. However, groups higher on the food chain are able to hunt groups lower than them. Cabin groups must run, hide and sneak around in order to survive throughout the night.

“Survivor Night” is based on the popular TV show, except for the fact that we don’t have Jeff Probst. Cabins are a part of one of two survivor groups that must compete in different challenges around camp. Their placing in each activity will add points to their larger survivor group. The survivor group with the most points by the end of the night will be the winners.

With the first full day of the trip coming to a close, there is tons of great news to tell!  Today was 80’s and sun all day, and Quetico/Wild Wolf went on a day hike, Peshtigo/NWT are on a 6-mile canoe trip on the Wisconsin river, and Oconto/Hudson Bay spent the day at base camp!!

Wow, what a week on the Waterfront. So many things have been going on I don’t know where to begin.

1. Unfortunately we put to rest our Blob and Water Wienie. They both had popped and been repaired multiple times, but unfortunately our beloved water toys could no longer hold air for longer than a day.
2. The 16 foot sailboat is in the water. We have named her Belle and she is tearing up Lake Amy Belle.
3. A shout out to Dana Blumberg. Charlie and Grace’s mother. She came out on Wednesday and helped Grace teach sailing all three skill hours on Wednesday. She was a big help also with the next item on the list.
4. We recently received a Sunfish Sailboat. It’s a very small one person sailboat, but it’s super easy to use and is a lot of fun in the water.

In the Spirit,

J.C. “Wassa Hauser” Hauser

Depsite the rainy weather YMCA Camp Minikani celebrated Fforte Fest 2010 this past week.  All of camp participated in games, face painting, and much, much more to the beat of our special live band.  We all had so much fun we wanted to share a brief video of the afternoon with you!!

Fforte Ffest 2010

Even though the weather hasn’t been the greatest the last couple of mornings, we’ve still been having some fun at the Wilderness Skills Area. Though the clouds have been blocking our view of the stars at night, we’ve been learning constellations and stories every morning in the Star Lab. The frogs and toads have been gathering all over Minikani, so we had a toad catching competition 3^rd hour today. Everyone worked hard to spot and catch the toads and frogs! Congrats to our champions: Hogan S. (Cabin 13), Kaley G. (Cabin 7), Jack D. (Cabin 11), and Chloe P. (Cabin 9)!

After the sun came out this afternoon, the boys in Hudson Bay grabbed some binoculars, practiced their bird calls, and brushed up on their bird identification by Halquist Lodge. I think most of the birds were avoiding the heat, but we did see some goldfinches, bluebirds, barn swallows, and a chickadee. The usual technique for calling birds in for a closer look didn’t really work even though the boys were all pretty good at it (ask them to demonstrate when you see them!). Hopefully they can use their new bird skills up north this next week to call in some feathered friends.

I hope everyone has been enjoying their week!  We wanted to give everyone an update just over half way through this amazing session of camp!!  As you are probably aware today was a very rainy day at camp, although we didn’t let it dampen our spirits. During the morning we transferred our skills inside and the great room of our new Halquist Family Lodge was transformed into an indoor gaga ball and four square arena. All over camp our day and overnight campers found new ways to play games indoors.  The skies cleared during the afternoon for our annual Forte Fest, a camp wide celebration with games, a live band and much, much more!! Check out our website and blog for more details tomorrow.

We have had some technical problems with uploading photo’s this week to our website, we have fixed the problem and will be uploading photo’s of all of today’s activities tomorrow. We apologize for any inconvenience or frustration that this may have caused.

You may have also seen on the news tonight we had a tornado warning in our county.  We did have a lot of rain (although not as much as Milwaukee County did) and all of camp spent time safely indoors singing songs and getting to know each other a little better in our storm shelters.  Once the rain was over our day campers went home with their parents, or took a bus home.  The evening ended with our rag and bear claw ceremonies before everyone went safely to bed. Unfortunately the storm did affect our phone service but we are working with AT&T and hope to have the problem resolved first thing Friday morning. Until the problem is fixed you might get a busy signal if you call camp, but be assured that even though our day was wetter than we had hoped we still had fun! 

Thanks so much and have a great rest of the week!!  I know we will!