We Love You Teri! *CLAP*

I'm writing today with some news that is both happy and sad (Sundial readers already know this). As many of you know, Teri and her husband Jim are expecting their first child in January. While we will be excited and happy for them, today is Teri's last "official" day in the office and that is quite sad. Although Teri will always be part of the CK-NJ family, she will not be at camp for the summer of 2011. It's been so wonderful having her as part of the year round team and we are certainly going to miss her. Over the years, Teri has shared her creativity and her contagious energy and fun. Don't worry, she will be at the reunion and I am sure we will all get to meet her family when they come and visit this summer.

We had a goodbye lunch at Soho 33 in Madison today (which was great by the way). Some gifts were exchanged after a fantastic lunch during which we mostly talked about the movie Parenthood starring Steve Martin (which is excellent by the way and if you haven't seen it, you should rent it this weekend). We gave Teri two children's books. Picked out by Tom was Nursery Rhyme Comics: 50 Timeless Rhymes from 50 Celebrated Cartoonists. I picked out Bed, Bed, Bed by the band They Might Be Giants. Teri gave us an amazing water color painting of the bowl she made herself! It's so good!

So in CK-NJ tradition, I want everyone to shout "WE LOVE YOU TERI!" and give the traditional clap in unison with everyone else!

We'll see you all at the reunion on Sunday!

~Jeremy

Tom Poses in Prize Fleece!

We've been busy gearing up for the reunion which is coming up fast! I've been getting things organized for name tags, the gifts are on the way, and we're planning to announce the bunk group theme for next summer! Can you guess what it is yet? There have been lots of clues!

Also, with Thanksgiving fast approaching, I wanted to remind EVERYONE that the 2011 Wear Your Camp T-Shirt in a Holiday Photo contest is on. Take a picture of you wearing a Campus Kids T-Shirt in a holiday photo and send it to us! We will pick a camper & staff winner. Winners will receive their choice of an embroidered Campus Kids fleece or polo shirt.  You can read the full details here. In this picture you can see Tom posing in the the fleece.

Hope to see you all at the reunion!

~Jeremy

Edit: Just after posting this blog, I went up to the kitchen to fix myself a cup of tea. There, I met the newest addition to our CK-NJ office team. He goes by the name of Mr. Coffee. I already LOVE his work! His predecessor was accidentally packed away with our summer equipment and is taking a year's sabbatical in our lovely Mansfield, NJ storage locker.

Oh, happy day!

Weddings and Power Outages

So I don't have any really big news like I'm having a baby but I do have some updates for you.

First of all, like many of you out there our home lost power on Saturday and after five days we are still in the dark. The town is assuring us that we will have power restored by Friday. While it's not very convinient, it's by no means the end of the world. We've spent the last few evenings playing with our cats, reading books aloud, and playing cards. We were fortunate enough to have purchased a house with a wood burning stove so we've been able to keep warm. As you can see by the photo, our cats LOVE lounging by the fire.

However, for our family Saturday will not be remembered as the day the power went out. It will be thought of as the day Natalie & Kyle got married and the power went out. Hee hee hee. Vanessa's sister Natalie got married on Saturday at the lodge Schooley's Mountain Park (any old time CKers remember that place) and the power went out 15 minutes before the ceremony was scheduled to begin. As crazy as it sounds, we went ahead with the wedding and it was a blast! There was not really any music besides one of Kyle's relatives playing an acoustic guitar but we lit lots of candles, ate some delicious food and had dessert. Since the power was out, we did something we probably wouldn't have done if there was music and dancing... we talked to EVERYONE! It was so nice to meet so many people and have so many great conversations! We got to catch up with all Vanessa's relatives and old friends. Also, an amazing poem by Neil Gaiman called, "The Day the Saucers Came" was read at the ceremony. Check out this illustrated version of the poem.

The Saturday before the Saturday that the power went out and Natalie got married was the Saturday that Vanessa and I got together with all the other video game nerds in California for Blizzcon 2011. Anyone, who clicked the above link understands why the previous sentence was worded the way it was. Blizzcon is a convention put on every year by Blizzard Entertainment to promote their games like Starcraft and World of Warcraft. We went mostly to catch up with some friends as the event itself is not mind blowing. Typical of most cons, most of the cool stuff comes only after waiting in really long lines. That's not to say that there weren't any highlights. Watching the costume contest, seeing the stars of the web series, The Guild, and getting to demo the new games coming out were all pretty fun. The best part was the closing concert played by the Foo Fighters. They rock and it was no surprise that the show was completely amazing. Dave Grohl came out into the audience, right into our section to do his guitar solo!

Coming up tomorrow, we will be posting the details for this years Campus Kids T-Shirt Photo contest. Check back to see the rules for this year's contest. If you don't remember last year's contest, check it out here. Also, Teri is printing the Reunion invitations right now so be on the lookout for those.

Talk to you guys soon,

Jeremy

P.S. We got this hilarious fax today.