Camp in the winter

Happy New Year everyone! Things are getting into full swing for us here at Camp CedarRidge. After the Christmas party and planning meeting, we have all of our themes planned and are ready to start promoting for this summer with our first camp fair Feb 6-7! Hosted by Metro Parent Magazine, Feb 6 we will be at Briarwood Mall in Ann Arbor and on Feb 7 at West Bloomfield High School. If you know of anyone who might be interested in camp this summer, tell them to stop by our table. We'd love to meet them!

Going along with promotion, we just mailed out our 2010 brochures. Thanks to everyone who helped get the brochures and other important information ready to mail last weekend! It should be arriving in your mailboxes soon! If you would like brochures to pass out to friends, family, or at your church please let us know and we'll be sure to get those to you or send them to your church.

Registration for the 2010 season is now available! Be sure to visit our website at www.campcedarridge.org to register online. We are excited to start processing them!

In other news, Ptarmi and a few other camp staff had the opportunity to snowshoe into camp last sunday. It was a blast! Though there was less snow than we expected, we still had a great time and even did a bit of sledding while in camp! It was fun to see camp in the winter, covered in snow. We found deer, elk, and coyote tracks along the way! We even had a chance to hike back to the beaver dam. Hopefully our beaver friend is enjoying a nice winter in his lodge underneath the frozen surface! Speaking of the Lodge, it sure was cold in there! After we hiked in and unlocked the dining hall and lodge, we sat down for some lunch. Unfortunately, it was only 22 degrees inside the Lodge! Brrrrr!!! It was such a fun adventure to snowshoe into camp. If you've ever tried to imagine what camp looks like in the winter, here are some pictures to help!

What's been happening!

We know its not quite Christmas yet, but from the HFCC office, Merry Christmas everyone! A lot has been happening this fall since we closed camp for the season and moved back down state to work out of our metro office. One of the biggest things that has happened is that we've changed our name! After much prayer (and lots of paperwork!) we are officially Huron Forest Camp CedarRidge. Much of our time in the office recently has been spent changing over and updating all of our documents, including our website! Yes, our website still has the same design, but all new information for the 2010 season, along with our new name. You can visit that website (and register for camp!) at www.campcedarridge.org. We also have posted a frequently asked questions link so that if you do have questions regarding our name change and some of the things that we are doing, you might be able to find answers there. If not, we would love to speak directly with you, so feel free to call us at the metro office!

If you're reading this, and have been on staff, or are alumni, board members, or volunteers, we want to be sure to invite you to the anuual Christmas party this coming Tuesday, Dec 29th at 6:30pm. It is a great time of fellowship with other HFCC friends, great food, and lots of fun! We also will be having our planning meeting for the 2010 season (where we choose fun themes, talk and pray about camp, etc) at 10:00am Tuesday Dec 29th. If you'd like more information on either of these two events, please contact us!

Again, Merry Christmas to all! May you experience the joy and love of our Savior's birth during this season!

Closing work weekend

Ptarmi and a few other board members/volunteers traveled up to camp for the weekend to do some final winterizing of our buildings. Their main goal for the weekend was to put boards over the windows of the hybrid cabins in the grove, hill, and ridge. This will help keep the interior of the buildings safe and dry during the winter! They also were able to clean out the fridge and freezer (which, by the way, being so large...holds more food!) and gave away some of the leftover, unused food to the Oscoda Senior Citizen's center.

They especially were excited about the minute maid juice bars that we gave them...since many of the senior citizens enjoy eating them (especially the blue ones) and sticking their tongues out at the cooks. (Or so we are told!)

After this closing weekend, the only thing left to do at camp is blow out the water lines for the winter which will be done soon! Pray for continued protection over our property throughtout the winter.

A weekend of activity!

It sure was a busy weekend for us here at HFCC. With our 2nd Annual Zoo Walk at the Detroit Zoo running simultaneously with our Father/Teen Daughter weekend up at camp, our staff had to divide and conquer! While Stilt and Archy, along with some other volunteers traveled north to run the parent/child weekend, Ptarmi and the rest of the board of directors and zoo walk committee spent Saturday morning at the zoo.

We had about 25 people for this year's Father/Teen Daughter Canoe Weekend, which was a jump from last year's numbers. Praise God! We had some new camp families, and some long time Father/Daughter campers come for a weekend that was filled with fellowship, canoeing, and learning how to be "Vessels", which was our theme for the weekend. God blessed our time with great weather, and everyone was able to go canoeing on Saturday afternoon without having to worry about rain! Some of the other highlights from the weekend included our "Get to Know You" games on Friday night when everyone arrived. We thought it would be a good idea to give the daughters a lesson on how their dads shave, and this is what happened!




Then we thought, "maybe they need a little practice....throwing cheeseballs!!!"

The girls had a blast with this, and the dads were great sports with being their targets. It was great to hear the Dining Hall filled with laughter! We hope that these families can come back next year for another great weekend.

Our 2nd Annual Zoo Walk took place on Saturday morning at the Detroit Zoo. Though it was a bit rainy, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and again, it was a great way to raise money for camp. We had face painting, games, and give aways before the walk began, and everyone was able to stay at the zoo after the walk was completed. Thank you to all of our sponsors, and to everyone who worked so hard to make the 2nd Annual Zoo Walk a success by getting pledges and inviting friends! We'll be posting pictures shortly from it.

Keep stopping by throughout this year as we update everyone on the happenings of camp! God Bless.

Aloha! Mother-Daughter Weekend

Our 2009 Mother-Daughter Weekend turned out to be a blast! The theme this year was "Luau" and everything we did reflected that! The Dining Hall was transformed into a tropical place with streamers, decorations, and some hawaiian music. With multiple first time families, it was great to see how quickly they settled in and enjoyed making family surfboards, beachglobes, and grass skirts to accompany our Luau dinner on friday night.

Our cooks did a fantastic job following along with the theme too! We had lots of tropical things, and little umbrellas stuck in many dishes! The food was wonderful and I'm sure everyone could have eaten more!

God blessed us this past week with great weather during the day. Though it did get a little chilly at night, there's nothing like a cup of hot chocolate in the morning to warm your insides! Saturday afternoon the moms and daughters had the chance to experience some of our normal camp activities like Canoeing, Archery, Riflery, and Lacing.

We ended our weekend on Sunday morning with a great worship service and message down in the Rec field. We hope and pray that this weekend was a great time for moms and daughters to fellowship together, spend time in God's word, and see His beautiful creation. Can't wait for next year!

The weekends have begun

We successfully made it through our summer and have transitioned into our fall programming and weekend schedule. After moving the majority of our office BACK downstate to Farmington, the fall is in full swing!

Our first fall "weekend" was the Labor Day Work Weekend. It didn't feel like fall one bit as we had beautiful weather and sunshine the entire time. Good weather is conducive to work getting done! One of our summer campers came up with a few other guys from his troop to complete his Eagle Scout project, which was replacing the steps going up to the Rec Hall. They did a great job with the area and were able to get a few other jobs done as well including some work on our corral and planting a garden in front of our camp sign inside the gate!

In total, we had about 35 people at the work weekend. With that many people, we were able to take down ALL of the platform tents and prepare them for winter, finish carpentry on some cabins, paint cabins, clean a couple of our buildings, winterize the pool, AND complete the tiling project on the girls side of the Cedars bathhouse among other projects. We are grateful for everyone who was able to come up for the weekend!

We're looking forward to our parent/child weekends these next few weeks. Coming up next is mother/daughter weekend Sept 18-20. Continue to pray for safety and good weather as we serve Him and others through this ministry!

The Final Stretch

Wow! It's incredible to think that we are coming up on our final camp program for the summer. It's been a month since we've last posted an update, but a lot has happened.

At the end of Girls week 2 we saw 4 incredible young women graduate from our CILT program. Budgie, Lyra, Myna, and Scarlet all graduated, along with Augi, who was unable to attend week 2 but completed the CILT program and graduated a week earlier. Congratulations ladies! Despite a little bit of rain and having to transform the dining hall into a CILT grad and closing campfire location, it was a great evening and we are so proud of the ladies who graduated. The rest of the week was filled with lots of fun activities and new experiences as we were able to reach out campers and staff alike. Our cooks for the week took our theme of "Ancient Treasures" and ran with it as the created themed desserts such as popsicle pyramids and even served chocolate gold coins with browies one evening.

Week 3 was the final week of Girls camp that we ran for the summer, but it was still a blast! The drama class came up with a "Phantom of Camp Cherith" skit that was a real hit on friday evening for verse night. We had a great staff for that week, including our newly graduated CILTS who we are to stay on for week 3 as first time staff. All the staff worked hard during this week to make it a great experience for all the campers, and we were able to hear at the end of the week some of the things that they learned about God through their activities and morning watch/bible ex time.
Also during week 3, a few of our maintenance staff took on a huge remodeling project down in the Cedars Bathhouse. The girls side of the bathhouse received new tiling in the showers and under the sinks, which has made such a difference in appearance. Thanks to the staff who worked so hard to start that project!

Unfortunately, we had to make some difficult decisions for this summer and cancel 2 weeks of programming due to low registration numbers. Our Co-ed week, as well as Science Camp were canceled. A few of the staff stayed at camp after Girls Camp ended for what would have been Co-ed camp, to complete some other work projects and continue the work on the bathhouse, which included giving priming and painting the walls of the girls side, and also painting one of the cabins down in the Cedars. The new kitchen space that was created from replacing our fridge and freezer received the final touches for spakle and a coat of paint so that it would match the other parts of the kitchen. And if anyone of you were on site this summer, you probably saw the cabinets and cupboards that were hiding in the corner of the dining. Well, they are now in place in the kitchen filled with dishes! We've still got some more work to do, but the changes have made such improvements already!

As we conclude Camp 101 tomorrow, I'll try to give an update by the end of the week. Thanks for visiting again!