Summer Camp Shenanigans, Part 5: Riding Times Change and Harry Potter Night

Hello lovelies!

In Georgia, you have two options for weather in the summer; you can either have blazing hot with lots of sunshine, or you can have not-so-blazing-hot with rain. And we have not-so-blazing hot with rain today, but that's hardly important.

Welcome to part 5 of Summer Camp Shenanigans! When we last left off, it was the end of a very dramatic Wednesday.

On with the show! Er, blog post! Oh, you get the drift!

So anyways, on Thursday morning, we got up, as usual, and got dressed, as usual, but my patrol leader told us that our group and one of the other patrols were going swimming today and then going to do archery.

Oh, snap.

When we got there, I told her that for reasons I didn't want to divulge, I couldn't swim today. And she let me and two other girls sit out, even though she said she technically wasn't supposed to. So we sat on the edge, and I realized the suckiness of my situation. I was sitting on the edge of the pool, I had left my swimsuit in the unit because I knew I wouldn't be swimming today, and everyone else was having fun while the three of us were just sitting on the edge of the pool.

And, being a bit of a mess that week anyway, I started crying.

The two girls I was sitting with talked to me about it, and eventually, I stopped crying and began to have a little fun, especially when my patrol leader asked us to splash her (the counselors couldn't be in the water with us for some reason, so all she could do was dip her feet in).

We got out of the pool and we went to archery, which was, for some reason, done in a room under the dining hall. They brought targets and everything, and we shot the targets.

The funny thing was, I'm a right-handed person, but I apparently shoot better with my left. I guess it's because my right hand is stronger and steadier, and so keeps the bow in place. I dunno, but I tried both a right-handed and left-handed bow, and I like the left-handed bow better.

After that was lunch. Not the most interesting topic.

Then, for some reason, our riding schedule had been switched to the afternoon, so we went to the barn. I was kind of dreading the unbearable heat that my friends who had done the afternoon ride in previous years had told me about, but it really wasn't that bad.

We were trotting around, as usual, and then, because I've been struggling with it all week, I ask my riding instructor if there was any way she could teach me to post the trot. She said to go with the motion of the horse, and I tried it. And for two seconds, I managed to post the trot.

After riding, I told my patrol leader about it, and she said, "See? Sometimes all you have to do is just believe in yourself."

Well, I definitely did for those moments. I definitely did.

After that, we went back to the cabin to get ready for Harry Potter night. I turned a black T-shirt inside out, put on my black leggings and riding boots, and tied a red bandana around my neck and decided that I was Ron Weasley (because ginger hair). Madeline had made a wand out of a stick but accidentally broke it, so she taped it together and handed it to me.

My friend Fiona helped me rehearse my fear of spiders (because I'm actually not afraid of spiders), and we went to dinner. They had lined up all the dining hall tables in four lines, and I sat at the Ravenclaw table with the rest of my patrol, despite the red bandana.

I suppose I should mention that Madeline was Luna Lovegood's mother, Raina was Luna Lovegood, Fiona was Dobby, and there were a bunch of others. Not to mention we were the only unit that dressed up.

After dinner, we sat outside for a while so the kitchen staff could move the tables, and then they had a dance party in the dining hall. And everyone danced.

It was awesome. There was noise, and dancing, and me and Fiona pretty much threw each other across the dance floor a good twenty times.

And then we walked back to our cabin, and I had to lean on Madeline because I had never been so tired in all my life.

What a night.

Love,
Glitter Girl

Summer Camp Shenanigans, Part 4: This Is Where Things Get Interesting...

Hello lovelies!

So we're coming close to the final segment of Summer Camp Shenanigans for this year, and let me just say I've had a lot of fun writing them. When I came home, I was having trouble remembering what memories happened on which day, and writing these has organized them pretty well.

We're coming up on Wednesday, which is where things start to get a little more...how do I put this? Well, they get a little more interesting.

So Wednesday morning started off like any other. Wake up, get dressed, go eat breakfast. Then we walked down to the barn for riding.

We were having a trail ride that day. Now, I don't know about you, but I absolutely adore trail rides, for reasons I couldn't explain until the end of the week. But that's not relevant right now.

Now, the counselors had us split into two groups from the beginning, and then each group split into another two groups based on whether they were riding English or Western (I was Western and rode in the second half). The first half got to go on a trail ride before we did, and when they came back, the girl who was riding Niner before me mentioned that they'd been trotting on the trail, and he had started to canter (just something Niner does, he does love his trail rides).

And that freaked me out.

All the things I thought I'd gotten over came rushing up to the surface, and by the time I got out to the ring, I was a nervous wreck. And then they called me up to the mounting block, and I burst into tears.

Well, that went well.

My counselor (who was also my riding instructor) offered me the option of sitting the trail ride out. But I insisted on riding, and saddled up anyway.

So we went on the trail ride, and the other riding instructor (and another one of my counselors) had to tell me to lengthen my reins (give the horse more slack, for non-equestrians) because I kept them super-short all ride. Yeah, I keep my horse on a really short rein when I'm nervous.

But we rode, and Niner rode me into a few tree branches, and no other massive horse drama happened, which is always a good thing, because my horse drama has always happened on Wednesdays. Getting stepped on, having the horse rear underneath me, freaking out about horses... Wednesday is not a good riding day for me!

The trail ride was nice. We didn't do any trotting on the trail, which was good because I don't think I would have reacted well if we had. When we got back to the ring though, there was this really tiny hill that we had to go up to reach the ring, and of course, every single horse trotted over it. By the time we got there, though, I was just like, "Okay, we got this." and we trotted up the hill.

Then there was lunch. Wednesday's lunch was by far the best lunch because I sat with one of my friends (who we will call Fiona) and the counselor in charge of the challenge tower (who went by Loki, and I can say that on the internet because all the staff have camp names anyway). We had breadsticks and pizza and there were little containers of marinara, and the counselor sitting next to me (who wasn't Loki) dropped her marinara and got a little bit on me, and then apologized profusely about it. And then we had Jello for dessert, and I poked it for a really, really long time because it jiggled, and Loki stuck a spoon on her nose and we all tried, but it didn't go well. But hey. It was fun.

I honestly don't remember what we did the rest of the day. I think we went tie-dyeing and I tie-dyed a bandana.

And normally I would stop around dinner time, but there was something important that happened around bedtime.

While everyone was taking showers, I was talking to Annie about what happened in the ring. She told me that the best thing to do would be to tell the counselors about my issue, and she offered to tell them for me but said she thought that it would be best if it came from me.

So I walked up to my patrol leader and told her I had to tell her something.

We ended up standing in the big common room and I told her and my riding instructor everything. By the end of my explanation, I was in tears for the second time that day.

Basically my issue was that I was afraid of horses. Not horses on the ground, and not horses in the saddle, just the two minutes in between; mounting and such.

To be honest, there wasn't much they could do, and they told me that; since it was in my head, it had to be me that conquered it eventually. And they were actually really impressed that even though I was obviously pretty scared, I got up and rode anyway.

Just talking about it actually made me feel a lot better. And so we all went to bed.

And that was Wednesday for you. Definitely one of the more dramatic days, the way it always seems where I'm involved. 

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Love,
Glitter Girl

Summer Camp Shenanigans, Part 3: Thunder on a Sunny Day Effectively Wrecks Everything

Hello lovelies!

Sorry I didn't post yesterday; I had an orthodontist appointment in the morning (which is when it's most convenient for me to post) and school has also started back up for me, so things got a little tied up. And when I tried to post in the afternoon, I ended up watching an episode of Firefly with my mum. Fun times, but not productive.

Welcome to part 3 of "Summer Camp Shenanigans"! When we last left off, Monday was over and we were about to begin Tuesday.

So, without further ado, on with the show blog post!

Tuesday morning got off to a slower start. That is, until my patrol leader comes up and asks me if I'm afraid of heights. "No," I say, mildly confused. "Why?" And then she says that she wants to take us to the challenge tower today but she needs a certain size group.

The challenge tower is this 40-ish foot tall structure with a rock wall and all sorts of things to climb, and then there's a zipline. It's something I've wanted to go on since my first year of camp, so naturally I got excited.

When we got to the barn, the alarm wasn't going off and we could groom a horse in peace.

When we rode, they put me and Niner in the front of the line that day, and for some reason the idea of being the first one to do things made me a bit nervous. But hey, riding is riding, no matter where you are in the line, and it gives you a bigger challenge trying to steer a horse in the opposite direction from where they want to go.

Then we have lunch, and then Turtle Time.

And then the challenge tower.

The walk ended up being a good 20-ish minutes long. We crossed parts of the camp that I'd never been to on the way, and then we got into the clearing where they have the challenge tower.

Let me just say, that thing is huge when you see it in real life for the first time. All I'd ever seen of it was pictures.

I was starting to question my confident "No, I'm not afraid of heights".

We stood under this little tent that had been set up on one edge of the clearing, and as the counselor in charge of the challenge tower was going over safety things and helmets and harnesses and stuff, I was clinging onto every word while silently freaking out.

And then, we heard a low rumble.

"Oh no," said the counselor in charge of the tower. "Please tell me that wasn't what I think it was."

And then there came a message over the radio, saying that they'd heard thunder.

And it was a perfectly sunny day, too.

We were pretty sure that we could wait the thirty minutes and go back to doing what we were doing, but the thunder kept coming, over and over, to the point that we just decided to throw in the towel and go home.

We walked back to the unit, and as I stared up at the challenge tower for what would be the last time that year, I thought to myself, "This is the third year in a row where something's come up and we couldn't do this."

And I actually started crying. And not just one dramatic tear, like they do in movies. I mean like actual, legit, "this majorly sucks" crying.

Now, normally, I take things like this pretty well. I've always been the stoic friend during sad movies, the one who never cries if she can avoid it. But something about not being able to do the challenge tower disappointed me a lot more than usual.

So the counselor of the other patrol (who was in charge of all of us because my patrol leader was busy and wouldn't be at the tower until four) told me that since this whole challenge tower thing was obviously a pretty big deal to me, she would try her hardest to work something out.

But that still didn't cheer me up.

We ended up walking to a little arts and crafts room in the basement of one of the other cabins (it was actually a garage, but we use it for crafty things) and a bunch of the girls did woodburning, but I sat in the back of the room and stared at a piece of paper in a really, really awful mood.

And then my patrol leader comes out of what I later learned to be a massive storage room, and she's made a Dumbledore costume out of a piece of felt (a beard) and a really really big piece of some sort of fabric.

She then promptly asked me to guess who she was, and even though I shook my head multiple times, she wouldn't take no for an answer, so finally I just said, "Dumbledore?"

And something about seeing my patrol leader dressed up as Dumbledore actually made me laugh. Hey, it was a pretty ridiculous get-up!

So I started trying to design a costume for Harry Potter night on Thursday. A pretty tough task considering that if I make my costume, I like to have access to a sewing machine and I like to make the costume really, really accurate. But hey, I wasn't gloomy anymore.

We ended up going to the trading post (our camp's store) and I bought a hoodie (which is very cozy) and a horse for my little sister.

Then we had dinner, and that's the end of Tuesday.

Hope you enjoyed!

Love,
Glitter Girl

Summer Camp Shenanigans, Part 2: Horse Assignments and the Slip 'n' Slide

Hello lovelies!

It's another day in August here in Georgia, where the weather is insanely hot even if you've lived here all your life, and Glitter Girl is here to bring you another segment of "Summer Camp Shenanigans"!

So, where did we leave off? Oh, that's right; the end of the first day...

Let me just say that the first night of camp is always the hardest. Your quality of sleep will be rubbish and you will be zonked out by about 4 in the afternoon if you don't try a little, which most of my roommates didn't. I spent the first night drifting in and out of sleep, and when I was awake, I spent most of my time staring at the exit sign and the glow from the really bright porch light outside. As someone who would much rather sleep in total darkness, that was not a good way to spend my night.

Funnily enough, despite being the least morning person-y person there, I was dressed and ready to eat breakfast before anyone else. Mainly because I was hungry, and hunger is a good motivator.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

After breakfast, we had our first riding session of the week, and since it was humid, the fire alarm in the barn was going off (one of the reasons I hate humidity). Since I was in the second group and we do ground lessons before we ride, we were gonna have to listen to that, and it was starting to give me a headache.

BUT...

One of my lovely counselors decided to do basic horse safety outside by attaching some reins to bucket.

Once again, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

You'll notice that I love the little shruggy guy.

So after our ground lesson, we went back into the (now blissfully quiet) barn and we got our horse assignments. Now, you remember my horse incident from last year, right? Well, I specifically asked not to be assigned to that horse again. And I didn't. But I did spend the seconds before they assigned me to my horse thinking to myself, "Please don't be this horse. Please don't be this horse."

And then they assigned me to a horse named Niner.

I think my roommates thought I was crazy when they said that, because I started doing jazz hands and grinning like I'd just won the lottery. But the truth was, I'd seen pictures of this horse and he was beautiful; he was a palomino, which is a gold horse with a blonde mane and tail.

This is Niner, and he is awesome.

So after asking one of my counselors about Niner's personality (mainly to get my nerves to shut up), we went out to the ring and rode.

And Niner was the sweetest thing! He listened to everything I told him to do, didn't yank the reins, and stood perfectly still when he was supposed to. Well, except when there were flies on him, but if I could reach them, I swatted them off. And since all was going well, I spent most of the lesson showing off.

Yes, I am a show-off.

After riding, we went back to our unit to put on shorts (because summer) and then went to lunch.

At the camp I go to, we have something called Turtle Time after lunch. It's an hour long and it's the only down-time we get during the day. We write letters, get mail, and get changed for whatever's coming next if we have to. And it's pretty uneventful.

And then after that, we went down to the pool to do our swim evaluation.

Which didn't happen, because we were thundered out. Have I ever told you how much I hate rain-free thunder? At least with rain, it has an excuse. But we couldn't go in the pool.

Which was, miraculously, not a problem. Apparently the counselors have gotten a little better at dealing with this sort of thing, because they had a tarp, some dish soap, and a hose. And do you know what you can do with a tarp, dish soap, and a hose?

Slip 'n' slide!

We spent most of the afternoon just sliding down the tarp, getting soap in our eyes, and when the counselors went down the slip 'n' slide (because they are awesome like that), they would hand one of us the hose, and they'd get sprayed!

This is the insanity of camp!

I think we did something after that, but for the most part, we spent most of our day on a tarp, getting covered in soap, water, and mud.

And that was pretty much day two.

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed!

Love,

Glitter Girl

Summer Camp Shenanigans, Part 1: All the Things That Happen on the First Day

Hello, my lovelies!

So, I am back from my summer camp shenanigans (in fact, I've been back for about a week now), and I know I haven't posted in a really, really, really long time. But, since I'm back, I'm going to tell you a bunch of stories from all of my crazy adventures!

So, I have a bunch of stories to tell, and telling them all would make this post massively long, so I've split this up into multiple parts, and I have called the series "Summer Camp Shenanigans"!

Most of this series will involve horseback riding and the things that come along with having jumped off a horse last year (thank heavens for sweet horses or I might've had to do it again), along with stuff getting thundered out (thunder, but no rain), me injuring myself with canoes (don't trust me around things), and a weird obsession with jello.

So, without further ado, let's begin!

I got there at 3:00 Sunday afternoon and the line to get into the camp was massive. It was, however, moving quicker than last year (I believe), so that was good. I also met one of my counselors (she gave everyone directions and I don't envy her in the slightest), so also good.

We checked in, and check in was once again faster than last year's which has become a trend, because the first year I went, it took about 45 minutes. Last year, it took about 20, and this year, we were down to 10. That's right, 10 minutes. We were in and out of there in a snap.

The cabin I stayed in this year was actually next door to the cabin I stayed in my first year, so we went there and basically made up my bed, got my suitcase that weighs about as much as my little sister, and then my mum and little sister left to avoid a thunderstorm that was rolling in.

Of course, as soon as they left, it started pouring. Yes, this is the weather in Georgia.

I made friends with four of the girls in my cabin pretty quickly; there were two girls, Raina and Megan (names changed for privacy reasons) whom I met right as I came in, and they were obviously best friends (I later learned that they live near where I do!). Then there was Annie (once again, not her real name), whom I didn't talk to much, but she was really good at being the mature one if I was freaking out about something. And then finally, there was Madeline (still not real name), and we actually became friends because we both adore My Little Pony.

Then the counselors had us do our riding evaluations (funny enough, there was no actual riding) where they basically asked us the extent of our riding abilities. I have this really bad habit of overestimating my skills on horseback, but I think I did okay this year.

Then, once everyone got there, we were split into patrols, seeing as there were thirty-three of us, and we all went to have dinner; fried chicken.

I had never had fried chicken with the bones in it until that moment, so I mostly ate mashed potatoes and thought, "This is a completely foreign concept to me."

But yeah.

So that's day one! Stay tuned for more adventures and I hope you enjoyed!

Love,
Glitter Girl