Camp Begins

Hey,

A lot has happened in the last couple of weeks. First of all, last weekend was mini camp at Camp Valaqua. This was a chance for many of us to get used to our roles for the summer. It was my first time performing the duties of Assistant Director and Jon's first time as Director. It all went fairly well in our opinion. Families seemed to be having a great time and there were no significant problems. Seven hours after mini camp we started our staff orientation. At first it was a bit overwhelming to be overtaken by people, but I got used to it soon. We did lots of team building activities and standard sessions. We have a great staff this year. This week is our first "regular" camp and we don't have a chaplain. In my years at camp there has never been a week without a volunteer chaplain. Because we don't have many campers we can hopefully count on support staff to fill in for the chaplain role.

Outside of camp we are looking forward to going to Northern Ireland in the fall. We have received volunteer visas and bought plane tickets. We also look forward to going to see a play next weekend at the Rosebud theater with our parents and the weekend following that going to Matt and Emma's wedding and Kerry and Mark's wedding.

As for birding highlights, I had the opportunity to watch male and female three toed woodpeckers play together. And on the other end of camp we have found a woodpecker nest. I haven't actually seen any woodpeckers there yet, but we can definitely hear the young ones coming from the nest.

Regarding photography, Niki and I have been developing our skills and been given lots of opportunity to practice, as well as lots of compliments from all kinds of people. I personally don't like to put our nice shots on the blog because I'm afraid of someone stealing the shots. So simply ask us to see our pictures when you see us next. Since mini camp I have been given lots of time to practice people shots, so I am learning on that front. You can see one of my people shots (right) in the most recent Mennonite. It says "camp Valaqua photo", but what they mean is "Photo taken by Jason Fehr."