Remember when we told you that S.F.A. (Supervised Free Activity) days were never actually lazy days? Well, today was a great example. Though ordinarily on Thursdays, this week’s S.F.A. day was was pushed up to today since Thursday is July 4th (bringing with it a whole other agenda which only time will tell)!

Activities around camp were open for free choice, but there were also a slew of extraordinary activities happening both in and out of camp.

This morning began with our Juniors (2nd-6th graders) heading out to Costa’s Family Fun Park! And it was a perfect, mild, not-raining but overcast morning for it. Activities at Costa’s included waterslides, go-carts, mini golf, a driving range, bumper boats, an arcade, batting cages and, of course, ice cream for all! Our Juniors had a blast! Seniors go next week.

While Juniors were out of camp, our seniors had the opportunity to participate in our Culinary Relay (Juniors will have that chance this afternoon)! What’s that, you ask? It’s a Food Network style event on Hughie Field, led by none other than a Food Network Star! Melissa D’Arabian  won Season 5 of well-known culinary competition series Food Network Star and then hosted the Food Network cooking show Ten Dollar Dinners! Melissa is a celebrity chef and guest judge, a cookbook author, a wonderful and inspirational person, and most importantly (in our humble opinion), a Timber Tops mom! If your camper is in our Top Cooks program, Melissa will be working with her this week, too!

But wait! There’s more! After lunch and a short recovery, our 6th grade campers set off on a short hike (read rigorous forest stroll) to Raymondskill Falls this afternoon. Fun fact: it’s the tallest waterfall in PA! Check out a video of Raymondskill Falls here! At Timber Tops, though we welcome a morning at our local family-run fun park, we’re all about keeping it campy! We want campers to leave CTT feeling a happiness in and a connection to nature, specifically this beautiful little part of the world in which we live! It’s why we we have so many adventure trips and outings: creek stomping, overnights, canoe trips, hiking adventures and more! As girls get older, they opt into so many of these programs, but our Juniors sometimes need a little push! In that spirit, this summer our 6th graders go on a waterfall hike, our 5th graders will go blueberry picking at a local blueberry farm (then they come back to our cooking room and make delicious creations for us!), and our 4th graders will head over to our ranch to have a pony ride and a special ranch campfire! We hope these experiences nurture and instill a lifelong commitment to appreciating and protecting the great outdoors! And if nothing else, it’s all about doing things at camp that you don’t do at home!

Now off our soapbox and back to regular scheduled programming.  This afternoon, we made the Women’s World Cup available to all those who wanted to watch in the dance studio on the big screen (and cheering could be heard all over camp)!  Tonight brings JUNIOR LIP SYNC! And the crowds go wild! (We’ll post video tomorrow, so fear not, fans and followers!)

Have a great night!