Opening day 2026
Helloooo again Parents and welcome to the camp blog! It was great to see everyone this morning morning while they checked into camp. I tried to speak to every car as they pulled in but hey, lets face it, your daughter was more concerned with getting to her cabin than speaking to me so priorities matter!! After everyone was all settled into their cabins they a played some “get to know ya” games so now they have 15 new friends they’re hanging out with the next week or two. As the day went on all the girls signed up for their activities they’re gonna take while here. You’ll be gettin a copy of their schedule from them in the mail but don’t run out and be waiting by the mailbox anytime soon. If you like Mentone because of its slower pace of life up here, then you’ll understand why its gonna take a few days or longer for your mail to arrive.
Besides signing up for classes all the girls that are here for their first time got to draw a bead to see which club they’re in. That info will be on the same postcard you’ll be waiting on (no matter how much I tell ya not to be in a hurry). Here’s a pro tip for you first time camp parents, in the cabin pics that are already up on Waldo for you to see (more on that in a minute) if you look at what color shirt they’re wearing you’ll know which club they’re in. If its Red they’re a Mountie, if its Green, they’re a Trooper and if its Blue, then they are a Ranger. You’ll want to remember which club your camper is in its pretty important to these girls as you’ll see during all the competitions we have this session where they’ll be competing and cheering each other on like nothing you’ve ever seen.
Tonight each cabin had what we call “Cabin Fun Night” where all the girls in each cabin are playing games together to help learn a little more about each other. Some of the favorite activities I heard them playing were the all time favorite “shaving cream wars”, charades, tie dyeing (yes we still do that up here!!), some type of “spa night” and all sorts of other crazy stuff.
After all the cabin fun night was finished, everyone headed to campfire for some good ol fashioned S’mores but mother nature decided to give us a little rain shower and the rest of campfire had to be held in the gym. The best part was after campfire was finished, everyone got to go back to their cabin and go to bed with the sound of gentle rain tapping the tin roofs of their cabins.
Tomorrow will be the first day of classes and the girls will all be out learning all the do’s and don’ts of each class for safety. It won’t take long though and they’ll be full speed ahead having fun and our photographers will be out there getting all the action for you. Speaking of pictures, you can see them through Waldo using 2 different options. If you would like (and it will save you a LOT of time…trust me!!), you can use Waldos facial recognition. There is a small fee to Waldo for this but it is an amazing program that will send you an alert to your phone every time your daughter is in a picture, even if she’s in the background! If you don’t want to pay for the facial recognition you can still use Waldo to scan through all the thousands of pics that will be posted. Either way will work, its up to you. There’s also a new way were are testing this year and that’s is through Campminder’s “Companion”. You should have received emails about both programs and how to see pics through both of them. If not, let us know and we can send you the instructions and help walk ya through the process so you’ll be looking at all the pics of your daughter before you know it!
Besides pics you can also send your daughter emails. She won’t be able to respond and reply to you so don’t send one and then complain because she hasn’t emailed you back yet. (not saying that happens…. just a hunch I’m not the only one one that does that!!) You’re emails will be printed out and delivered to them the next day with all the other mail that arrives through the post office (I swear those people take an hour and a half to watch “60 Minutes” sometimes….. know what I mean??). One thing about the emails, there is a $1 charge per email and it will be charged to your daughters spending money account so if you’re the kind of person that likes to send lots of short “i miss you” type emails, type them all out is a word document throughout the day and then the next morning paste them all into one email. As long as it gets sent before 9AM Central time, she’ll have it after lunch that day. The blog, the emails and the camp pics through Waldo are all available through the section of our webpage called “the Roost”. Once you go there you’l l see everything you need to keep up with your daughter the next 2 weeks.
Speaking of keeping up wth your daughter the next 2 weeks here’s a tip…… Don’t even try to do that. You will burn yourself out really quick if you try to see if you can spot your daughters elbow, back of head, certain shoe color and so forth in each picture. But hey, you’re gonna do what you wanna do so knock yourself out, don’t say I didn’t warn ya though at the end of the session. (its only day 1 and I’m already very tired!!)
Y’all have a great night, tomorrow will be a big day here at camp for all the girls and we’ll be doing everything we can to get the pics, videos and news to ya. Just follow us on all the social media and keep checking the blog (or sign up and it’ll send it to ya each morning…just sayin)
Thanks fro a great day and we’ll be back on Tuesday night with the next camp blog!!
LJ
