"Thursday's Child"

We're almost at the end of the week already - just where has the time gone!

Today the weather's been a bit cooler - with early morning cloud cover which lead into a bright and warm afternoon.

So what's been going on today? Catching up with some unfinished business all over the place with campers taking their last opportunities to do activities. So we had (at last) an chance to make S'mores , finish glazing pottery , or grab a last go on the Zip wire. There was also a chance to go fishing (Lindsey was up to 14 fish and counting ), Michael, Uriah, Katy and Hazel had a competitive basketball workout ; while Brenda and Justine went wild on the paint drums . The overnight campers returned mid-morning having had a great time under canvas.

Of course, everyone was waiting for the Kangaroo Court after lunch when all those counselors guilty of terrible crimes like being too nice or too tall or too untidy underwent their well deserved punishments. But how bad do you have to be to have to kiss a fish? There were plenty of campers ready to bring these charges and everyone was guilty! . Finally Courtney and Ben had the ultimate punishment or treat - shaved heads!


In contrast, Vespers was a beautiful quiet time for reflection held in the Tranquility Garden. Some campers spoke movingly about the activities they had enjoyed and the friends they had made, and everyone joined in the singing as the sun went down.




Then at last that big moment of the week - The Dance! The pictures say it all.


















Finally as your visitors/guest bloggers from England hit the trial to see more of Colorado, can
we thank you all, campers and staff, for a truly awesome week and one which we'll never forget.

"Just Wednesday"

The weather just gets better and better! We've gone from afternoon thunderstorms a few days ago to wall to wall sunshine.

At the pool this morning Frontier cabin were having such fun, swimming or dabbling in the water.
They really enjoyed cooling off; Amy relaxed on the lilo, while Beth hitched a lift and
Lindsey cooled her toes.









In the meantime, Sunshine cabin were on the Zip Line. As we said earlier this is a challenging activity, and it was awesome watching everyone get to the top of the tower with Joshua's reasurance, and then launch off with such enthusiasm. Here is Andrew taking the leisurely way up , but what a flight . Taken from the bottom of the Zip, you can see Al swooping down.

**** YOU CAN NOW CHECK OUT THE PHOTO BUCKET ALBUM HERE OR CLICK ON ANY OF THE PICTURES ****

Ruby Tuesday

Hello There!!!

And another beautiful day. Campers on their way back from a night under canvas had a great time with songs round the campfire but oh no, disaster - Katey and Aspen told us there were no S'mores! Come on RMV we NEED S'mores. Rainbow group were enjoying a
second breakfast in the sunshine cooking up eggs over the fire on an outdoor living skills activity while on the sports court Qui-Que was playing an energetic game of tennis
and several cabins were enjoying baseball.




No wonder campers were keen to cool off in the pool. It was a perfect day for water basketball or just chilling out.







Plenty of creative stuff was going on too of course. Here Wade is having a great time at the Ponderosa Johnny Cash jam session, singing along to "Ring of Fire". In the art and craft room tie-dye t-shirts were being tied and dipped. Look out for a storm of colorful t-shirts like Stephen's around camp by the end of the week!


The tractor rides are always a great hit with campers on a tour around the site, helped along with hits from the RMV song book! Try being a penguin while sitting on a trailer.






Back at the fishing lake, the fish were still biting well and John was landing a big one helped by Al with a landing-net.





A special event for Tuesday evening was a visit from the talented Bilger family band all the way from New York. They played an amazing variety of instruments, sang great songs and gave everyone a lot of fun singing along with them and dancing.

**** YOU CAN NOW CHECK OUT THE PHOTO BUCKET ALBUM HERE OR CLICK ON ANY OF THE PICTURES ****

Monday Monday!

Welcome!!

The first full day of camp and the sun shone brightly, a perfect start to the week

9:30 and Cabin Activities get going. At Arts and Crafts wonderful pots grew with the help of Jess's skillful hands whilst in the afternoon this room was the scene of amazing shaving foam sculptures which somehow turned into shaving foam body painting. You had to be there to fully appreciate it, but blue shaving foam in the hair could just become the latest fashion accessory. Amy would certainly go along with that one!. Another activity was the zip line which looks so daring - it is really long, but Tracey went zipping down and in free choice time the zip was a popular option, as you can hear on the video clip with its whoops of excitement. Hannah's music group had a terrific walk in the woods, they discovered so many amazing sounds to hear as well as the jungle drums to play, and it was just the day for a game of kick-ball between Sunshine cabin and Rainbow cabin. Lots of fish did the decent thing and came up to be caught and of course the horse riding was a real winner. All in all a great day of activities but there was more to come.

The evening All Camp activity was more of a nearly-all-camp as some campers had already left for a night under canvas, but the task in this week of Mythology activities was to rebuild the lost city of Atlantis and make it float - all in an hour. Every group had a god or goddess to find and then a structure to create. Tension mounted as impressive if wobbly temples, chariots, baths and amphitheaters were loaded on to a raft and launched on to the lake. Success the raft floated - unlike Ben's flip-flop which vanished without trace in about 3 inches of muddy water. Ah well!!

A brilliant first full day at camp, as one of the staff said as her hair filled up with the blue shaving foam
'I can have all this fun and they even pay me too!'

*** YOU CAN NOW CHECK OUT THE PHOTO BUCKET ALBUM HERE OR CLICK ON ANY OF THE PICTURES ****

Hi Everyone,

Just for this week 'guest bloggers' have flown in from England for their first
taste of RMV. And the impact on them of their first day is, well, awesome!

But down to business - welcoming this weeks campers started at 1pm with checking
in at the entrance. I70 going towards Denver was pretty slow moving
all day after the holiday weekend, so some campers were slightly delayed, but
they were soon warmly welcomed by their individual staff members and went into registration

This week's theme is 'Mythology' and during the afternoon, campers and staff were off getting
to know each other in their cabins, preparing short skits for the Sunday Evening Camp
Fire.

The Camp Fire songs were lead enthusiastically by Courtney and Ben with staff and campers joining in even more enthusiastically. Each cabin took their turn. Pics from the evening are below and these amazingly varied and interestingly costumed performances have set the tone for a great week!

We were also joined this evening by cyclists from the 'Journey of Hope' group, who are staying on camp
overnight whilst on their two month fund raising ride across the states. What a journey.

We will upload more pictures onto photobucket tomorrow - below are pictures from tonight....