Hey there, Fall Friends!

This is the time of year when the leaves lose their green color and shift to shades of yellow, brown, orange, red, or even purple—if you live in more northern regions of the country, that is. After turning their sometimes explosive colors, the leaves will then fall from the trees (hence the short name for the season). It's the coolest part about fall!

All of us here at Everything Summer Camp, located in the northwoods of Wisconsin, are treated every year to some of the most beautiful sights with vibrant and surreal colors hanging from the trees. As the temperature cools and the northern hemisphere sees less sunlight each day, the leaves lack the amount of sunlight needed to perform processes that are essential to their life (like photosynthesis).

Check out the beautiful, changing environment surrounding us here in northern Wisconsin with these pictures throughout today’s post.

Fall Photography
Take after me and capture some cool pictures of the autumn colors. All the pictures on this post come from trees around my block! Check out the trees in your neighborhood and bring a camera when you’re inspired!

Leaf Collecting
While you’re out walking in the awesome colors of autumn, you’re sure to come across some fallen leaves. Maybe you’ll find some that are just too cool to pass by. Bring it home to share! You can even press leaves and frame them!

Raking
If you get enough leaves in your yard, rake them into a pile and hop in! There’s nothing more invigorating than lunging into a bunch of crisp, colorful leaves! Hear them crunch all around you as you lie on your bed of leaves!

If the foliage in your neck of the woods doesn’t create a fireworks show among the trees, then I highly recommend that you travel to an area where it does. Make a family day trip out of it…or maybe a weekend. The colors are bound cast a spell on you as they do on us every year. We truly live in a beautiful world! As always, thanks for reading!

- John

Hey, Basketball Fans!

We’ve made it this far into the revised and shortened NBA season and in less than two months—no later than October 13—only one team will have emerged as the NBA Champion for the 2019-2020 season. In order to celebrate this basketball season, we thought we would hold a little contest for all our summer camp families with basketball fans! All you need to do is send us who you think the NBA Champion is going to be.

Three winners will be randomly selected from all the entries that submitted the correct team for the NBA Champion and awarded our first prize, second prize, and third prize winnings.

Being basketball fans ourselves here at Everything Summer Camp, we offer some cool basketball-themed Designer Camp Trunks at our online store. So we thought we’d make the first place prize a Designer Trunk of your choice ($199.99 value).

Our second place winner will receive a $100 Gift Certificate to our camping gear shop while our third place winner will receive a $50 Gift Certificate.

Check out the rest of the rules:  

To enter you will need to submit the team you believe will be crowned the NBA Champion for the 2019-2020 NBA Season. Fill out the entry form completely and be sure to have a parent or guardian provide their permission on the entry form.

All entries must be received by August 22nd, 2020 no later than 11:59pm Central Standard Time ("CST"). The Contest will begin on Monday, August 17th, 2020 and end on Saturday, August 22nd, 2020 at 11:59 p.m. CST (the "Contest Period"). No entry fee or purchase is necessary to enter the Contest.

The NBA Champion should be crowned no later than October 13th. The day after the championship series has been decided we will randomly draw the 3 winners from all entries that selected the correct NBA team to win the championship.

Check out the submission page for the contest by clicking right here. And visit our Official Rules page when you click here and get further details. Enjoy the rest of the season and, as always, thanks for reading, Camp Fans!


- John

Happy First of May, Camp Fans!

Spring is in full swing which means that summer is right around the corner! As this pandemic wraps up, I think folks are looking forward to summer camp now more than ever before. We’re excited too here at Everything Summer Camp which is why we’re proposing a countdown! In celebration of the coming camp season, we want you to post your own creative way of counting down the days until opening day for your camp stay!

Figure out how many days you have until you’ll be arriving at camp and then start getting creative! Find some good items to use so you can shape the numbers for your countdown. Maybe grab some of your camp gear from last year or gather some sticks and form the number of days you have until camp officially begins. Snap a picture of the number you created and post it on our Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.

Try and use some camp-themed items—a straight stick and a round rock could make a cool number 10. A tennis racquet laid in the opposite direction of another racquet would be an easy 8.

In our anticipation for the summer camp season, we’ll be getting in on the fun too here at Everything Summer Camp. Instead of counting down to a first day of camp, we’re counting down to the first day of summer: Saturday, June 20.

We’re starting our countdown today at 51 days to go till summer officially begins! And for our first post, here’s what we’re putting out:

Enjoy the creativity in coming up with your own ways to shape the numbers of your daily countdown and make the most out of each day until your camp season arrives. Each day is one day closer to camp! Have fun counting down and, as always, thanks for reading, Camp Fans!

- John

Hey, Spring-Lovers!

In the aftermath of Easter, today we have National Jelly Bean Day to show our appreciation to these little candies that have become springtime favorites. To celebrate this holiday, I brought our work team together to compete for $20 by eating Jelly Bean treats. However, these were not your ordinary beans; I brought Bean-Boozled Beans! The recipients roll a color die, and pick a Jelly Bean according to their roll.

Bean-Boozled Beans are a mixture of sugary treats and revolting flavors. And all the beans are paired to look identical to a certain other flavors so players don’t know if they’re about to eat a Buttered Popcorn Bean or a Rotten Egg…

It’s a pretty awful game.

But with $20 on the line we gathered a crowd of brave souls who weren’t afraid to stomach the potential flavor of Boogers, Spoiled Milk, Dead Fish, or worse! Some folks hoped they might luck out and see their way through the competition with the good flavors—pulling beans like Berry Blue, Chocolate Pudding, or Tuitti-Fruitti.

The rules were simple: If you make a face at the flavor, you’re out. If you make it to the end, you win.

Our Vice President, Mark, was the first to bow out as the taste of Canned Dog Food did not sit well with his palette. But Brian, Matt, Nate, Deb, Sara, Mike, and Bob all carried on until Bob quit in the third round when he hit a Barf flavor bean. “I’m out!” He exclaimed.

The numbers dwindled one by one after that. Brian couldn’t choke down the Dead Fish flavor. A Moldy Cheese bean got the best of Deb while the Spoiled Milk flavor made Sara cringe.

And then there were three.

Nate, Matt, and Mike passed round after round with a little bit of luck and lot more perseverance until Matt hit a bean that tasted like a Stinky Sock that took him right out of commission. His eyes watered and he went beet-red. Only Nate and Mike remained. The two matched each other swallowing some terrible tastes but holding back their frowns and gag reflexes.

After a handful of rounds, we upped the ante, making it so each of them had to eat a combo of flavors. “The Toothpaste is sort of overpowering whatever the other one is,” said Mike. Meanwhile, Nate just shook his head. “I don’t know what this is,” he said. “It’s not good.” But despite their struggles, the two powered through and moved up to three beans in the next round.

Eventually, the remainder of the beans were divided in half which left about ten for Nate and ten for Mike. The two bid one another good luck and with an anxious called out “Cheers!” And then—down the hatch! You could see the pain behind their straight faces as they chewed and chewed their mystery hodgepodge of nasty corn syrup creations. But neither of them would cave.

With these two left standing, it seemed only right that they split the prize money after such equal displays of bravery and valor. More than just $10 each, these two won National Jelly Bean Day! Congratulations two Nate and Mike for this disgusting accomplishment. Please, see the video below to catch a moment or two from this cringey contest and, as always, thanks for reading!

- John

Happy Easter, all you April Fools!

Today we celebrate Easter Sunday, but we’ll have to sneak in a harmless prank here and there throughout the day since our Easter observation coincides with April Fools this year! 2018 marks the first time ever that Easter Sunday has fallen on the same day as April 1^st or ‘April Fools’ Day’.

As we all know, Easter Sunday is observed in Christianity to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus; and April Fools’ Day has a history of its own which you can read about by clicking to a previous Blog post from Everything Summer Camp right here.

Unlike Christmas or the Fourth of July, the date of Easter Sunday has always skipped around the calendar. We’ve known it to bounce back and forth between April and March for the majority of this last century, however, it’s actually landed on Sundays from every month of the calendar since the original Easter Sunday over 2000 years ago.

Landing on the first of the month today signifies Easter’s departure from the month of March for the coming millennium. Easter Sundays will only fall in April for the next few decades until it gradually shifts into a dance between April and May for the next half a century (or longer). And when that phase comes to and end, Easter Sundays will start landing exclusively in May for many years until it starts to creep into June.

Eventually, it will make its way all throughout the calendar year and return to the springtime to which we have been made accustomed to its landing. Easter in August may sound funny to you, but imagine a year in the far distant future when Easter Sunday coincides with Halloween—or Christmas!

Baaaah! Okay—I can’t keep it up anymore. April Fools! April Fools! Look at all your faces! I can’t believe you fell for that! This has been nothing more than a prank post. This is actually far from the first time that Easter and April Fools have shared the same day.

The last time was in 1956. And it happened many times before that. And it’s going to happen even more times in the future (next time coming in 2029). Easter Sundays are actually determined by the date of the full moon after March 20^th since this is a date that consistently lands after the vernal equinox. But I’d understand if you don’t trust me anymore. As always, thanks for reading! And Happy Easter!

- John