Welcome to Camp Simcha 2013!!!

Wow! After all the months we sat and waited, the day has finally arrived!

All the counselors are dressed up crazy, with green noses, clown outfits and other crazy stuff! I even spotted Batman and Superman dancing together!

As each camper arrived, he was greeted with the famous Camp Simcha greeting dance, complete with a five piece band, the “Tunnel,” shoulder ride, announcement by Dembi and the world-renowned “Sandwich.”

Campers kept on coming all day, from Brooklyn, Baltimore, even England.

We then went to the dining room for our first great Simcha-style meal of the season. Just as supper was ending, we received news that the Israeli group would be arriving any minute. We all rushed out to greet them, and the dancing started all over again.

Straight after that, we rushed over to the Social Hall for an incredible night activity. Based on the above, it shouldn’t be hard to guess what the activity was… even more dancing! Though this time, we had an extremely talented group on stage showing us some great moves!

We finally headed to the bunkrooms to unpack, and get some much-needed sleep.

The rumors are, that tomorrow will be a packed and exciting day, and I don’t want to miss anything, so good night for now.

See you tomorrow!

Before the session begins, we would like to clarify some things about our Facebook galleries, public galleries on our website, and ParentSpace galleries.

First, if your child is photo-released “in camp only”, he or she will only appear in the ParentSpace gallery. Your child will not appear on Facebook, nor on the public side of the site. So if your child is a camper, go ahead and sign up for ParentSpace. Not only will you see more pictures (2x more pictures than on FB), but you will also be privy videos that are produced special for you every day, a special blog, the daily camp newsletter, camp schedule, and more exciting features.

Second, please follow the instructions below for the proper way to log in to your account. If you haven’t applied for an account, please go ahead and apply for an account. You should be verified within 48 hours.

To log into your ParentSpace account, go to campsimcha.org and click LOGIN in the top right corner.

Then type in your username and password.

You are now in ParentSpace!

From this page you can access a special blog just for parents, the daily schedule, and daily pictures and videos.

A COMMON PROBLEM: If you attempt to visit campsimcha.org/parentspace directly, and login there, you will be bounced to another login page. If you type in your username and password there you, will be granted access to ParentSpace. However, until we correct this glitch, we ask that you instead login by going to campsimcha.org and clicking login in the top right corner.

If you are still having trouble with ParentSpace, or if you have any questions, comments, requests, or suggestions for the blogs, please contact zahavah@campsimcha.org

Our campers love getting e-mail! To send your camper an e-mail, include his NAME and BUNK NUMBER in the subject line of the e-mail. Please send all e-mails to mail@campsimcha.org. Unfortunately, we cannot download any attachments so please include all content in the body of your e-mail.

Simcha Stories: Ayala and Henny

And this is our last goodbye – until next year, that is.

Dinner was a beautiful, lavish banquet set up like a wedding.  We had all different types of meat and chicken and all sorts of delicious food.

Watch out!  Astronauts and aliens and robots are running around the Simcha dining room! The stage was plastered with robots and tin foil and all sorts of cool techy things!

And today we had two surprises – because that’s what Simcha’s all about! Surprises and fun activities!  First, an ice cream truck came, and everyone got to have the ice cream of their choice. Mmmm yummy!  And then during lunch, we had an even more exciting treat! Eli Gerstner came to put on a concert!!  He sang his classics and oldies that everyone loved and sang along to!  The floor was shaking, that’s how intense the dancing was!

We took a short break after a few songs to thank and show our appreciation to the Friedmans who so kindly dedicated the amazing new stage this year to Camp Simcha.  We presented a poem and a beautiful painting that Caitlyn made for them, and everyone cheered for them and thanked them.

Our last Shabbos in CSS was beautiful!

Friday afternoon, all the campers went to the spa to get their hair, makeup, and nails done in honor of Shabbos.  The number of nail polishes on the table was incredible!  Any color you want, they have!  And you can blow, straighten, or curl your hair; whatever you want, they’ll do it.

After prepping for Shabbos, everyone gathered in the Social Hall for Kabbalat Shabbat, followed by the Friday night meal.  Rina and Dawn gave beautiful speeches, and we gave each of them standing ovations.  We were also privileged to have Chevi Garfinkel join us for Shabbos who gave over her inspiring words of wisdom.  She even gave a special speech only for the campers.

Shabbos day, we heard Efrat K. and Elana speak, and once again the audience could not stop applauding.  After a delicious lunch, we watched the Shabbos play put on by the campers.  Blimi, Elisheva, Chavi, and Bailu were stars in the show! And of course our one and only Abby!  BINGO afterwards was a blast, and then we all gathered in the Social Hall again to hear inspiring words from Vicky.

At seudah shlishit, the third meal (of Shabbos), we were privileged to hear Alexis, Sahar, and Chedva speak to us; thank you for your beautiful speeches!  We then heard our weekly Shabb0s choir put on by the campers, featuring a duet by Esther and Shterna which blew us away!

Melava Malka after Shabbos was nice; we all danced and got pumped up!  Things got really exciting when the lights went 0ff and the stage LIT UP! That’s right, all different colors!  Nobody wanted to leave the dining room because the dancing was so fun, but it was time to get some sleep to be up and ready to have some more fun tomorrow!

Good night, all!

A horse show! Two knights in shining armor each rode on big brown horses, and they played a martial game called jousting, which emerged in the Middle Ages (Medieval Ages).  The goal of the game is to strike your opponent with a sword while riding towards him at high speed.
The kids were enamored by the game because they loved watching the knights ride the horses back and forth quickly across the soccer field while they put on a show.  Finally, one of the knights fell to the ground, and the other knight stood triumphant.  All of CSS cheered; what a great show!