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The Fun Never Stops!

Posted on by PineForest

We’re settling into our last week of camp, but we’ve kept the excitement coming! Boys camp had league playoffs in soccer, hockey and basketball. Junior and Inter girls enjoyed some sunshine at the Lake Wallenpaupack beach and ended their day with homemade ice cream. Can’t beat that! Meanwhile, in Greeley, our Senior girls were knee deep in Banquet preparations and our Hi-Senior girls played beach volleyball to celebrate the summer Olympics.

Tonight our Juniors and Inters have Counselor Hunt, our Seniors will be at the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders game and our Hi-Seniors are having a luau at the pool. Can we be campers again?!

We can’t believe we’re days away from Banquet and the Candlelight Ceremony. Tomorrow we will be posting some helpful tips for easing the transition to your camper being home. After all, it’s a big change for all of you!

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Escape From PFC!

Posted on by PineForest

Tonight is one of our favorite evening activities in girls camp: Escape from PFC! Everyone will be paired up and given a number of tasks to complete around camp. We’re up at Lauri, we’re at the pool, we’re down by the gaga stadium, we’re in gymnastics. The catch? Counselors are stationed around camp trying to bop our campers with powder puffs. If you’re hit by a powder puff, you have to freeze and wait for a hydro helper (AKA counselor with a water gun) to come squirt and unfreeze you! Then, the first 10 teams to finish have to get to the dining hall porch in time to eat a pack of crackers and whistle. Once they’ve completed the tasks and whistled, they ESCAPE FROM PFC! They get on a big, decorated school bus and head out of camp for soft serve ice cream at Costa’s! You can imagine the excitement.

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Camper Scamper!

Posted on by PineForest

Our day began with late sleep followed by the big 5K Camper Scamper race! Our campers have been training for this since the first day of camp when sign-ups were first posted. Now that’s dedication! Across fields around boys camp up though the circle of girls cabins to Hughie Hall and Lauri Field and down again they ran. Campers who were not running cheered them on at every turn! Over 100 campers participated. With a real race clock timing each runner, everyone got an official race number and a 5K T-shirt for participating. Those who came in first, second, and third place received commemorative medals. It was an accomplishment both to participate and to finish. Go, PFC campers! You rock! Speaking of which, tonight is Battle of the Bands!

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Survivor Day!

Posted on by PineForest

Today was the highly anticipated Survivor Day and what a great day it was! The whole camp was split up into 8 teams (4 girls teams and 4 boys teams) led by our Key Staff and Outdoor Rec staff. The teams were purple, green, orange and red and everyone got a bandana of their team color. The girls teams were stationed along Ted’s Trail, which is located behind the Mitchell Field campfire site and the boys teams were stationed up and down the lake trail. Each team had to come up with a team name, prepare and cook a meal on a campfire, create a shelter/campsite, make a flag or banner representing their team, and create a chant or a cheer for their team. They had about two hours to complete these tasks before they were judged.

They were judged on the following:

-The areas used for fire, cooking, cleanup and dining
-Only using things from nature
-Campcraft skills applied and safety in all areas
-Site beautification and practicality
-Site cleanup and restoration to natural site

Some campsites were so creative that they added moss carpet, a game room, bathroom, music area, and an outdoor swing set! All of the judges walked away loving each meal. Most meals were three courses, including an appetizer or soup, a main course, and of course, a dessert! There was guacamole dip for pretzel sticks, chicken mushroom soup, pasta salad with tomatoes, green peppers and egg, chicken and vegetable shish kabobs, and amazing desserts like chocolate, marshmallow and caramel drizzled over cooked bananas, as well as blueberries and strawberries topped with homemade whipped cream – YUM! We’d say they “survived”!

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Can’t Stop the Technicolor Beat

Posted on by PineForest

Goodbye, rain! The sun peaked through the clouds and we resumed our regularly scheduled programming. There was also a lot of activity going on outside of camp today! We hosted U9 basketball and soccer games and had another basketball game in the afternoon at Lake Owego. Meanwhile, at Camp Timber Tops, we had a dance show, gymnastics meet and Pike County Idol! We’re excited to report that we came in first in the dance show with a modern lyrical dance, the technicolor beat! Our Junior girls got to pick blueberries at a nearby blueberry farm and our TOP Cooks went to Hill’s Homestead farm and learned how to make goat cheese. Check out our Facebook page for photos from both farm trips!

Tomorrow is going to be a beautiful, sunny day which will be perfect for SURVIVOR DAY! Check back tomorrow to hear more about it!

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Marvin E. Black Tennis Tournament

Posted on by PineForest

Today was the USTA Marvin E. Black Tennis Tournament. Campers from all over came to participate in singles and double competitions. Marvin couldn’t be there today to give his usual invocation, but his son, Mickey spoke on his behalf and reminded all players to “Keep Playing Tennis”, Marvin’s mantra. The game of tennis is a lifetime skill and Pine Forest has a fantastic program, headed up by tennis pro, Craig Wallace. Let the games and the fun begin!

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We Love Our Explorers!

Posted on by PineForest

A little rain never stops us! We just had our last Explorer weekend of the summer and boy was it a fun one! We had an amazing group of families with future campers going into 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th grades. They got to play in the lake (which is extra fun in the rain, by the way!), go on the giant swing at adventure, make projects in arts and crafts and play games with Chad. They were even able to have a campfire despite the weather, by bringing it indoors! They slept in real bunks with real counselors and bunkmates who will soon be their lifelong camp friends. We look forward to seeing them back next summer as PFC campers!

If you are or know anyone thinking about camp, we still have a Play Day on August 6th and would love to share Pine Forest with you! Call the office for more information or register online!

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Kindness Day

Posted on by PineForest

This #flashbackfriday, we’re reflecting on how awesome Kindness Day was on Wednesday. The highlight of the day was our 1st Annual Pay It Forward Scavenger Hunt! Our campers worked together doing different team-building activities at all 28 stations of the scavenger hunt. Each station had a clue to the next. See below for an example!

Station #1
OBJECTIVE:  Work together and use the bed sheet to shoot the basketball and make a basket. Have each person in your group grab an end of the bed sheet and hold it with BOTH hands.

  1. Everyone needs to hold the bedsheet with 2 hands.
  2. Place the basketball in the middle.
  3. Now shoot.
  4. You can stand from anywhere.
  5. You have about 3-4 mins to make a basket.
  6. Start your timer NOW!
  7. YOU CAN DO IT! WORK TOGETHER!
  8. But if you don’t make a basket with the sheet, no worries. Have your coach make a shot on the way out and cheer them on!

Some examples of acts of kindness are the creation of a banner for our kitchen staff that has messages of thanks written all over it, picking up trash around camp, taking a moment to appreciate the nature around us by hugging a tree, cheering on other campers, and hand-delivering flowers made out of pipe cleaners to our amazing office staff. Our campers are the BEST!

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