Summer 2024 is Here!

Happy Summer 2024! Term 1 at Balcones Springs has kicked off with a ton of PHUN! On Sunday night, we began camp with our classic camp tradition – team initiation – where old campers put on their red, green, purple, or blue to welcome new faces to Camp Balcones Springs onto one of four camp teams, the Texas Rangers, Rough Riders, Silver Spurs, or Texas Rangers.

Monday was a dreamy first full day of camp, as the Central Texas weather proved to be nice and breezy with some cloud cover and thankfully not too hot! When they needed to cool off, campers found the water in our brand new pool to be the perfect refreshment.

Young and old campers dove right into their activity schedules for the day after a morning of team competition games. In our CBS fishing classes, campers captured crickets to use as bait and sucessfully caught a 3-pound bass, several perch fish, and even a catfish!

Our youngest campers traveled around camp trying different activities, including cooking, horseback, arts and crafts, pickleball, rock climbing, basketball, self defense, and lake time swimming and playing with our water toys.

In our Women’s Fitness Class, campers opened the course discussing their wellness habits and goals, including how much water to drink, goal bedtimes and the number of hours of sleep they want to get each night, screen time use, outside time, and so much more. The girl campers ended the first day of class by doing a sweaty barre3 class together in our fitness center!

A new activity highlight for this summer is our Camp Balcones Springs Woodshop classes. Boys and girls will get to explore four different stations of woodshop work designed specifically for 10-11 year-olds. Before diving into each station, campers will go over how to use specific tools and master the art of safety in a woodshop environment. One station will include cutting wood using a saw, another station will go over the use of screwdrivers and power tools for fastening purposes, a third station will exploring finishing work and the process of sanding, and the last station will cover hammering nails.

Tuesday night was Compound Night where boy campers and girl campers got to know their respective age groups through special and unique programming.

Our Work Crew girls – the oldest campers who come to camp to earn community service hours for high school and college by serving in our camp kitchen – enjoyed a beautiful Texas summer evening at the new camp lagoon for their Compound Night!

The Senior Campers (known affectionately as Scampers), boys and girls who have just finished the 9th grade, partook in a fascinating murder mystery party that included fun detective work, including having to decode a cipher!

E Compound campers – boys in middle school – participated in their own Iron Chef competition for the evening, preparing dishes judged by their counselors. The event featured lots of delcicious – and wild! – food combinations.

C Compound campers – elementary-aged girl campers – attended their own special carnival! The girls played nine different carnival games and could win tickets to obtain prices. The night was full of lots of smiling, dancing, and even some takes on the most classic carnival snacks!

We can’t wait to report back about the rest of Week 1’s events, including two of our most popular summer camp traditions – Men’s and Women’s Dinner!

An important communication note for parents: if you have not yet spoken to your child’s counselor, please check your voicemail! All of our campers’ cousenlors have now made their parent phone calls updating families on their child’s first few days at camp. You should have received a voicemail unless there was no way to leave a message at the contact number we have on file. Rest assured that if you don’t hear anything further from us, your child is safe, happy, and having so much PHUN!