Three Cheers for Term 2!
June 20, 2024
The second of term of summer camp 2024 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. Boys and girls will compete in various games and events over the course of the term with their teams.
Monday featured our New Camper Ice Cream Social where we bring all first-time campers together to meet and chat over delicious ice cream sundaes. At the social, we welcomed our first set of triplets of the summer, and many new friendships were already forming between campers from different cities.
Monday also saw our first Camp Birthday! At Camp Balcones Springs, birthdays are a special occasion. The celebrated camper is ceremoniously carried around our Rio Grande Dining Hall in our special birthday palanquin chair while fellow campers and counselors sing our “cake upside the head” song. For this infamous summer camp tradition, the birthday camper gets to “pie” (with a plate of whipped cream) the person of their choice.
After a day full of exciting camp activities like horseback, tubing on the lake, and climbing our rock wall, boy and girl campers of all ages participated in an epic Counselor Hunt! During the Counselor Hunt, around 35 of our counselors hide in secret places (even trees!) all across camp as boy and girl campers search for them. Each counselor is worth a certain amount of “money” based on the difficulty of their hiding places, and campers are able to later redeem their “findings” for special prizes. Some of this term’s hiding spots were the best they have ever been – counselors were up in trees, in bushes, and even hiding on roofs!
Once all of the counselors were found, we all gathered in the Grid Iron for a live auction where campers could use the “points” they earned from finding counselors as “money” to choose prizes. Fannin Cabin – one of the most successful searchers of the evening – got to leave Counselor Hunt and go to Sonic for a special treat because of their bounty!
Other prizes of the evening included:
Bowie Cabin won a “pie your counselor in the face” prize. Alamo Cabin risked it all with a “mystery box” – and won a bag of potatoes! Goliad Cabin won the “maid for the day” service from our leadership staff. Goodnight Cabin won “Lola’s (our camp pup) favorite things” – including a lock of her hair. Dobie Cabin won Chick-fil-a breakfast in bed, and Ladybird Cabin won Starbucks. Houston Cabin won a special lunch at Papa’s pool. Driscoll won an “Uber black” for the day, during which they will have a private air-conditioned shuttle to all of their activities.
We can’t wait for whatever PHUN tomorrow will hold!