Alison in Vienna: July 2012

I feel very spoiled that I've gotten to experience one of my favorite summer events in both Vienna and New York this year! Early last week several of us went to see the New York Philharmonic on the Great Lawn in Central Park. The weather has been a bit up and down here lately, and thankfully it didn't rain on us at the park, but it was really really hot, which didn't stop us from packing a picnic and sitting out and melting while listening to some amazing music and enjoying the night. There might not have been any palaces involved this time, but relaxing on blankets in the grass is very nice, especially in such a nice quiet space in the bustling loud city.

Right after work hours on a Monday, I think the heat helped delay the crowds until a bit later...normally about this time the place is getting packed.

Roomie! Kiersten and I were roommates in NYC for 4 and a half years, and it's always fun to get to hang out...plus I've now dragged her to this event every year and she actually likes it!

Part of our food spread...I traded Sacher Torte for homemade salsa for this concert...yummm.

And some videos of the Philharmonic and the fireworks in the middle of the city.

Instead of breaking this week up into a couple posts I just went ahead and put it all in one...so I apologize in advance if this takes forever to load...

The morning after the 4th of July, I headed up to Camp Shiloh to hang out as a volunteer for the week that was left of Teen Session. I started working as a full time summer staff member at Shiloh 9 summers ago, which means that my 9 and 10 year old campers from my first summer are now some of the counselors, and I've known most of the teen campers since they were that young. It was also a great way to ease back into the summer and being home, having lots of things to do and a full schedule doesn't allow for any weird jet lag napping :) I got to camp Thursday morning, but didn't really get my camera out until Friday evening for the start of the weekend games. Thursday night I was hiding in the woods as part of the evening game mostly trying to fight the mosquitoes that seemed to have no regard for the layer of bug spray I was wearing...

Each summer, the two week sessions of camp take a break from their normal schedules beginning Friday after dinner and continuing until Sunday afternoon. Cabins are paired up (one guy and one girl cabin) to form 5 teams and compete in a range of activities all weekend. Since this is an Olympic summer, the theme for Weekend Games was Olympics...which of course had to begin with opening ceremonies including a torch relay (which was much safer than torch relay Summer '06)

Athena and her muses getting ready to watch the torch

We had the CITs (counselors in training) carry the torch around the pool for the relay

and Ryan lighting the official flame

the crowd watching the torch relay and fireworks that followed

the teams in the Rec Hall hearing the opening instructions

Lowering of the official flags...plus nothing at Shiloh is complete without a little misspelling...

Each team had to come up with their own country to compete for the weekend...they also each designed a flag and a national anthem for their country...then it was on to the opening competition!

We had thumb wrestling...

Arm wrestling...

Shaving balloons without popping them...among a few others.

Saturday morning they have time for swim and activity, and then following lunch and rest time all the teams come out to various stations to compete for the afternoon.

As a way to earn extra points, this team began reenacting scenes from the Lion King...this is the dedication of Simba while the rest of the team sings the Circle of Life...it was hilarious.

Sunday morning the teams compete in various field games...water balloon toss...

Tug of War...and then foot races.

Then it's off to the pool for swimming races, cannonball and belly-flop contests

Normally Saturday night is Wilderness Night, which involves cooking hot dogs over the campfire, s'mores and a night swim. It ended up raining Saturday evening, so Teresa and I quickly cooked about 300 hot dogs on the grill and then we let the kids eat while they enjoyed a movie night (normally Sunday evening's activity). Keeping with the Olympics theme they watched Cool Runnings, which thankfully is a movie both adults and campers really enjoy. Since we ended up swapping Sunday's evening activity for Saturday, Sunday night we went ahead with the s'mores and night swim!

carefully roasting marshmallows for s'mores

YUM! finally after all this talk of s'mores in Slovakia and Vienna I got one!

One of my favorite night activities at Shiloh is definitely Shiloh Bingo...everyone dresses up as weirdly as they can, and we play bingo while listening to music and taking plenty of breaks for some serious dancing.

A couple bingo dance break videos:

During the normal weekdays of camp, campers get to choose from a number of activity classes for the morning...

Arts and Crafts

Games

Gardening Class

This year, in lieu of the traditional camper vs. counselor basketball game, we instituted camper vs. staff game night...so we had 3 games going simultaneously...basketball, dodgeball, and volleyball. I was on the severely outnumbered staff dodgeball team...although we did quite well for ourselves...