I sit down at the end of the day to write the blog and I’m often struck by how my words just can’t fully tell the story. I can tell you that it was doughnuts and pastries for breakfast, cheesesteak sandwiches and steak fries for lunch, and chicken alfredo for dinner, with brownies for dessert. I can tell you that Sports and Games played Quidditch on the soccer field today, which doesn’t involve flying broomsticks, but does involve hula hoops and dodgeballs and a human Golden Snitch running all over camp trying not to get caught. I can tell you that yesterday was Skatie’s birthday, so she made an appearance in koogee row to celebrate with one of our koogees. I can tell you that koogee 11 won inspection this week and got to go see a movie tonight. I can tell you that it was another warm and muggy day today until around 8 when a gentle rain started to fall, which makes for perfect sleeping weather, falling asleep to the sound of the rain on the metal koogee roofs. And all of these things are true. But it only scratches the surface of a day at camp…it doesn’t cover  all the little magic things that happen every day here like conquering fear of a certain bike trail, or getting up on skis for the first time, or overcoming homesickness, or hugging your friend at the campfire because he’s sad. But it’s not all sunshine and rainbows, as kids argue and try to figure out how to live together in a koogee for 11 days with people who aren’t their family. There is magic in that growth too. One of our Voyagers went home after D session and the first thing he said to his parents was, “You will never fully be able to understand what that place means us.” And maybe that’s true, that we can’t fully understand as parents, and that there’s some magic in that, because that piece is completely theirs. When our daughter went to camp, she was gone for two weeks and they didn’t post any photos at all. They wanted the story of camp to be one that the girls went home and told, not that the parent interpreted from photos posted. And while I agree with that wholeheartedly, that the story of camp should be your son’s to tell, I also love sharing little pieces of the magic, giving you a taste of camp. Because as you can see from the pictures, it’s truly a boy’s life. “A Boyhood Adventure” is not just our motto, it’s a daily way of life. What a gift you have given him by sending him to camp, this magic gift of a boy’s life at Deerhorn.