Camp Easter Seals New Mexico's Blog

Randy sent us some more camp pictures. Beware -- they are expressions of the artistic soul of Randy, some of them purposefully blurred or trimmed at weird angles! :)

Hi Campers! The 2007 season is approaching in big steps. In preparation, Randy sent us some pictures he took last year. Enjoy!

We're closing the 2006 New Mexico season, so the postcard from this year is available.

All the campers have gone home from session two... we work so hard and the time goes by so quickly! Eleven of the thirty adults hiked El Morro, it is a two hour hike and was an incredibly beautiful New Mexico day when we did it. Our final Luau and Dance was interrupted by a hail storm while we were trying to eat outside, but oh well! We loved having Elvis visit us once again.

We have an incredible group of dedicated staff who truly enjoy the campers. Please look on the website for next year's dates. The Gallup Kiwanis club have taken a renewed interest in us and are committed to fundraise so that we can go back to three sessions: children, adults with physical disabilities, and adults with developmental disabilities, and a short three night session for young children from Gallup for their first time away from home. All this will take place between July 25 to August 18... I will try to get the 2007 dates posted on this site in early October.

Have a great year and we will see you next summer!

Jane Carr
Camp Director

It is Tuesday and we are busy with our adult session. Donna is our high point bowler so far with 126, however all the gentlemen are bowling as I write this so we will have to wait and see.

We have had two groups go to Zuni and one group yesterday, Ronnie, Max, Kevin, Tom and Joe actually got to see a traditional Zuni summer rain dance. There were over one hundred fully costumed kachinas dancing, and this was definitely of religious and spiritual significance, not a tourist event, and a rare opportunity.

We enjoyed some jewelry shopping too! The ladies enjoyed a "Girls' Night In" in the dorms with some spa services, make up and a slumber party watching the movie "Fifty First Dates". The ladies also got to try out the new pool and enjoyed it, although Steven is truly the king of the waterslide and absolutely loves it! We are preparing for our crazy relays, "It's a Knockout" tonight, always a high energy event. The rain has been coming down daily, but only in fits and
starts so not really dampening our activities. Thirty campers are keeping us busy and I am so impressed with our wonderful counselling staff.


Jane Carr
Camp Director

A new bunch of pictures is available here.

Welcome to our adult session, and a busy one it is with thirty campers in camp. Our first full program day was yesterday and it was one of our best programs I think I have seen out here in Vanderwagen. All day was Western Day, staff had to talk with a Western accent and slang, we did archery, horseshoes, poker playing, decorated cowboy hats, had a casino and danced a full hour of Country Line Dances and round dances...

In the evening the girls got to go to see Indian Dances while the males stayed in camp for manly pursuits and cowboy poetry. A big thanks is due to our program directors Bill and Archie who work tirelessly to make the days exciting. We will be off camp Monday a lot with swimming at the new indoor pool in Gallup in the morning and then afternoon bowling and a trip to Zuni. All is well.

Jane Carr
Camp Director

Another session has ended, successfully. We really had a great time. The new pool with waterslide, water tunnels, and a "lazy river" was great. Our last day we had a Luau Dance complete with Tiki Room entertainment, Hula Contest, and surf contest. I hope to see all of the campers next year.

Please help recruit other children who might enjoy camp. As our campers get older we have plenty of adults but need more referrals of children. Route families to this web site, or you may have people email me at home at janecarres@aol.com. Goodbye for now and have a great year.

Jane Carr
Camp Director

Finally we can publish some pictures!

Hello out there.. another camp director's log from Jane. We are having a great session, eis worse off than we are. We have had some showers but nothing of consequence. We really love swimming at the new indoor Gallup Aquatic Center, the water slide is a big hit. We had a great talent show last night and will hopefully have some pictures up tomorrow. We are planning a big Hawaiian Luau for our final afternoon and dance tomorrow, can't believe it is already that time in the session. Our bowling tournament has been exciting since we have Orlando and Chad in camp who were former champions but right now Kelli with 131 is in the lead. Our golfing tournament is being led by Saman who has been spending a lot of time on the green.

Hope all is well wherever all of you are, we are great here... see you Thursday morning.

Jane Carr
Camp Director

Hello out there!

Well, you can see how busy we have been at camp since it is Monday and I haven't had time to write a log yet! While most of the camp is out swimming and the rest are working on the camp newspaper I am taking out some time for office catch up. I am continually amazed at just how wonderful this camp is. I have directed camps in California and Washington and none have the dedication and enthusiasm of the staff we have... most of us have been together for many years, up to eight years for some of us, we enjoy your sons and daughters and this area. We have had some rainy weather so this is actually our first pool day, we substituted a trip to the Window Rock zoo yesterday after we had already loaded the vans and it began to pour, not a huge zoo but we had fun anyway.

We now have a relationship with the new Gallup Aquatic Center and will have indoor swimming, they even have a water slide so I am anxious to see how the morning goes! We all, all forty four of us in camp, went to the Gallup Ceremonial on Saturday for the Indian Dances, Rodeo, and general festivities. Perfect weather for that and a great outing. Archie, Bill, and Deb are back leading our programs all together and the three of them keep the enthusiasm high. We have so far done campfire (okay, it was campfireless since we had to be in the lodge due to the rain), celebrity game show night, and our crazy relays It's a Knockout. If we get our technology in gear here we'll post some pictures... but until then you'll just have to use your imaginations!

By the way, due to Ceremonial the t-shirt shop here in Gallup got backed up so won't have our shirts in until Friday, we will mail them to each of you who purchased them so hopefully that will be a fun surprise and reminder of camp for your kids to get in the mail.

This year we will use a blog service (Blogger.com) instead of (quite tedious) manual site management. Camp Director's notes and comments will appear at:

http://www.campisfun.org/blog