Lucky me — I got to spend TWO weeks at Silver Lake this summer!

Silver Lake is the summer camp I went to as a kid. As an adult, I go back to lead a week-long program for high school kids that’s all about making videos (here are my recaps from previous years: 2016 and 2015). And my bonus week this summer was as a counselor for a middle school program where the theme was “The Amazing Race” (except since this is a church-affiliated camp we called it “Amazing gRace”). What a treat to spend two weeks in this special place with some of my favorite people.

I’ll split the experience into two posts — this one will recap our first week making videos.

Here is our superlative dean and counselor staff for Silver Lake’s Funniest Videos — Lulu, Luis, Julie, Jamie, and me. We had 26 high school kids in our care that week.

Julie and me, just before check in started:

Our cabins were named after video streaming services:

Our whole group on Monday:

Since I was mostly too busy to take photos this week (I was running around with a video camera in my hand the whole time), I’m going to rely on the staff photographer’s photos for this next set. Her name is Maggie and she captured great moments of our group all week long.

In the ceramics hut:

Brainstorming for our video project one afternoon:

Free time on the field / courts between dinner and evening worship:

Waterfront time! I went swimming most days (and canoed once) — this is my happy place.

This next batch of waterfront photos are actually screen grabs from the weekly recap video I put together:

Can you spot the great blue heron, camouflaged in the weeds?

Okay, back to the camp photographer’s photos…

This was right after we finished shooting our first music video (yes… it featured a dinosaur…). This photo makes me so happy!

Each evening a different group at camp takes a turn hosting worship. On our group’s night, we screened the three music videos we had just shot that afternoon, and then shared a group prayer, some scriptures related to the videos, and a few songs. Here is Julie leading the group in “Hey Jude” as I shoot from the sidelines:

Chalk on the basketball court from one of our music videos:

In the arts & crafts hut:

Post-worship high fives:

Helping Pammy (the camp’s sustainability coordinator) harvest some veggies from the garden:

And a few final screen grabs from that weekly recap video I shot (sorry for the low quality!).

Playing group games at low ropes — sadly, we were rained out of high ropes this year. Low ropes is still my favorite though since it features team-building games.

Playing improv games on the first night:

Dancing their hearts out at the dance party after Staff Show:

One of the highlights of the week is The Cabinmate Game — it’s like The Newlywed Game, but about how well they know their fellow cabinmates. It’s a huge hit every year. And little known fact: I LOVE pretending to be a game show host.

That wraps up our week!

Part 2 coming soon!