We’ve had the BEST Summer! August 6, 20192019 has been the BEST summer yet! Although we’re sad to see all of our lovely ladies leave, we’re going to hold these happy memories near and dear to our hearts. The most important thing to remember is that Marimeta is more than a place… it’s a feeling! The skills each girl learns here and the friends they make will always be integrated into their lives. Marimeta will be with them forever, and we wouldn’t want it any other way! These past couple days have been full of exciting activities and packed with TONS of fun. Yesterday was Olympics Day! We began the day by raising the olympic flag, and every girl sported their team colors. Since we had a rainy Friday evening, we finished our Red and White League in the morning with a couple rounds of Capture the Flag! We were hit with some more rain in the afternoon, so instead of regular Olympic Day activities, the JC’s organized a special Olympic version of Project Runway! Therefore, each team gathered in a designated cabin and selected one camper to represent their team. This camper was then dressed as a creative character and performed a lip-sync with the rest of their team! We had special visits from Australia’s Chloe the Koala and Ireland’s lucky leprechaun. What fun! The evening was also jam packed with some special programming to celebrate one of our last nights at CMFG. First, we gathered after dinner for the start of our Second Session Banquet! Activity awards were given out by different counselors to the campers who excelled in their activities. Next, in the Rec Hall we listened to excellent speeches written by all of our Red and White Team captains! Usually in these speeches the captains reflect back on their time leading their teams. They thank each other for their outstanding sportsmanship and team spirit, and remember special memories from throughout the summer. To end the evening, the whole camp sat down to watch the 2019 Highlight Video! This video is a tribute to the summer and shows everything that happened these past 8 weeks. Special thanks to Hannah Newman, Maddie Orloff, and Emma Lund for working tirelessly to put this video together! Today was packing day. Although this isn’t a great day at camp, we keep our spirits high! After an extended cabin clean up, the girls each take turns packing their bags. While they’re not packing, everyone is able to watch the Highlight Video again in the Rec Hall! For lunch, we happily ate our last round of Grilled Cheese, and for banquet tonight at dinner we will feast on Durkee Chicken! Banquet tonight is one of the most special nights at camp. The “golden” awards are given out to an outstanding camper in swimming, skiing, and running. One Overall Achievement award is also given to a camper (or group of campers) who have truly grown this summer and excelled in every single aspect of camp! The campers and counselors who received special beads this summer will also be awarded, as will the winner of Red and White League 2019! To end our last evening of camp, everyone will gather at Wilderness Point for one final campfire. This time, the campers are all listening as the counselors give the speeches! The counselors from each cabin prepare a speech (usually a song or poem) about the amazing time they shared with their campers. Remember, “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened!”-Dr. Seuss. Tomorrow, all of our campers will be sleeping in their own beds at home. We are sad to see them leave, but excited to see what their futures hold! Congratulations to SC’19 for an incredible last summer as campers, we love you all! 2019 is by far the BEST! We’ll see you all next summer on Meta Shore!
Parenting Goals with Teenage Daughters August 4, 2019 Tennis Competition Helping Others Working as a Team Dealing with teenage daughters and their ever changing moods can seem daunting. We never know “who” is going to show up for breakfast. In an article by Marika Lindholm, Ph.D, she has outline 10 parenting goals we can all try to implement with our teenage daughters. Below we have outline 5 of these that we use at Camp Marimeta. Here are some parenting goals with your teenage daughter. Lets start by trying to ignore the dreaded eye roll. We all find it frustrating but most ever girl does it. We try and remember that she is thinking for herself and judging what is being said to her. In fact it is developmentally fitting, and eventually they move past this phase. Try not to “pick up the rope” on this one. Talk to your daughter later, telling her how it made you feel when she rolled her eyes at you. Egocentrism and teens go hand in hand. In fact, they can be down right selfish. Only thinking about their needs and wants are also normal in their development. In any event, remember to talk with them about empathy, kindness, and perspective. This too shall pass. We all know girls can be blunt, annoying, and merciless. It is how we react to these tactics that can make the difference. First of all, let them know it is not ok to talk to you that way. Then, table the conversation for when you both can discuss it calmly. Also, once you have the discussion with them…let it go. They need to know we can move on after disagreements. “Facing consequences and overcoming challenges is part of becoming a resilient adult.” We have to let our daughters struggle with setbacks and realize that it is not the end of the world if they mess up. Support them and guide them with solutions, but above all don’t fight their battles for them. Finally, own your own inappropriate attitude. We all make mistakes and lose our temper and say things that we are not proud of. Apologizing shows your teen that being an adult doesn’t mean you’re perfect. It does however mean that an adult accepts their missteps and trys to make reparations. Please read the full article in Psycholgy Today to find out the other 5 tips to help reach those parenting goals with your teenage daughters.
The 2019 Marimeta Sing is Finally Here! August 3, 2019The 2019 Marimeta Sing is tonight! The Sing is an important event for our session long Red and White League. In fact, this event has been a Marimeta tradition for years and years! During first session, Senior Cabin chooses two themes: one for the Red Team and one for the White team. These themes can be anything. In past years they have been: wedding, cereal, airport, mythology, olympics, board games. You can see that there is no limit to what the subject might be. These themes are kept as a HUGE secret all season long. Usually, the first time the girls hear their team’s theme is on the buses going to Town! They don’t learn of the other team’s theme until they perform. Senior Cabin works tirelessly each summer to write songs and make costumes. They must teach their teams the songs in order to continue this tradition and ensure that every camper has a blast! Each team will get in full costume tonight and perform three songs in front of the camp. They will sing a slow song, a peppy song, and a song that has been written by Senior Cabin that correlates to their theme! With smiles bright and costumes beaming, the 2019 Marimeta Sing is sure to be a great one!
Intercamp and a Ski Competition! August 1, 2019This session, Marimeta competed in an intercamp and a ski competition! So what’s an intercamp? “Chippewa’s the team that we’re gonna defeat, so c’mon everybody do the Marimeta beat!” An intercamp is a competition that we arrange with another girls camp! The girls play each other in different sports, while also getting to see their friends from other camps. This session, for the first time since 2016, Marimeta competed in an intercamp against Chippewa! The campers played in age group teams (ranchers, dudes, pioneers) in soccer, basketball, and tennis. The dudes and ranchers stayed at Marimeta, while the pioneers took a bus over to Chippewa. During normal activities the girls are competing against each other in our intracamp competitions, like Red and White and Olympics. However, during an intercamp, we are truly Team Marimeta competing against another camp! We all work together to use the skills we’ve developed throughout the entire summer. The competition during our Chippewa intercamp was fierce, and the score ended up being 3-3, so it was a tie! Now onto the Ski Competition! We are SO ecstatic to announce that we are competing in Kawaga‘s annual Northwood’s Skiing Competition! This is the first time Marimeta has decided to participate in a very, very long time. We have selected five skiers and five wake boarders to represent our camp at the competition. They will be skiing on a slalom course and trying to perform jumps and tricks on their wake boards. No matter win or lose, we are so proud of our girls for going and showing off their skills for all of the other camps to admire! Go Team Marimeta! Our Intercamp and Ski Competition this summer were such a great way to bring everyone a little closer together to support our outstanding Marimeta Girls!
The Last Few Days of CMFG 2019 Are Here! July 30, 2019The last few days of CMFG have arrived, and although we’re nearing the end, we have a bunch of AMAZING activities planned! Last night, the evening activity was Manny and Pan’s Treasure Hunt! This is a beloved Red and White competition that our tennis instructors plan. The girls work in little teams to solve a series of riddles that Manny and Pan compile every summer. Some of these include trying to untie a rope from scissors and figuring out how to carry an open, half-filled water bottle with only a straw! These riddles challenge the girls in a very different way from our normal evening activities. Instead of working their athletic abilities, this program really makes the girls think. It’s incredible to see everyone working so intently together to solve some of these tricky puzzles. This game is so challenging every year, that it usually takes longer than a normal evening activity. Therefore, this morning instead of regular G-Day activities, the girls left off where they started on the Treasure Hunt. It took all three periods of activities to finish these complicated riddles, but the campers loved it! Senior Cabin has their own separate set of puzzles to solve, and they completed those during their period of Flag Football. For lunch, we ate some delicious sub sandwiches and then enjoyed a normal rest hour. We did regular 4th and 5th period activities in the afternoon. However, there is no General today because the girls are showering in preparation for a Mardi Gras themed social with Camp Menominee!! Later this week, we have SO much more to look forward to! Tomorrow is Town Day! This means that after lunch, all of camp will load into the Lamer’s buses and take a trip to Minocqua. We will spend the day shopping and eating dinner with our cabins while exploring the town! To end this special afternoon, the whole camp gathers to watch the Min-Aqua Bats Ski Show! This amateur ski show is the longest running in the whole nation, with amazing performances in slalom, trick, and barefoot skiing. We watch this show every summer, and the girls love it! These last few days are precious, and we know the girls will live each moment to the fullest and enjoy what little time they have left here!
We Love Alumni – Please Come to Visit July 28, 2019No matter if you have been at Camp Marimeta for just one summer or 20, we really are family. Alumni is important to us- we love you! We love when Marimeta Alumni come to visit. We had the pleasure these last couple of weeks to welcome many Alumni back to the shores of Meta Lake. Our Alumni are very important to us and often visit for many different reasons. First, many Alumni return to Camp Marimeta to show their spouses where they spent many of their summers. It is always fun to meet the person that captured our camper’s heart. They visit the mess hall and look for old pictures and have a good chuckle about their hair style. Many return for bachlorette partys as well. It is always amazing to see so many camp friends that last so long. Second, many former campers return as adults with their own daughters to tour camp for them. This of course is very special and heartwarming to us. We are so pleased that they want to share “that Marimeta Beat” with them. Their is nothing like comparing camp stories with your daughter and understand everything she is talking about! They also are very proud to show their daughters the many plaques their names are on. Equally as exciting is when Alumni return to present new 5 year campers their jackets. It could be their mother, their sister, their aunt or even their cousin that gives them their jacket. Each of these former campers are also in the 5 year club. It brings tears to everyones eyes when any of these people come up for this one very special evening. One of our favorite times with “Metalum” is at Alumni Camp. This is where we get to spend an extended amount of time laughing and reminiscing with everyone. Furthermore, Alumni Camp lets you relive your childhood. Many Metalum look forward to these 3 days all year long. In fact they start planning their skits and lip-syncs way before they even arrive. In any event, there is not a single person that isn’t laughing to the point of crying. We get to sing old songs and we also have the chance to “capture the flag”. Above all, no mattter where you go or how long you’ve been away, Marimeta will always be your summer home. We hope you take a bit of Camp Marimeta with you wherever you go. We love our Alumni and hope you visit us soon. mom presenting 5 year jacket to daughter Metalum 2017 Alumni sisters
A Typical Friday at Marimeta July 27, 2019We had a long, GREAT Friday at Marimeta yesterday! To start the day, the kitchen staff prepared some yummy french toast for breakfast. After breakfast, we had a normal cabin cleanup. The plan for the day was to do regular K-Day activities, however, we would soon see that change! At the end of first period activities, the sky flipped a switch and it started raining! We quickly changed gears into rainy day activities! In Eagle River, it’s not unusual for the weather to completely flip in the middle of the day, so we are always prepared with a game or cabin activity that we can do with the rain. We played a classic game at Marimeta called Get Stuff, Do Stuff, Find Stuff Out! During this game the girls go through three different periods. For the “get stuff” period, the girls have 30 minutes to collect a variety of items, from a polka dot towel to a frog (gross!). During the “do stuff” period, the girls have an hour to go around camp and try to complete as many of the tasks as they can. Some of these include giving Frankie a massage in the lodge, singing the alphabet backward, or attempting an all cabin human pyramid! The next round is “find stuff out”, where the campers have a list of questions and they must try to answer as many as possible. These questions are Marimeta based, but some of them are random. One of the trickiest questions to answer is “How many toilets do we have at camp?”. After this activity, it was time for lunch. The meal was ravioli! Next, we had a normal rest hour, and by the end, the sky was back to normal. With the weather now nice and sunny, we switched back into regular activities and were able to fit in 4th and 5th period, and a full hour of General! Dinner was ribs, however this was no ordinary dinner. Last night we had a Silent Dinner! During this special evening, the girls must dress in all white. They sit in Little Team tables, with a counselor assigned to track penalty points. Penalty points are given to girls who make ANY unnecessary noise, or get any speck of food on their face or clothing. With ribs as the meal, you can imagine how difficult it is to keep your face clean with all that sauce! The campers can only communicate with each other by mouthing words or writing stuff down on pads of paper. It was a real challenge! The evening activity was two rounds of Red and White team competition! The girls played each other in dodge ball, knock out, basketball, kickball, newcomb, steal the bacon, and water relays. The competition was fierce, but all of the girls always show their outstanding sportsmanship and cheer on their teams! Although yesterday threw us for a spin, we had a fun-packed day with a variety of different activities! Friday at Marimeta was an amazing day!
Meet Our Nurses at Marimeta! July 25, 2019Our nurses at Marimeta are the best! Meet Emilee! Emilee is from Tulsa, Oklahoma. She is 20 years old and attends Oklahoma State University. She has been studying nursing for two years, and wanted to find a job opportunity that best suited her passions. Emilee learned about camp through a job posting online and figured she would be a great fit (which she is)! Usually, in her free time, she enjoys going to the lake, spending time with her eight younger siblings, and reading. We’re so glad Emilee is spending the summer with us, and having a blast! Meet Deb! Nurse Deb has been coming to camp for 8 years now! She was born in Kansas City, Missouri and studied nursing at the University of Kansas. She currently works at Saint Luke’s Cardiovascular Consultants in Kansas City. In fact, Deb’s brother was roommates with Sandy at the University of Kansas, and now she truly feels camp has become her second home, and more importantly, her second family! Deb is a mom of 4, but she loves coming up here to take on every single camper as another one of her summer kiddos :) Every single day these lovely ladies wake up early and go to bed late in order to to distribute medications and attend to any campers who don’t feel well. All day long, girls come and see them if they have any issues, and they are always taken care of right away! We love the Nurses at Marimeta!
Sundays at Marimeta! July 23, 2019At Marimeta, Sundays look a little different from the other days of the week. On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, we do K-Day Activities. On Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, we do G-Day Activities. So what comes on Sunday? Sundays at Marimeta are Cabin Days. This means from sunrise to sunset the girls are spending some quality time hanging out with their closest summer sisters. During meals any other day of the week, the campers are randomly mixed at their tables into all different age groups. During activities, they play with girls from all different cabins. However, on Sunday they get to eat and do activities in cabin groups. The day starts with a sleep in! On other days of the week, wake up call is at 8 am, but on Sundays, the girls don’t get woken up till 10:30! If they get up earlier, they are welcome to grab some breakfast in the mess hall, play jacks with their friends in the lodge, or do something quiet in their cabins. After wake up call, the girls switch their beds. This is a unique aspect to cabin living at Marimeta, for we have the girls change beds every single Sunday. We believe this helps encourage new friend groups, and ensures that each girl goes to bed next to two new people each week! Next, the girls gather their laundry, bring it to the half court, and hang out together until lunch. Lunches on Sundays are also special! The counselors waitress meals on Sundays to give the girls a nice break, and sitting in cabin groups is such a treat! There are different songs that the Senior Cabin leads on Sundays, that usually involve the entire mess hall. After lunch, each cabin participates in three rounds of activities. These are special because during the week, the girls do not get to try activities with their whole cabin all together. All of our normal activities are available for the girls to do on Sundays, and they are such a blast! Next, the girls sit down in their crazy creek chairs all around camp in cabin circles to eat dinner. For dinner on Sundays, Frankie and CJ whip up some delicious hot dogs, bratwursts, and veggie burgers. It is so nice to sit outside and eat such a yummy meal with our cabin mates! For dessert, the girls eat some ice cream! To end the day, all of camp gathers in the Rec Hall to watch a movie. The movie changes each week, and it’s always such a surprise to see what the counselors have chosen! This is a perfect time for the girls to write home and update you on their fun-packed week. Sundays at Marimeta are the BEST!
Combating materialism in this very consumerism world. July 21, 2019Gratitude seems to be the answer to helping our children become less materialistic. First of all, a study by Lan Nguyen Chaplin, a UIC associate professor, states “that higher levels of gratitude are associated with lower levels of materialism. Also cultivating your child to be grateful helps them to disassociate “things” with happiness and wanting more. As a result of Professor Chaplin’s study, we learned “participants of children who were encouraged to keep a gratitude journal showed a significant decrease in materialism and increase in gratitude. In addition, the group that kept a gratitude journal was more generous than the control group.” We need to work on teaching our children the difference between need and want. Many of us want the newest technology but do we really need it. And more importanly what do we need it for? Here are 3 things that we as parents do to promote materialism. First, we reward our children for their accomplishments. With that, we are teaching them that material things are the only goal. Second, we choose to give presents to show our love for them. This shows them that our affections equals gifts. Finally, we usually punish are children by taking away their things. This seems to confirm that possessions are needed to feel good. Good news is there are ways we can combat consumerism in our children. Generally speaking, giving gifts to our children is normal and healthy. We just need to remember moderation is the key. Next, we can take away privileges they may have earned instead of a possession. However, sometime it is the most fitting consequence. We just need to be mindful to not make that our only adverse consequence. Other ways to combat materialism is to talk at dinner about what each of you are grateful for. Tell them how you are grateful for people in your lives. Talk about acts of kindness that you experienced instead of things you purchased. Another key factor to consider is spending quality time with them. Doing things with our children, like going for a hike or playing outside with them teaches them to appreciate time over presents. In any event, our actions speak louder than our words. Show them how to be generous with their time. Let them see how you treat people with kindness. Help them become aware of your charitable donations and how they can help. Remember to help them see with your actions that you appreciate people over things. At Camp Marimeta we stress that being grateful of the little things that people do for you is important. As an illustration, we have the bead necklace program. If anyone does something kind for or to you, you have the option to get a bead for their necklace. You present it to them with the reason you are giving it to them. One of the reasons could be that they helped you during cabin clean up. It could be that you were feel a little down and they helped you through it. We also have a whole day named gratitude day. It is just a reminder to think of others and for all the good things in your life.