Sunday July 28

Shavua Tov! We had such a perfect first Shabbat – from Kabbalat Shabbat through a beautiful slow shira at Seudat Shlishit, everyone enjoyed the time together. One special perk of having such a large tzevet is that our camper: staff ratio is almost 1.5 : 1 which means that we have a very unique opportunity to set up every madrich/a and staff member with 1 or 2 chanichim/ot for a chavruta on Shabbat afternoon, right after Birkat HaMazon. Everyone spreads out onto the fields, into gazebos, at all picnic tables and they learn. 1 to 2 campers per staff member. They met on Thursday and chose what they wanted to learn and had a great time on Shabbat with the attention and learning…and candy some brought 🙂

This morning everyone had “bunk night” on their schedule which meant time for the bunk to think about how to best represent their bunk name tonight during presentations. Everyone painted a shelet (sign on wood), plus they need to sing a song or do some sort of presentation. The bunk names being assigned this session come from the period of Jewish History we are experiencing – prophets from the first Beit haMikdash, cities that we are studying, mountains that are significant, leaders that changed the course of history etc.

Something new in Stone: Bunks have been enjoying a peulah called U.F.O. led by a visitor from Israel named Avihu. They are learning how to create very simple low-budget rockets that fly 30-50 ft. in the air due to pressurized water and air. Some physics, some creativity and some flying objects… Recipe for a great peulah!

Kaytana leaned about Yaakov and Eisav today, and so of course they made…lentil soup (and watched the selling of the birthright performed by the counselors)! They had a chance to go on a part of our ropes course and had a nature peulah where they made “lemonana” (mint-lemonade slushy with our very own home grown mint leaves!) They enjoyed a funny talent show with counselors doing talents that were challenges by other counselors, and the boys had some slip n- slide – turned – mud- slide fun after a brief rain shower this afternoon 🙂

Machal is out on a “short” 5 mile water hike in a gorge nearby and slept out at the campgrounds there.