Letters TO camp

My daughter is safe and sound in the air conditioning of home sweet home after a week at Girl Scout camp, where the temperatures reached 107 degrees and the cabins had no electricity, which means no A/C.

She received all of our postcards, letters and e-mails, and she even saved them all, re-reading them at home and asking me questions about what I'd written. "Where is this book you said you bought me?" and "What was that about Junior (the cat) catching a rat?"

The girls received their mail every day at lunch, she said. On Wednesday, the "Pony Express" (the girls attending the horse-themed camp at the same time and place as Anna's "Glitz and Glam" camp session) delivered the mail to their cabins.

The e-mails were sent via a service, and the camp counselors printed out the e-mails and handed them out, along with the postal mail.

Following the directions in the Parents Guide for the camp, I tried to write upbeat letters that gave her a little news from home without making her homesick. The hardest part was coming up with news from home...without her here, it was a quiet house. There was the cat with a rat incident, and we did stop by a bookstore on the way home from dropping her off. But, otherwise, not much was going on.

Still, I managed to write her a letter and/or e-mail each day she was gone, letting her know that we were thinking about her and that we knew she was having a good time.

Anna assures me that she was happy to hear her named called out at lunch to pick up her mail. And, happily, she said most of the girls she was around, likewise, received mail almost every day. Hurrah for letters to camp!