Name that Bunk House…

This will be our 27th summer of camp and we have decided it is “Time for Change” here at SMA.  This summer that change will come in the form of renaming our camper cabins.  For all you SMA alum I know this may come as a shock as it will be hard to image “Upper Boys” being named anything else.  However, we are committed to this change and we welcome your ideas for each cabin.  The best way to share your ideas is to comment on this post .

The cabin formally known as "Upper Boys"

We hope to announce the new cabin names by the opening day of camp, June 27th, 2009!

Alex Mcdowell Memorial

 

It is with a heavy heart that I write to tell you that over the weekend we lost a member of our summer staff family.  Alex McDowell died on Friday night in a car accident on Route 26 near the intersection of Loop Road, no one else was involved in the accident.  Alex worked support staff in 2003, as a camp counselor in 2006 and was our IT guy for all that time… most of all he was a true friend.  Alex’s brother Peter also worked at SMA and we are close his family. 

   

 

Alex is remembered as some one who was always there to lend a hand.  He was passionate about the great outdoors and loved taking campers fishing, hiking and on canoeing overnights.  Alex and I spent a lot of time together on the river with Sula, deer hunting together,  and just chill’n.

    

Services were held in Huntingdon last night and there were many local SMA staff in attendance.  In lieu of flowers, memorials are designated for the following:
 
Huntingdon Area Habitat for Humanity
PO Box 36
Huntingdon, PA 16652
 
Keystone Trails Association
101 N. Front St.
Harrisburg, PA 17101
 
Huntingdon County Humane Society
11371 Schoolhouse Hollow Rd.
Huntingdon, PA 16652
 

If you have any special memories of Alex or photos you would like to share please e-mail to me and I will post them on my “Directors Blog”  You can also read Alex’s obituary and see more photos at my blog:  http://stonemtadventures.wordpress.com/

 

Please send positive energy to Alex’s family as we are all hurting and hope the healing begins soon.

 

Much love to you all from your summer family –

 

  Jud, Anne, Wyatt, Molly, Pam, Biff and every one at SMA.

Greetings salutations and Happy Thanksgiving from every one at Stone Mountain Adventures! It’s hard for us to believe that it’s already late November and camp has been over for about four months. The good news is that the start of First Session 2009 is only 213 days away (crazy)!

Update from Camp…
All is well at camp as we are witness to the changing of the seasons. We had our first official snowfall last week and camp is currently blanketed under an inch of snow. Wyatt and I even had our inaugural sled ride of the year on Pam & Biff’s hill with Sula and Tess in tow. Speaking of Pam & Biff, they are both well. Pam had a busy fall in the barn with her therapeutic horseback riding program. We are now up to 19 horses, they all have their winter coats, and Scooter sends his holiday wishes to every one. Biff is still embracing retirement and spends much of his time volunteering with various local non-profit organizations. Biff & Pam recently lead a Habitat for Humanity trip to Romania and even visited Dracula’s castle. Anne is teaching at a local charter school in Huntingdon and coaching women’s basketball at Juniata College. Wyatt is almost two and a half years old and is full of words and life. His newest passions are Curios George, marching bands, helping to feed the dogs each evening. Molly is five months old and weighs in at 20 lbs. and is full of smiles and giggles. Wyatt dotes on his little sister who even rolled over for the first time last week. Both of our children bring us untold joy and remind us of the wonder in the world. I am keeping busy winterizing camp, SMA marketing and playing music in my band Three Quarter Blues. For you Second Sessioners from ’08, we recorded the out at the Raystown Lake Amphitheater and it is available on our web site www.threequarterblues.com

In other news…
We have had a fun fall supporting Penn State Football who is having a promising season having just won the Big Ten title. It has been fun crossing paths with many of the SMA staff who are local including: Crysta, Red Beard, Casey, Paul “Dunk”, Danielle, Army, Justin Packer, Steph (sort of) and Jen Watts-Mattise (for you old timers). We are planning a SMA staff holiday gathering sometime in December that should be a blast.

SMA Enrollment Update…
As you may remember we have changed up our session lengths for 2009:
1st Session (SMA1) – 6/27 (Sat) to 7/17 (Fri) – 21 days
2nd Session (SMA2) – 7/19 (Sun) to 8/1 (Sat) – 14 days
3rd Session (SMA3) – 8/3 (Mon) to 8/16 (Sun) – 14 days
4 week Option (SMA4) – 7/19 (Sun) to 8/16 (Sun) – 28 days
All Summer Option (SMA5) – 6/27 (Sat) to 8/16 (Sun) 7 weeks

We are excited about the change and we have received very positive feedback from returning and new campers. We are offering a 10% discount until 1/1/2009 to veteran campers who enroll in SMA4 (the four week option).

In closing…
We are all very excited because tomorrow our extended family is holding our 16th annual Thanksgiving Day Turkey Bowl Football Game which is a co-ed, all ages two hand touch football game! My brother who live out in Montana will be holding their 9th annual Turkey Bowl West. We are, of course also excited for visiting with family and enjoying a feast together.

We miss you, please feel free to drop us a line any time OR shoot us an e-mail with a “Life Update” We miss you!

Warm Regards and Best Wishes –

Jud, Anne, Wyatt, Molly, Pam, Biff, and all the critters at camp!

2009 SMA Dates are set!

September 18th, 2008

We have set the dates for Stone Mountain Adventures for 2009:

1^st Session (SMA1) – 6/27 (Sat) to 7/17 (Fri)  - 21 days                   Cost $3325 

.                          

2^nd Session (SMA2) – 7/19 (Sun) to 8/1 (Sat) – 14 days                  Cost $2275 

 

3^rd Session (SMA3) – 8/3 (Mon) to 8/16 (Sun) – 14 days                 Cost $2275                         

 

4 week Option (SMA4) – 7/19 (Sun) to 8/16 (Sun) – 28 days           Cost $4375 

 

All Summer Option (SMA5) – 6/27 (Sat) to 8/16 (Sun) 7 weeks     Cost $6975

Jud Lands a Switch 180 out at Raystown Lake!

September 12th, 2008

This afternoon SMA staffers Crysta Swarts, Brenton Mitchel and Camp Director Jud Millar spent the day on the boat out at RaystownLake.  It should be noted that both Jud and Crysta worked at camp all morning cleaning up the Rhino and organizing international bedding before heading out to RaystownLake.  We were all very happy to have the Lake to ourselves which meant lots of smooth water and even more fun. 

Brenton was in fine form behind the boat as his Wakeboardingskills are much improved.  He now rides comfortablebly and can go in and out of the wake easily on both sides.  Brenton even caught some air n his heel side edge!  

Meanwhile Jud’s skills on the board are steadily improving.  Jud can now clear the wake consistently on his heel side edge and every once in a while on his tow side edge.  The big new from today, aside from the calm water and natural beauty on Raystown Lake and the sunshine was that Jud landed a switch 180 from heel side to heel side.  This means that Jud got up on the wakeboard with his unnatural foot forward (thus riding switch), and proceeded to cruised around behind the boat for a while.  He then went out of the wake on the left, approached the wake on his heel side edge, caught air off the wake, rotated 180degrees in the air and landed it!  This was witnessed by one Crysta Swarts!

That’s all the exciting new we have to report for today – Have a GREAT WEEKEND!

Jud Celebrates 36 Years & Molly Celebrates 2 Months!

August 30th, 2008

Today Jud celebrated 36 year of life while new baby Molly celebrated about 2 months of life as she was born Jily 1st, 2008.  Jud spent the day on floating the Little Juniata River with friends while Molly spent the day sleeping, growing and looking as cute as a button.  Both attended a birthday dinner over at Pam & Biff’s house.  Many thanks to Anne for taking care of the kids while Jud floated the river!

Baby Molly is Born!

7/1/2008

This morning at 9:54am we welcomed baby Molly Charlene Millar into this world!  She was born 9lbs. 6oz. and is 22 inches long.  Mom (Anne) & baby are doing well and plan to be back at camp in a few days.  Jud is splitting time between the hospital and camp.

The cabins had a competition to guess the new babies weight.  We are excited to announce that our Left Girls Bunk won the competition as they were closest at 8lbs 9oz.  As the winners they will recieve ice cream dessert after dinner tonight.

In other news:  We are headed to Hershey Park tomorrow!

The First Week of First Session 2008!

6/30/2008

What an exciting first week at Stone Mountain Adventures!  We kicked off our first session having all of our campers go through our Ground School for rock climbing – each camper learned how to belay for a climber, including knot tying and proper safety techniques.  The first few evenings we spent playing large silly group games, and on Wednesday night we had a campfire!  The kids broke up into groups and performed classic campfire skits, complete with hilarious costumes from our costume box.

            The performance bug carried through to our Invention Convention – it is impossible to say which was better: the inventions or the skits to sell them!  Regardless, all the campers had a great time watching one another’s skits and dancing under our disco lights during the intermissions.  Speaking of disco lights, we danced as best we could on wheels during our camp trip to Penn Skates roller skating rink in State College. 

            This past Sunday, we spent the morning cleaning our bunks and straightening up around camp, then celebrated our hard work during an All-Camp Day at Greenwood Furnace.  We swam in the chilly water, enjoyed ice creams from the snack bar, and played a few great games of ultimate Frisbee.  Sunday night finished up with a good old-fashioned cook-out!

            Tonight we’re off to play Capture the Flag – may the best team win, and may we all have a great time! 

Stay tuned as Anne & Jud are expecting the arrival of their new baby any day now.  Anne is due on July 3rd!!

Here are cabin group photos from our first Sunday All Camp Day:

The Horizon

Hello and thanks for checking out my blog.  My name is Jud Millar and I am the director of Stone Mountain Adventures, a co-ed overnight summer camp for kids ages 12-16. We are looking forward to another fantastic summer!

Our 2008 Staff Team:  We are very exited to have many returning staff this summer as well as many new recruits as well.  So far this is what our 2008 SMA STAFF TEAM looks like: 

Returning Staff: 

• Crysta Swartz: Program Director; Seattle, WA – 5th Summer
• Kelly Christie: Wakeboarding Instructor; Clymer, PA – 2nd Summer
• Ceit Bannon: General Counselor “Rock Star” Manchester, England – 3rd Summer
• Koni Bannon: General Counselor; Manchester, England – 2nd Summer
• Matt Marsden aka “Captain Red Beard” Music Jam & just about everything else; North Bend, WA – 3rd Summer
• Matt Fox: Mountain Biking Guru; Wakefield, England – 3rd Summer
• Kelly Collins: Rock Climbing Instructor; Granville, OH – 3rd Summer
• Brian Swartz: Arts & Crafts and Lawn Games; Richmond, VA – 2nd Summer
• Paul Dunkelbarger: Wakeboarding Instructor; Huntingdon, PA – 2nd Summer