Director Jud's Blog

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!