It's Better Than The Happiest Place On Earth

Before I get into details about my first day returning to camp, I would just like to thank the Nick and Kelly Foundation and all the sponsors of Camp Del Corazon. I feel like thank you isn't even that expressive of a word to show how appreciative I am, so it will only be proper to show my appreciation in a camp orderly fashion...

Camp Appreciation:

*pat pat*

*clap clap*

*snap snap*

YYYEEEAAAAHHH!

I'll approach this like I approached this last year, one day at a time!

Day 1

If there's one thing I learned to change from last year is to meet Nick and Kelly at the airport earlier. The line grows so fast and I always get there when there's already 100 other kids in line. So, I set my traditional camp alarm, with Blame It On The Boogie as the ringtone, for 3:30 a.m. As early as that is and considering the morning person I'm not, I still managed to wake up before my alarm due to the amount of excitement building inside me! After I got dressed, triple checked my luggage, toasted some Toaster Strudel's my mum and I were out the door in a jiffy. Even though I woke up earlier, left the house sooner with no traffic to sit through, there were still about 50 kids ahead of us, including my boyfriend! 

I was so caught up with seeing all my friends again (and being interviewed for the first time) that I forgot to say good-bye to my parents! And to a shocking delight, Lindsey returned to camp (I guess that's not a huge shocker since there isn't one camper I know who wouldn't want to go back)! I met Lindsey last year and introduced her to CDC after I found out that she is twelve years old and hasn't met anyone else with a heart condition. If I was left thinking I was alone in the world battling for my life than I KNOW my whole attitude would be completely different!

Everyone at Camp Del Corazon is the same. We all have our own personal war stories, different battle scars and we just understand one another because we all have been there, done that which unites us into one big Corazon family! 

Once we were settled into our traveling groups and passed through security, we were 600 feet in the air and eating stratosphere breakfast in no time. We definitely didn't waste any time! After we landed at the John Wayne Airport, we took a group picture and were at the boat dock after a thirty minute bus ride. Once we  got there we were introduced to our cabin!

Schooner Girls!

Last year, my cabin was Cutter. This year, my cabin is Schooner and I already knew three girls who I had in my cabin last year. There were five of us from Arizona; Sammy, Selena, Victoria, Marissa, and myself. The other three girls were from California, Kasey, Katelyn, and Brianna. My counselors this year were Kokopop, Mrs. Bionic, Flipper and Izzy along with our favored fanny pack lady, Miffy, our med nurse (who was also my med nurse last year).

After waiting for our luggage to be loaded on to the boat, we loaded ourselves and were finally heading to Catalina Island! The boat ride took a couple hours, but time fly's when your catching up with old friends. You never notice how close you are to the island until you start slowing down and you can spot the girl cabins from a distance.

After high fiving all my favorite counselors leading to the Dining Hall, we went over all the rules and procedures of composting, lost items, boundaries, which cabin eats first, and all that fun stuff. After eating the first of many delicious meals, we headed towards C's Hut to pick up our luggage and settle into our cabins.

(Note to Self: Next year put something really obvious and eye captioning on your suitcase so a counselor doesn't have to assist you in finding you're suitcase out of the twenty others that look exactly like yours)

Everyone in my cabin knows this place frontwards, backwards, upside down, and inside out so the Camp Tour was a breeze. After the camp tour was dinner, another scrumptious meal, which was leading to Disco Bingo. Unknowingly, I brought the perfect 70's outfit to wear for a night of personal parties and conga lines. I've yet to win a bingo under any category so I'm hoping I'll get some kind of graduating camper luck for my last year as a camper.

Sammy <3

Aries <3

Once Disco Bingo was over it was time to go back to our cabins to pass out from a long day of traveling and excitement. For our first cabin closing we named off each our personal goals for this year. My goals was to stand on top of the Eagles Perch during high ropes and to get thirds at least once and still manage to be apart of the Clean Plate Club(CPC). After our counselors left for their Staff Meeting, my friend Sammy jumped in my bunk and we all stayed up talking and laughing about simple things until a counselor came in and told us we're keeping the entire girl's camp awake... Highly doubtful but it made us go to sleep.

The next day was the first full day of activities at CDC!