First Summer Camp 2014

Annabeth is in her first summer camp of 2014 this week, Spring Training with Opera Theater St. Louis.

She's just doing this week, which is a four day week due to the Memorial Day holiday.  The camp runs for 2 weeks, and campers have the option of taking either or both weeks.  The price in incredibly reasonable for a camp of this type and length, especially considering it includes a ticket to an opera performance.

This is a new experience for us.  A mom from a theater group said her daughter really liked the camp, so that was part of the impetus (her daughter has an amazing voice).  Also, attending a performance of The Magic Flute was part of the deal, so that was pretty attractive.  Annabeth used to listen to the CD version for young children just about every day when she was a toddler -- we all had it memorized.  It's pretty much the soundtrack of her childhood.

So far Annabeth has found the people running the workshops to be excellent, BUT she feels like there's too much "dead" time -- in her view they could've tightened up the schedule and made the camp shorter each day.  I pointed out that maybe public school kids are used to more lulls in the day (plus, honestly, she is too, but she chooses for herself when to do those more mindless things). 

After 2 days I could hear a difference in her singing (she had a voice lesson with her regular teacher after the camp yesterday ... also hours of dance lessons in the evenings, which is pretty much a dumb thing to do during a camp like this, for the record, and probably adds to her feeling that they should cut the days short).  At the camp they have private voice lessons during the day, and she's really enjoyed having a different perspective from the teacher there.  They've also had acting lessons, which, frankly, she was disappointed in -- she said the instructor was really good, but she'd already learned or figured out everything they covered.  The movement classes were pretty simple, too, due to all of her dancing.

So, some of the bits have been sort of "meh". However, last night's OTSL performance of The Magic Flute was AMAZING!  I can't emphasize that enough.  It was the best thing I've seen live on stage in ages and ages.  That thing we do around the house with our voices that's sort of musical?  It bears no relation to the singing we heard last night.  The costuming was fabulous, the blocking was great, the casting was inspired.  I would love to go see it again.  

Every day she takes a lunch, so I've been making bento boxes.  One of the uses of my blog is to have a record of these for myself so that during a future camp I can easily whip these off.  This is what we've served so far this week:  

Tiny burgers from the recipe in The Just Bento Cookbook, cheese slices, cucumber carrots, blueberries and raspberries, and totally amazing mini corn muffins from the recipe I pinned (I only made 24 of them so I didn't have them hanging around, and I deeply regret that decision since I want to eat a dozen right now).

Saffron Road chicken nuggets, blueberries, carrots, Amy's mac and cheese, Marzetti Ranch dip.  With a fork and spoon since mac and cheese with chopsticks seemed dicey.

Almond butter and jelly sandwiches on the super thin Pepperidge Farm bread, cut into butterflies, celery, carrots, and cucumber, grapes and blueberries, tiny cheese cubes.

Tomorrow will be miniature baked potatoes with bacon and cheese slices, and ... something or other.