Week One 2013

As we begin a new week, it is hard to believe that we are already done with Week One of the HPR season!  This past week has been filled with welcoming new faces, reuniting with familiar ones, and wasting no time diving back into the excitement.

Highlights of the week for Traditional Camp include cooking at Nature Camp Craft (what could go wrong with lots of dough, butter, and kids?!), learning new songs at Explore, perfecting soccer skills at Sportsfield, and discovering that activities at Science can actually be REALLY fun!  Campers were also introduced to their first Fruit of the Spirit, self control, in Faith Building and will continue to focus on a different attribute each week.

In addition to the Traditional Camp, the Kindergarten, Middle School and LIT programs are also in full swing.  The kindergarteners spent their week learning about bugs, and ran all around camp with magnifying glasses to investigate all of the creepy crawlies HPR has to offer.  For many of them, this week was their first "real camp" experience and we are so pleased to see so many of them loving every minute of it!  

The Middle School campers spent their first week engaged in team building activities and took their first trip to Feed My Starving Children on Friday.  Preparations for next week's overnight are well underway and it already looks to be a very fun trip.  The LIT campers spent time meeting the traditional camper groups they will be assisting, getting to know each other better, and preparing for their role as the oldest kids at camp.  We are also so excited for their own overnight next week and cannot wait to see them return energized and closer than ever!

We wrapped up the week with a Friday theme of "Let's Play Ball," which included Mushroom Ball (HPR's own special version of dodgeball), a Punt, Pass, Kick competition, a basketball relay, and exciting team building activities.  The costumes for this Friday did, however, cause a bit of a rivalry as campers and counselors alike poured out of cars in both Packers and Vikings jerseys!  Regardless, it was GREAT to see so many campers in costume and we hope this continues throughout the summer!

We are so lucky to have 7 more weeks to go at HPR!  Look forward to hearing all about an exciting Week Two and the Counselor Talent Show on Friday!


Want more pictures from Week One? Check out our Facebook Page!

3 Day Camp 2013

As we are beginning this week of Traditional camp, we are already missing many of our 3-Day campers!  We were blessed with a fantastic three days filled with great activities, cooperating weather (mostly!), and a terrific crew of kids. 

While we were only together for a short time, we packed in plenty of great activities for the campers.  Highlights included making s'mores over the campfire, getting up on horseback (many for the very first time), and exhaustive hunts for the numerous unicorns and fairies currently residing at the ranch!

In addition to the scheduled morning activities (Archery, Faith Building, Nature Camp Craft, Tennis, Horses, Canoeing, Science, Explore, Arts & Crafts, and Sportsfield), campers signed up for a wide variety of special afternoon activities that were created by our staff.  These were opportunities for our campers and counselors to get to know each other on a more personal level as they participated in these often silly and creative times together later in the day.

Friday, however, was easily the craziest day of the week!  Themed "2x2 Day," counselors did their best to represent Noah's Ark.  We were ready to greet the campers in the morning decked out as raindrops, cardboard representations of the ark, and a few too many elephants and cats!  We were so excited to see that many campers also joined in the Friday costume fun, which is always encouraged. 

 

Special Friday activities included a camp-wide scavenger hunt, animal call telephone, fishes and whales, and other animal activities related to Noah's ark.

As we say goodbye to the 3-Day campers, and already miss them at HPR, we want to say THANK YOU for bringing your awesome kids to camp.  We enjoyed every bit of their time here and hope to see them again next year!


Want to see more pictures of all the fun we had? Check out our Facebook Page!

Summer 2012

Hello Friends! 

It was a terrific summer and we hope that all our campers are off to a great start of a new school year. We had so much fun this summer; it is hard to believe camp has been over for several weeks! 

Even though some time has passed, we look back on the summer with fond memories. We were so lucky to see so many campers take a chance and perform in front of a crowd for our Play and Horse Show. There were 80 kids involved in the play and another 75 in the horse show. Way to go! Not only did our campers learn and grow, but they made a difference in the world. This summer HPR, through our work with Feed My Starving Children, fed thousands of hungry children across the world.  We also raised over $1,500 dollars for the American Cancer Society – thank you to all the families that donated!

This summer was a blast and it may be over, but HPR is already thinking about all the fun we will have next year! We even have the dates for next year's camp sessions! 

HPR 2013

June 12th-June 15th : 3 Day Camp

June 17th-August 9th : Traditional Camp Programs

July 4th-5th : Off for Holiday

August 12th-August 16th : Extended Camp Programming 

We have got lots of new ideas we'll be working on over the winter that we are really excited about! Remember to check back with us in January and we'll tell you all about them! We wish everyone a fantastic year and we can't wait to see your happy faces next summer!

www.hiddenpinesranch.com

Last Week Announcements

A couple announcements about common questions we've been receiving:

HPR's production of Snow White is this Thursday August 9th at 3pm and everyone is invited! Campers involved in the play, including those not normally scheduled for Thursdays, should plan on arriving in the morning and will then be spending the full day in rehearsal. It is not your responsibility to provide a costume for your camper, but if you have any props or costumes you'd like to bring in you can bring it on Thursday. Please label anything you send to camp so we make sure it gets home! Thank you so much, the entire cast is really excited to share our hard work with you!  If you want to watch the play, you are more than welcome to come and see what the campers have been working on.  We hope to see you here.

HPR's Annual Horse Show Starts at 9am on Friday August 10th. Every camper was invited to participate and those that chose to do so are incredibly excited to share their skills with you. There are a lot of riding games you'll have the opportunity to watch like Simon Says, Extreme Red light Green Light, Barrels and more! Parents are welcome to attend amd take plenty of pictures from outside the riding ring but please no flash photography. We hope to see you for all our fun!

We will have a lot of cars for our big events this week so as you come in to visit just follow the driveway and turn left into the staff parking lot/early pickup area. We'll have more than enough room for everyone!

Hope to see you soon for an exciting end to a great summer!

Week Seven 7/30-8/3

Wow! We can't believe it but we just finished week seven of our summer and there is only one more week left! We spent this week learning about the world from our oldest campers, the LITs. They worked really hard to plan out our theme Friday and they did a fantastic job! Some of their preparation involved listening to stories from some of our counselors that have had experiences abroad. Not only did they learn about many different countries, our LITs and Middle school campers also served the world by volunteering at Feed My Starving Children. HPR packed food to feed over 160 children for an entire year. Way to serve the world HPR!

Our Middle School campers have been enjoying a new morning lesson structure that they are enjoying tremendously. Our counselors have been offering very unique choices for our campers to pick between every morning, we've seen Russian lessons, philosophy discussions, ultimate frisbee, even bird house building. It has been a lot of fun to see our camper's interests growing! Middle School also enjoyed a fantastic trip to Como Zoo and a water park on Friday which was a blast!

We've been filling our last two weeks with tons of exciting trips for every group at camp! Bike trips, overnights, service projects, playing at the beach, and a canoe trip, just to name a few. It has been so much fun to challenge our campers with unique experiences and they have been growing so much from them. Our final traditional camp overnight was a tremendous success, it was a perfect night for camping   with an absolutely gorgeous full moon. What a treat!

Another reminder that the penny wars begin on Monday so save your loose change so we can have fun and help the American Cancer Society! Also they big HPR production of Snow White is Thursday August 9th at 3pm and we would love to share our hard work with you! We hope you are having as much fun this weekend as we have all week! See you on Monday!

Week Six 7/23-7/27

Hello Friends! We hope you've been enjoying the Olympics this week because we sure have! We had our own very special Galactic Olympics on Friday and had all kinds of great Olympic fun all week. At We've done the long jump, the shot-put, marathon running, hurdles, you name it and our campers did it!

It was so fun to see everyone working hard and loving every minute of it, it's possible we have a few young Olympiads on our hands! Just a reminder, we have had a lot of campers attending in flip flops which has been limiting a lot of our fun. Please send your camper to HPR with tennis shoes or sandals with straps.

We've done plenty of outdoor cooking this week as our traditional campers made popcorn over the fire at Nature Camp craft and packed and planned out meals for a imaginary Boundary Waters trip at canoeing. Our oldest campers all participated in an overnight this week, the middle school campers went to William O'Brien State Park and our LITs went to Interstate Park near Taylors Falls. Both trips were a huge success and I'm sure our campers will be talking about their experiences for years to come. Congratulations to everyone for all your hard work and preparation, we're so glad you had fun!

Our Traditional campers have another overnight this week on Thursday August 2nd to Friday August 3rd. This will be for everyone in Jake, Kirsten, Jeff, Joseph, Cady B, and Carolyn's groups, as well as the members of Cody, Rachel F, Joe B, Eric, Tori, and Elaine's groups that started camp on 7/16. If you do not normally attend camp on Thursdays you are still welcome to participate by arriving after 4:45pm on Thursday. If you do not attend on Fridays you are welcome to participate as well by leaving at 8am on Friday. It is going to be a lot of fun and we hope to see you there!

We only have two more weeks of camp, but they're going to be the best ones yet! We're starting the Penny wars for the American Cancer Society next week (Aug 6). We do our best to raise at least $1,000 each year by bringing in all our loose change. So save your pennies and dollars for positive points towards a party for the winning group and save those silver coins for negative points to slow down all the other groups. All the proceeds of our camp fun will go towards cancer research, let's have fun and work hard to help a lot of people!

HPR's production of Snow White will be on August 9th at 3pm. Everyone is invited to attend and support our talented campers. If your child is involved in the play and you'd like to help out we would love to talk to you. The biggest place to help is always costumes and props. If you have anything you'd like to donate or loan towards this production please address an email to Nick Lande, one of our camp managers and the director of Snow White, at camp@hiddenpinesranch.com Other questions are always welcome too!

It has been a terrific summer so far and it is only going up! We can't wait to start again on Monday! See you soon!

Cast List for HPR's Snow White

We're so excited to announce the cast of HPR musical! Practices will take place in the afternoons and the big show is on Thursday August 9th. All campers involved in the play are welcome to attend on this Thursday regardless of their normal schedules, we need all our friends for a big day of practice! Keep checking the blog and Facebook for more announcements! 

Snow White

Cast List

Sister 1: Jorja Goudreau

Sister 2: Lily Olson

Little Boy: Jack Distad

Mom: Katie Grannis

Snow White: Addie Smittkamp

Evil Queen: Lexi Oeltjen

Mirror: Amy Longtin

Queen’s Servants: Rachel Colwell, Kacey Kroeck, Ella Netland, Maddie Oeltjen, Emma Dornseif, Hannah Bruentrup, Abbie Garness

Huntsman: Jack Denton

Doc: Nathan Dirkes

Sleepy: Frankie Franta

Sneezy: Kelly Grannis

Grumpy: Marley McGuire

Bashful: Julia Enright

Happy: Ella Runyon

Dopey: Daniel Lapadat

DNR Representative: Leif Olson

Prince Charming: Dan Stone

Soldiers/Prince’s Men: Sam Elletson, John Lillie, Ethan Citsay, Thomas Meyers

Young Queen: Delaney McDowell

King: Charlie Vick

Doctor: Catherine Moore

Huntsman’s Angel: Sam Stone

Huntsman’s Devil: Mari Arndt

Warning Bird: Dani Lillie

Head Villager: Lily Olson

Evil Peddlers: Lizzie Bregel, Nate Averbeck, Sydney Stone

Young Snow White: Tara Martin

Magic Trees/Flowers:

Sydney Rodd, Gabby Olson, Grace Kleppe, Amanda Oyen, Annika Citsay, Leah Staruck, Zoe Colombo, Grace Colwell

Dwarf Villagers:

Noah Denton, Gwen Wegleitner, Hallie Vick, Emily Elletson, Cooper Olson, Wyatt Herrick, Meghan Remely, Sophia Arndt

Woodland Creatures: Axel Colombo, Sydney Rogness, Amya Davis, Nick Grannis, Nick Nelson