3rd - 9th July Two Youth Groups from Glasgow

Hello All,

So as mentioned in that earlier post, we forgot to tell you about the 2 groups who came to stay from Glasgow. The two groups are in neighbouring areas, and were looking for a place to come hang out, have some fun, get to know each other better and experience life here at Camas. Started off with really bad weather, but the group Loved SHark attack and the tower game (CAmas Classics!).
The rain eventually passed and we were able to get out abseiling, and doing our usual stuff, 'pirates of the Hebridien' and the raft building Challenge. I particularly enjoyed the Raft building as the girls team we triumphant with their brilliant creation - yeah go girls!! The boys however did swim across the bay - these guys were crazy, out in the freezing cold sea at any opportunity brrrrr!
We had an excellent week, the highlights for me were hearing some of the guys and gals singing accapella - truly beautiful and some future stars for x factor i am sure! and the Camas challenge meal on the Thursday night - for those of you that don't know, on the last night we challenge guests to run Camas for the night, cooking food, entertainment, decorations and leading reflection. It was Brilliant, peperoni Pizza and Wedges followed by Delicious chocolate Cake Yummy!
Anyway hopefully these guys will come back next year and we can get over to Glasgow this winter to catch up with them all...
Whilst here they made a little movie of some of the things they did - check it out on the link below.

Back soon with more news... MaryXX

Sorry Glasgow people!!

Just a quick hello because it's been quite rightly pointed out that we missed mentioning our group from Glasgow in between the two lots of Americans! We got a bit behind on blog updating for a while. Anyway, they've sent us a brilliant film of their time here so hopefully this will make up for it. Have a look at this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0UXsJcjd7c Enjoy!

Becky's pie

Hi to you all again,

Okay, so I had to make a separate post to celebrate a new discovery! Becky our gardener, (actually she is more like a goddess, but I will get to that later) has been harvesting the black and red currents from our garden like no body's business. Where I live there aren't many currents to speak of, so I have not eaten them hardly at all before. But then, heaven opened, and a glorious thing happened.

Becky made pie!!! Not just any pie-no,no,no...She made apple and fresh current pie, and holy smokes it was sssooo good! I need to apologize to my mother as this pie was better than any I had ever tasted. At the first bite, my taste buds sung with the pure bliss of all that sweet berry goodness; It was a party in my mouth that I never wanted to end. I have never wanted to eat, and re-eat desert so much; you can guess that I was definitely hording the left overs of that pie for the next few days, and it never waned, never failed to wow me!

Now, Becky is off on holiday, and there is no more apple black and red current pie, but it's memory will live on because I have tasted the best darn pie that the world has ever had!!! And even though, that pie is no more, Becky has also seen fit to make black current jam. I sneak into the kitchen in the morning to eat some because I dream of it at night. Becky is one of the reasons Camas is such an amazing place to be, and if you don't believe me come on down and try some jam, or better yet ask her to make you a pie, and you will never be the same! I know I most certainly won't!
Bye for now,
Cally

Yee-ha from Texas!!!

Hello there all you Camas fans!

Sorry it has been so long since our last update; It has definitely been a wild ride to say the least. We had a youth group from Texas here last week, and we had loads of fun! I personally loved having some Americans around as they understood my random sense of humor. Let's see-We took these guys to the Ceilidh dance on Iona, we went Ab sailing, we went to Market Bay, hiked up to trig point, and we kayaked, but can I say my favorite bite was on the Thursday evening during our Camas Challenge. (for those of you who don't know, this is when we let our guest take over Camas for the evening, and this means they are in charge of decorations, dinner, entertainment, and our evening reflection)

So, for Camas Challenge these Texans made us some brilliant stir fry, and decorated the common room nice and proper. They also put on a lovely reflection, and even awarded us with a special labyrinth plate from Texas. Then, this is the best bit they taught us to two step to some country music, how to do some other group dances, and even wowed us all with some brilliant performances. One very cool chap did a stand up comedy act that was hilarious, we had a pair of lovely twin girls who sang a beautiful country song duet together, and then my team-the entertainment team-did a skit. To those of you familiar with the old Saturday Night Live skits this will be familiar to you. We did a rendetion of the old 'Van down by the river' skit, only it was way funnier! Even the Camas staff got a good laugh out of it, so I think my American sense of humor is beginning to rub off.

These guys were such a fun group, and so what we needed as they were so chilled out! They even left us Texas honey which we are still nibbling on. We bade them a very fond farewell with lots 'of yehaa's' and 'y'all come back now, you here!'

Now, we are far in to this week, and we have a fabulous group from Berlin. It's been such fun learning about their culture and language. They are top notch ab sailers and just now they are building rafts to race across the bay. They have also taught us this brilliant game called 'Busted', it is difficult to explain, and we are still in the middle of it, so we will be sure to fill you in on how it goes! Well, that's it for now. The weather is so brilliant today; It actually feels like summer, and it is a marvelous day to live in Scotland, of course, what day isn't?
Cheers yo!
Cally

A week before the 4th of July we had our first American group of the year. A group of young people from Connecticut joined us for yet another brilliant week down the track. We all took part in our usual activities: Walking backwards down the quarry wall like James Bond, building a raft and sailing it across the bay and not really according to plan having a Titanic moment when it all fell apart in the water (I wont let you go Jack! blubb-blubb-blubb), and a walk to Market bay on on of the more sunny days of the week. This week we also took the group over to Iona. Danced like crazy people at the Ceilidh (did the fruit salad like it's never been done before), and the group went on the Iona pilgrimage.
Another game has been added to the Camas repertoire this week. Without this fantastic week we would not have been introduced to the equally fantastic game of blob-tag. So thank you very much American friends! Apart from that we also kept going with the most amazing game in the history of pretty much everything: Shark Attack!

All in all, a very successful week at Camas, and right now we are preparing for a new group wandering down the track in a couple of hours...