An action packed day of Mini Maxon-ing!

Well friends our Mini Maxons are sound asleep after a long day of fun! Just a quick overview of what we did!

After a big ole breakfast we had chapel time! We talked about where God is in the Bible and made a really cool strand of lights!

Next we had a couple of activities: Arts and Crafts, Science Experiment and of course a trip to the playground- always a fan favorite!

With a good siesta behind us we again went to chapel to talk about seeing God in the darkness- we even got inside of the belly of a (cardboard) whale to see the darkness ourselves! 

For our afternoon activity we took a big group trip to Sewanee and adventured to the Quad (up a really cool staircase!), All Saints Chapel and Abbo's Alley!

Finally tonight we had Family Group Olympics where we had a miniature tank race, a 5 legged race, a fun game called "Face the Chip" and a rousing game of Over-Under.

To finish the whole thing we had an awesome bonfire and a little treat-smores. But more importantly we heard some old favorite stories and got to hear some new ones from our youth. They were likely the greatest compilation of campfire stories ever told.

It was a crazy day full of fun and a whole lot of adventuring and beautiful weather!

THEY'RE HERE!

The Mini Maxons are here! #CGM2015 finally has campers! The Mini Maxons are so excited and so much fun to be around. We started the day with some games- a rather action packed game of Duck Duck Goose (somehow the parents and counselors are the ones who ended up in the middle) and a big ole game of Magic Tambourine. 

After a delicious dinner of lasagna we spent a little time singing and learning a little more about our chapel program. 

Finally, the night ended with a very efficient game of counselor hunt- these Mini Maxons are rather good hunters we found! Since they found all the counselors so quickly it seemed only fair to throw water balloons at them!

What a day! Here we go again, will report back later!

Wrapping Up Pre-Camp!

We had so much fun at CGM wrapping up Pre-Camp! Yesterday started with chapel where we talked about how to fill our own and other people's "buckets"- basically how we should build people up and by doing so we will fill up the invisible bucket on top of their head! We went into arts and crafts, playground time and playing kickball. We finished the morning with some time in the pool, always a fan favorite!

After a big lunch and a nice siesta, we had chapel where we blessed water that we used to remind us of our baptism. 

After chapel we went off campus to either the Fiery Gizzard hike and swimming hole or to Sewanee to adventure around campus. It was a long, fun afternoon that ended with a slip n slide with lots of soap!

Our banquet was a blast as always and we are so grateful for the kitchen lovelies who made a scrumptious dinner of chicken finger, mashed potatoes, green beans and- the best part- a ice cream cone cupcake! Dinner was followed by Eucharist at the Stone Altar which was beautiful! Thank you Lissa Smith for spending time and so much love with CGM this weekend!

 Finally, of course we ended with our carnival! Complete with a candy walk, photo booth, and balloon man we had so much fun celebrating the end of our time together!

Pre-Camp- Day 2!

We had a crazy, busy, fun-filled first day of CGM 2014! We started off with chapel where we talked about water, what it does and how we like to use it. Some of our campers favorite water uses were: throwing it on people, water balloons fights, for water guns, and categories in the pool, but the most popular was swimming. This was until our priest Lissa pointed out that we can get baptized with water, making it a very exciting answer. We made filtration systems to clean dirty water so we can use it for all of these wonderful things!

Next we went on an excursion to Abbo's Alley in Sewanee.There we played a game where we acted like turtles trying to make it to the water and then played in the creek for a bit!

After a good lunch and even better siesta, we came back to chapel and made a well (in the chapel, so no actual digging was involved in this process) and talked about some of the fun stories in the bible about wells. 

For afternoon activities, we spent time at the art barn, playground and pavilion. We painted our nametags, rode the zip line, colored with chalk and played 4 square, just to name a few of the fun things we did!

Tonight we had 2 awesome activities- first we had our first mini Maxon counselor hunt, followed by a bonfire with s'mores and lots of fun-not scary- stories! We are so glad that Pre-Camp had so much fun on their second day here and we are looking forward to all the fun things we will do tomorrow! 

Pre-Camp/Mini Maxons- Day 1!

It's finally here! The time for campers is finally here!

We are so excited that our Mini Maxons arrived tonight safe and sound and jumped right into Camp Gailor-Maxon and all the fun they will have this weekend! We started with building boats in the upstairs chapel- stay tuned as the boats just might be used later this week!

Next we played some awesome games, including Ships and Sailors, Freeze Tag, and of course the fan favorite- Magic Tambourine!

We of course had to sign the Pre-Camp Covenant-

And then finished our exciting night with Compline.

We can't wait for another great day of Pre-Camp excitement tomorrow!

Pre-Camp - Part Three.

Our last full day of Pre-Camp was bittersweet. We had such a good time and made so many new friends! The day started with a scavenger hunt around to find canned goods as a part of our chapel program to learn about Martha's acts of faith. Then we headed over to Sewanee where the kids went to the local food bank to stock the food on the shelves.

Then we headed over into campus and sang songs and played a game in the quad.

After that we broke into family groups and went to tour around the campus. We went into All Saint's Chapel:

After coming back to campus we had lunch and then got ready for afternoon activities! We went to the playground and then had a slip 'n slide and pool time.

After that we got cleaned up for the banquet, Eucharist, and carnival! A grand celebration to end the day.

Making placemats for the banquet...

Sunday morning came very early and it was time to say goodbye! We handed out t-shirts, sang Country Roads one more time, and hugged all our friends:

We had so much fun at Pre-Camp! Until next year...