The last hurrah!

Today is the first day of our last session. 34 1-week villagers and 4 families arrived during a cool and rainy afternoon at Sjölunden. We did our best to keep the energy level high- we blared Swedish pop music over the speakers, hung blue and yellow flags everywhere and served delicious cardamom breads and coffee to our guests. But it wasn't until all the villagers had arrived that the program came to life! We sang Pippi Longstockings, ate meatballs with lingonberries and then finished off the evening with a troll story at the fire pit. Så härligt!

This week we are a smaller staff, just 12 of us are working this session. Among our staff are 2 counselors who I first worked with in 1993. Lisa was a counselor and folk dance teacher that year, which was our last year at the old site (Maplelag- now a site for our Spanish village). Now Lisa has 3 children, the oldest of which is a villager. What fun to reminisce about 1993 which was our first year on staff for both of us! Tonight we realized that Pappa Björn was also on staff with us that year, although he only worked a week. So this week is especially fun as we try to hunt down pictures from that year. If we find any good ones, we'll be sure to show you!

A final thought... in the last 2 days we noticied that the leaves are starting to turn color in the cooler weather. Here's a photo of my clogs in the fall leaves.