By Pam Wilson

The minute my son Joe (Kadimah last summer) gets home from Herzl he begins the count-down to camp. In fact, our entire world is based around the camp time-frame. I used to see my life in terms of school semesters. Now, I see life as “time at camp” and school year. Each summer he has spent time at Herzl Joe would come home and begin the count-down to seeing his friends again. This summer, he didn’t even wait until he was home. As he was on his way home, he let us know that there was only ten months (what is that in days?) until he could return to Herzl.

In fact, it took Joe the entire plane ride home to know that the minute he hit the door he was going to begin skyping his camp friends. I didn’t even realize he was talking to a camp friend that evening (the same evening of the morning he woke up at Herzl), until I recognized Ethan Friedman on the computer screen. The communication is weekly, if not daily with camp friends.

Our kids are luckier than we were, they can instantly be in contact with friends in other states (not to mention other neighborhoods). Joe and his camp friends frequently communicate via skype, e-mail, texting and often phone calls. In this way, camp almost comes home with them (instead of just dirty, disgusting laundry). Camp enters our home.

And camp stays in our home. Continually. On a year-round basis.

Our family couldn’t be happier. While, it’s the middle of a mid-western winter as I write this, Joe and his friends are beginning to talk about their next summer. They know exactly who they want to bunk with; they begin guessing which staff might come back and which staff they might interact with. The BIG OZO question looms mysteriously over the months.

As luck would have it, Joe and his friends visit one another. (seriously, who wouldn’t want this life?!) In September, a mere month after camp was over for the season, Joe accompanied his dad to Minneapolis. Kenny is now on the Herzl Board of Directors and took Joe with him for a quick jaunt to re-connect with friends while he attended his first board meeting.

As a mid-year reconnect, we have Braden Spencer and Ethan Friedman coming to visit in January. Joe is looking forward to having camp friends here and I know that the boys will have a great time. They don’t even have to do anything special-just visiting is special enough. Our door is always open for visitors here in St. Louis.

This year when the Herzl Camp brochure arrived, my daughter Jessie who is 11, looked at the booklet and simply said, “Sign me up.” This will be her first experience with going away to camp. However, there was NO hesitation on her part. Up, up and away. She doesn’t talk about it too much and I am guessing for her, she doesn’t think about it too much, either. When the topic of camp, DOES come up, she always says, “I’ll be there too, this summer.”

It might be cold and snowy outside my window in the middle of winter. But thoughts of returning to Herzl Camp keep us going…until we can be there again. We have a lot of count-downs going in our house: count-down until finals, count-down to birthdays, but nothing is more fun and engaging than our count-down to camp.

As of December 26 , we have: 184 days until Herzl Camp.  Shavua Tov!