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Chinese Family Camp website is available for updating!

Posted by on 10:30 PM in News | Comments Off on Chinese Family Camp website is available for updating!

Chinese Family Camp Special Bulletin #295 Hello Campers! We just finished our CFC Google Hangout/Wordpress training session hosted by Elysa Chao (CFC Treasurer and Google Hangout Expert) and featuring Kevin Chang, our spiffy new Web Designer and all around Good Guy. The recording of the Hangout is here and also includes guest appearances and lots of questions by Lawrence Wang, Allen Yang, Mark Chow, Frank Chao, and Caryn Rossi. If you want to write up your own blog post, or add content to another page on the site, please watch the training video (sorry for all the bumpiness of random audio/video) and then contact Elysa Chao or Mark Chow or Allen Yang to be added as a website contributor....

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Allen stepping down as president of CFC, Inc.

Posted by on 1:11 PM in News | Comments Off on Allen stepping down as president of CFC, Inc.

Hello Family Campers! Thank you for your participation at Chinese Family Camp this year, either in person or wherever you happened to be last week. It was another great, Great Camp! We are here to serve the people! As most of you heard at Camp, I will be stepping down as president of the board for CFC after my term end this year. I wanted to write up my thoughts on how I arrived at this choice over the course of last week, as well as other thrilling aspects of the position, the organization, and Camp in future blog posts. Top 10 Things to Know About What’s Going on Here1. I am still 100% committed to Chinese Family Camp and plan on attending for as long as I can move around and eat. 2. I intend to remain on the CFC Board in some capacity and bring whatever I can bring to the party, not to mention that all the official correspondence uses our address here in Chicago. 3. I will be stepping down as president at our annual board meeting teleconference sometime in January, when we elect board members and select officers. Until then, I have all the power! Mwahahaha! 4. I arrived at my choice to step down as president during last week’s camp completely through my own reflections, mixed in with some very enlightening conversations with several of my dear fellow campers (and my very dear wife, Mary) along the way. 5. Camp has always been the highlight of every year of my life, all the way back to the first camp back at Lake Wawasee when my mom had to carry me around (I was 14! No, just kidding, I was 1 1/2 that first year). 6. I informed some of the board members about my choice to step down before our board meeting last Friday. I did not get a chance to contact most of you ahead of time, so it probably was a bit of a surprise. 7. Camp has always been a place for me to find out and remind me about who I really am, what I’m capable of, what calls me, what’s possible for me. Camp is the laboratory that, year after year, allows me to experiment with what works or doesn’t work – for Camp, for my fellow campers, and for me.  8. In the realm of what works or doesn’t work for Camp and for me, I felt that continuing as president is not going to work for either in the near term. I have become complacent about where Camp is, and where it could go. I believe this is not the place for your president to hang out if we are committed to having Camp continue to operate and thrive for another few generations. 9. Personally, I scared myself the week before camp really struggling on my statistics course mid-term (thank God for Khan Academy!). I wasn’t giving it the attention it deserved, and I realized I need to get my butt in gear if I was going to get anything out of the course and the remainder of my master’s degree program. 10. Stay tuned for my next blog...

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and yet another blog post for 2014

Posted by on 3:56 AM in News | Comments Off on and yet another blog post for 2014

I had fun see u next years peeps:)  (Abby)

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and now something from Alana…

Posted by on 3:35 AM in News | 1 comment

Camp is definitely my highlight of summer. It is always something to look forward to before school starts. There’s so much we do as a camp family. This year we tie-dyed our camp t-shirts. There was our second annual mini triathlon, bowling, jiaozi making, and plenty of scrumptious food. My favorite activities are the trip to Ideal Beach and the DJ/photo booth. At the beach I played in a large beach volleyball game. Many of us took plenty of dives in the sand. Sarah performed her signature tomahawk move, Mason was probably laying in the sand more than he was standing on it, and Andrea had some awesome digs. It was Paul’s, our DJ, 10th year and we surprised him with a cake. As teens we had some fun, and whenever someone came out and talked to us, we would immediately fall to the floor. Rug burns stopped our enjoyment. 🙁 I am still feeling them. In teen education Uncle Clarence showed us videos about Chinese history, and Auntie Caryn taught us Chinese. My favorite part about camp is spending a week with great cousins that I haven’t seen in a long time. Even though we don’t see each other for a long time, as soon as we see each other, it’s like we’ve always been together. Meeting new people are great too. Everyone shares a Chinese heritage, so that is one thing that connects us. Chinese Family Camp is always a blast no matter what age someone is. Now counting down the days till next...

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The Week Went By Fast! So fast we didn’t write any blogs

Posted by on 3:02 AM in News | Comments Off on The Week Went By Fast! So fast we didn’t write any blogs

What happened at Camp this week?  Let’s hear from some teens: After staying up late practically every night, most of the teens and I couldn’t wake up in time for breakfast each morning. We probably would’ve missed teen ed as well if it hadn’t been for the thunderous knocking on our door for our wake up calls. We also found ourselves falling asleep during our Chinese history films. One important thing I did learn was that when speaking Chinese, you can reply ‘hen you yisi’ to prolong any conversation. I enjoyed reuniting with the rest of the teens and catching up on our lives. One of the most fun things we did this week was working on the teen skit which was basically creating parodies of songs from ‘Frozen’. I had fun all week and I’m sad it had to come to an end so quickly but I intend to stay in touch with all the teens until we can see each other at the teen reunion and CFC ’15.~Mason...

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CFC: What we’ve been up to…

Posted by on 4:59 AM in News | Comments Off on CFC: What we’ve been up to…

CFC: What we’ve been up to…

Uncle Greg, Uncle Nelson, and Auntie Elysa quickly review the past few days: Tuesday evening was spent scavenging Amish Acres for peacocks, old Camp T-shirts, and pictures of the Auntie of the Day, as well as making up dances to the Camp song as a part of a fun and challenging scavenger hunt.  The winning team had a suspiciously off-the-charts high score, and got to be first in line for a special treat. Auntie Karen was Auntie of the Day on Tuesday. Here she is captured making a “sad face” for the scavenger hunt. She might make me take this down… shhh… don’t tell her it’s here 😉 Following the scavenger hunt, Camp Director Uncle Lawrence landed the coup of Camp by getting the daughter and granddaughters of the founder of Amish Acres to open the ice cream parlor for us for our evening snack. The winners of the scavenger hunt got first dibs on the $2 malts, shakes, floats, and ice cream (two scoops!). We were so well-behaved that they invited us back next year 🙂 When Uncle Lawrence came out of the bingqilin parlor, some of us surprised him with a can-can dance to ‘For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow’ to thank him for making that happen. Uncle Lawrence responded with an open jawed ‘huh?’ Aww… nothing like friends, family, and ice cream on a summer evening. Yesterday (Wednesday) was truly ideal. The weather cleared up and was beautiful, and we went to Ideal Beach. We raced down the water slides and managed to have loads of fun in the lake even though the lifeguards weren’t too happy with some of our, uh, water etiquette. CFC water etiquette. We spent yesterday evening under the spell of Kevin the magician, who brought up volunteers, threatened to cut off Uncle Lawrence’s hand, and conjured up an adorably fluffy rabbit named Tricksy. We got to pet Tricksy in small group sessions after the main show. Today we bao’ed nearly 600 jiaozi and Uncle Joe took them home for some good ol’ Indiana home-style cookin’. In the evening we watched Kung-Fu Panda 2 (for the kids) and Mao’s Last Dancer (for the adults, some of whom cried). While we ate our jiaozi during midnight snack time, some of us talked with Ginnie and Bethy Lo through a Google Hangout video chat about their new book Auntie Yang’s Great Soybean Picnic. If you missed it, you can watch the recording below (and watch us persevere through the Amish Acres internet connection). Join us tomorrow for more hanging out by following this link! The plan is to play Trivial Pursuit with campers from all over the country! It’s well past midnight and we’re still blogging, and adult Chinese yo-yo training only recently packed up. Hope we’re all awake and ready for Kingkalympics...

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CFC 2012 Day 2!

Posted by on 3:46 AM in News | Comments Off on CFC 2012 Day 2!

It was a great second day of camp! Kingka coaches have been recruited, teams are forming and practice is in full swing. Tomorrow morning we’ll have the document camera that Uncle Carl sent us in the Barn Grill so we can learn more tricks and hints for learning the Level 2 characters. Our second annual Kingkalympics will be held on Friday. Mason Lee has been promoted from team player to coach. Go Hong, Lu, Cheng and Zi Teams! (Colors, anyone?) Bowling this afternoon. The Green Team (notice a theme?) of Uncle John, Uncle Greg, Aunt Caryn and Aunt Helen tried hard to out bowl Uncle Joe but Joe Lee made a comeback with four strikes in a row in his last four frames. Abby, Chrissy and Lan-Jian did an amazing job with the Scavenger Hunt — details on this evening’s Scavenger Hunt tomorrow as there are three minutes to Lilac Room evacuation, according to Uncle Allen. Good Night All! –Auntie...

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Welcome to Chinese Family Camp 2012!

Posted by on 1:51 AM in News | 1 comment

Greetings from Amish Acres! So we’re wrapping up the first full day of Camp. This morning we ate breakfast as it rained (thunder and lightning and all), and then played the first Kingka of 2012. Then the kids learned some ribbon dance moves from our 2012 CFC Resident Artist PeiPei Shen. In the afternoon we played kickball and then cooled off in the pool. In the evening we played Chinese bingo (with Chinese words/characters rather than the usual B-7’s). The apple butter grand prize for adults went to Linda Warenberg, and the rubber band ball grand prize for children went to Mason Lee! We’re wrapping up snack now, which was lots of tasty fruit (including xigua), jiaozi, and egg rolls. And now some thoughts on the first day from Campers: i played mah jong and it was fun –Abby K. i went to the pool. freezing!!! –Jamie Chao chinese bingo was kinda fun and i got a rubber band ball!!! –Mason Lee As usual, the kids are all having a blast, swimming and playing together.  The little kids are sitting on the laps of the big kids.  The players have changed, though.  My kids are now holding the younger kids on their laps instead of being the ones on the laps.  They are all growing up so fast!!! Uncle Dan Rumreich is again running the mah jong game….And snack tonight was dumplings, egg rolls, and fruit (watermelon, cantaloupe, plums).  The 200 dumplings went in a flash, and everything else was gone, too. –Auntie Linnea And thoughts from the Auntie of the Day–Helen Chang:I am always amazed that no matter where camp is held it is still Chinese Family Camp. When camp was relocated to Amish Acres my family was unable to attend the first 2 years. Last year, Lan-Jian and I came for the weekend.  We left camp with the warm feeling that is still camp no matter the place.Enjoy your time here. –Auntie...

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Wrapping it up

Posted by on 3:42 AM in News | Comments Off on Wrapping it up

This time of the year is hardest part of the day saying goodbye though it was a great year. The festival was amazing one because i didnt have to do anything and also because the skit were funny. Though I realized that I have been going to camp since i was 7 and I am 15. So basically i am saying is that life goes fast. some of uncles are losing there hair, preteens are maturing and new camper are coming. Its been a great year -abigail nielsen

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Blog post from Mason

Posted by on 4:08 AM in News | Comments Off on Blog post from Mason

Blog post from Mason

On Friday, we had breakfast and then went upstairs.  In the preteen demonstration, we learned about Emperor Chen who rejected trade and Emperor Puyi who ascended to the throne at age 2.  After that, we went back to the hotel to play kickball.  Before the last inning, one team was ahead 4-3 but the other team made a comeback and won 4-8.  After that we had lunch and started the Kingka-lympics.  The Qing team won  After that, we had about a 3-hour break and had dinner.  Next we listened to the DJ and everone had a great time.  We had ice cream as our midnight snack to end the day.  Everyone here is friendly and intelligent and that’s what I appreciate about camp! By: Mason...

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