Happy Halloween! The Best of CBS Costumes

@meagan_talley: What type of shoes do ghost from Texas wear? BOOts! #muahahaMonday #HappyHalloween @rgleitman thanks @nance871

I have loved getting to read all of these bad jokes before Tuesday! It just makes Halloween that much better. 

Enjoy a slideshow of some of the best costumes we've seen in the last 5 years or so...some are a blast from the past! Thanks to all of you who posted these on facebook for our viewing pleasure!

Be safe Trick-Or-Treating tonight, and be on the lookout for new costume ideas for next year's theme nights!

For more camp news and updates, Follow us on Twitter and "Like" us on Facebook 

#CampLove

Sometimes I get writer’s block. I sat in front of the computer last week and artfully spent a couple hours to write the title and first sentence of several blog posts-to-be (keep checking back though, since I still want to write about them!). But, as I was stumbling around the @BalconesSprings Twitter this morning, there were several—significantly more than normal—tweets and conversations between camp folks sharing memories of Camp, joking around, and just saying how much they miss and love each other:

From @Jillyanne: @beccabeccag @ladykrell @Annabellegwine can we just time travel back? #Chickeninabiscuit

From @sydneymaeh: @annabellegwine Oh heavens you are precious! A week ago, I mayyy have been telling people it was Meow Monday…love you!

From @Jocelynamg: RT @annalynncarroll She knows in her quiet center where God dwells that he finds her beautiful, has deemed her worthy, and in him, she is enough.- Stasi Elridge. Love that and love you!!

And those are just a handful from this morning!

But it was Robyn Hammond’s tweet this morning that inspired me out of writer’s block. It was encouraging Aggies on campus today to come check out being a camp counselor at CBS while Todd, Martin, and Adrienne were set up at Koldus, but she ended it with the Hashtag that summed up my feelings from this morning:

#CampLove

I’ve tried to resist using twitter-speak to describe real life, but it just fits so perfectly. #CampLove is different from #NormalLove because it encompasses so much more. It conjures up feelings of sitting on the B-Compound (or D-Compound) porch, talking and laughing with your best friends. It reminds you of how you feel on the first day when your crazy counselor, who you didn’t even know then, tackles you when you get off of the bus with a huge smile and welcomes you to camp. It prompts your memory of when you split a whole flowerpot of “dirt” with one other person at Women’s dinner. That is #CampLove!

It may be October, it's finally raining here at camp(!), and school has started for many of you, but take a study break this week to look at pictures from camp, or call a CBS friend, or go on the Camp BalconesSprings facebook, or yell a “Five Bullets” everytime the Rangers score a Home Run—but be sure to tell someone that you #CampLove them!

As part of CBS’s fall recruiting and traveling schedule, Adrienne, Todd, and Martin have been visiting campers in Houston and counselors at Texas A&M the past few days with plans to see more of you all in the coming weeks! Checkout our website for more updates on when we will be near you!

Video of Todd as a Child!

Alright folks, cheers to the weekend! If you find yourself with a few minutes of downtime between sleeping in and not doing homework, take a peek at what Todd looked like eating baby food when he as a child:
 (You might have to rotate your head to the side to see it better!)

Oh wait...that was at the Baby Shower for Karime in the kitchen earlier this week!

Have a great weekend!

Be sure to check us out on Facebook and to follow us on Twitter for more CAMP updates!

CBS @ ACL

Overheard from CBS-ers this weekend...

@kminz Kristin Minzenmayer

#ACL success. @LindsayAldrich2 @ajgrissom @TeddyHJames @ellenminz

@schatzlemnatzle Emily Schatzle

Since I was 14, I've dreamt of seeing @coldplay in concert. Tonight, 8 years later, that dream came true at #ACL. Such an amazing show!!!

@ellspears Ellie Spears

ACL 2011!!!!! #tenyears

The 10^th Austin City Limits Music Festival was the place to see your new favorite bands…and your old camp friends?!

Zilker Park became an impromptu Camp Balcones Springs reunion for so many of us who were lucky enough to have tickets to the weekend music festival. Despite the record-breaking crowds that flooded the park this year, Katy Harvey and Jaime Buchsbaum managed to tackle me within minutes of my entering the gates! Everywhere we went, we saw more camp people: Mac Baskin, Alex Timmerman, Catherine Walters, Ellie Spears, Gigi Simmons, Jessy Davis, Owen Miller, Phil Jackson, and tons of others who had all seen more CBS-ers we hadn’t seen yet!

Although the bands were incredible this year (especially Young The Giant, my new fav!) the best part about this weekend was getting to see so many of our out of town camp folks many of whom flew or drove in just to see their camp friends. We got to meet up with a huge group of Baylor and A&M counselors including Wes Jones, Becca Guindi, and Megan Talley who just came to Austin to hang out with camp people…how cool is that?!

So, next year in late September/early October, make plans now to hang out with us for the 11^th year of ACL and mini-camp reunion—hopefully we wont have to make any decisions between Kanye and Coldplay again!

Be sure to follow us on Twitter and to Like us on Facebook for more updates from CBS!

And Check out the CBS website, www.CampIsCool.com

And here is a cool slideshow of pictures we borrowed from your Facebooks!

Closing Time

Despite the fact we still have people coming through our gates for Retreat Season, it still seems quiet around here. The blob isn’t quite as busy, the Rio is a little calmer, and there are fewer people at our evening dance parties. In short, WE MISS YOU!

There is nothing like summer camp, and especially nothing like CBS. Where else can you stand up on your table at dinner and yell “Five Bullets Baby!” or wear head-to-toe purple clothing and no one thinks twice about it? How about you try yelling “pick it up!” in the cafeteria at school and see how people respond…actually, probably don’t try that. Where is it acceptable to pie someone in the face? Where can you see your best friends year after year after year? That’s what I thought, nowhere else but CBS!

Even though camp is over, it does not mean the phun times are forgotten or the friendships are on hold until next summer. Your camp friends are just a text message, phone call, facebook chat, or tweet away! Make the effort to keep up with each other, meet up and chat over a corn dog and a cold glass of Squincher, and create more phun for yourselves. Throw up a casual "Tatonka" when y'all are together and get a pick-up game of O-Ball going!

Campers: We couldn’t do camp without you—literally! Your passion to continue coming back, dancing wildly, and playing hard for your teams makes this place what it is. Never lose touch with the friends you made here, they are going to be your friends  for years to come!

Counselors: Thank you for making this one of the best summers of Camp yet! Your commitment to bettering the lives of our campers is admirable and unmatched in camping. You poured out love on these kids when you were fresh 1^st term and when you were exhausted 4^th term, and you still continue to do it by keeping in touch with them. You make camp great. 

Be sure to Follow us on Facebook and on Twitter to find out when we’ll be stopping by near you!

Look for news and tell your friends to check us out on our website at CampIsCool.com

This is never goodbye, this is only See You Next Summer!

Thank You Allison Rushing for letting us use your pictures!

Home

Sometimes I wake up in the mornings to the sound of Sweet Pea, the camp donkey, braying and he-hawing so loudly, it resonates through the steel walls of Hunter's and my Barn Apartment. Some folks might find the thought of having a donkey, a pair of llamas, a duo of mini-horses, and 14 horses as neighbors somewhat unnerving or even bothersome--but this is my home!

I talk to people a lot about camp, thats just kind of how it goes with this place. Honestly, how many of your stories start with "this one time at camp..." But some of the most common things I hear from campers, counselors, and everyone really who has ever been a part of camp are "I feel like I can be myself here," "I feel safe here," "I'm totally different at camp than I am at school," "Camp is like a home for me!" If someone asks me about about camp, I tell them these things. I think it speaks volumes more than any amount of stories I could tell.

For the last 8 summers, Camp Balcones Springs has been so much more than a summer camp to me, it has been a second home. Even before I came to camp, I got a taste of the family CBS promises. Martin Ramirez and Dean Martinez oftentimes showed up at my tennis tournaments in Dallas along with other camp folks just to cheer me on and to hang out with me afterwards. They weren't trying to sell me anything or convince me I needed to come to camp--no, they just wanted to be my friend.

When I actually decided to go to Camp 4th term in 2004, I remember getting on the bus from Dallas and driving away from Northpark mall and heading towards camp sitting next to Ellie Hansen who had convinced me to come. I wasn't necessarily nervous, but is there anyone on earth who doesn't wonder if they are going to fit in to a new community!? However, almost as soon as the bus started down I-35, Arden Johnston, the most friendly 9 year-old on the bus, came up and told me that when I got to camp I was going to be a Rough Rider, and then proceeded to teach me all of the Silver Spur cheers even if she couldn't remember exactly how they went. Three hours later, I remember getting off the bus to the sight of an exuberant Marietta smiling at us, greeting us all with open arms, announcing our entry to all of camp, and then sending each of us off into Camp's traditional "tunnel of love." When it came my turn to run down the tunnel, I hopped off the bus only to be outright tackled to the ground by who was soon to be one of the greatest influences in my life, my Senior Camper counselor, Casey Millsap!

The experience of Camp never fades for me. The friends I made, the relationships I built, and the growth I had in Christ continued to compound on one another every year I came back, and I give thanks everyday for how camp has made me into who I am today. Even now, after 8 summers, chills still run up my back and my heart races when I drive down 1431 towards Camp on opening day, not anymore because I'm nervous, but because I'm excited to be coming HOME!

Keep some tissues nearby, you might want them after watching this video!



How has camp become your second home? Tell us in the comments below or through Facebook/Twitter!

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Bring this to summer camp...and you might survive! Part 4/7

No. 4 A Cow Suit

Especially in light of the formal(ish) "Black and White Bash" event happening this summer at Camp, you really ought to invest in an appropriate evening suit...a cow suit of course!

The history of the cow suit at Camp Balcones Springs carries with it a long legacy of camp greats all doing great things. No one is really sure where or how the trend began, what with the udderly ridiculous amount of imposters claiming to be the original, but its place among Camp tradition is without question. These suits can be spotted in CBS pictures from many of the last 19 summers, or even branded into your memory if you were lucky enough to be here for the terms when Marty Scott wore his cow suit to every single theme night that summer.

Trying to COWer in the back row

Though the last few summers the number of cow suits has dropped from a record high in 2008, I foresee a comeback this summer if the herd will rally and come together in force! So calling all cow suit owners and future owners, milk it for all its worth, and we'll see you this summer for a mooo-ving celebration!