Montecito-Sequoia Family Camp

Re: Grandparent-Friendly Family Camp
We've gone to Montecito-Sequoia Family Camp (www.montecitosequoia.com) for several years, and this past year brought my 79-yr old mother along. She loved it. They have beautiful, easy hikes in Kings Canyon/Sequoia Park (the amazing redwoods), art classes, delicious and varied food, and a lovely setting. The kids were very busy with their own activities - waterskiing, horseback riding, art, fencing, archery, tennis, gymnastics - and there are entertaining events (bingo, casino, dances) in the evenings. They have a full staff of international counselors who are wildly enthusiastic. We've seen many, many multigenerational families there and I'd recommend it for every age group. It is definitely pricier than the city-run family camps but we found it well worth it because there is absolutely something for everyone at any given moment of the day. skito

I attended a wonderful camp Family Week Music and Dance Camp last summer with my daughter and husband and just heard that there are still a few openings for this year - thought some other UCB Parents might be interested. What I particularly liked about this camp, besides the glorious setting, friendly, funny, and very talented staff, great music, and inclusivity of all ages, was that this camp is designed not only to be fun for children from toddlers to teenagers, but also for their parents/ grandparents/ adults. The roving babysitters in the evening check on all children every 10 minutes in the cabins, allowing many parents to spend the evenings dancing and listening to music in the great old lodge with the other adults and older kids. The spirit of this camp is one of welcome and inclusion of everyone, regardless of age, skill level etc. And there is a delightful dose of silliness evidenced in the costume parade to the bar-b-que, the Teddy Bear's Picnic, etc. Please see the announcement of this year's camp and contact information below if interested.

FAMILY WEEK MUSIC AND DANCE CAMP, July 3-10, 1999

The 8th Annual BACDS Family Week, July 3rd to 10th, 1999, is a music and dance camp for families of all sizes as well as for singles and couples who like the lively vitality of a child-inclusive community. Sponsored by the non-profit Bay Area Country Dance Society, the setting is a Sierra mountain camp at the 4000 foot level about ten miles outside Kings Canyon National Park, 50 miles east of Fresno, CA, with beautiful vistas and a lake for swimming and canoeing. The camp offers a full program of classes for each age group of children, and adult dance classes in contradance, square dance, clogging, English Country dance, English longsword, Balkan dance, as well as fiddle and dance band, folk crafts, woodworking, and clay. Twice a day the whole camp community gets together for singing, dancing, concerts, skits, jokes and stories.

In the evening the under-10 children are paraded and sung to bed, and roving babysitters check on each cabin every ten minutes so that parents can go enjoy the evening dancing.

The housing is in wooden cabins with electricity and there is a bathhouse nearby with hot showers. The food is catered by our own chef; three meals a day plus snacks. The staff includes professional fiddlers, pianists, guitarists, accordionists, dance callers and children's teachers from all over the United States.

A pdf version of the brochure may be viewed at the BACDS website, at http://www.bacds.org. For registration or more information, call Emily Flouton at (707) 765-6559 or email emjer@netdex.com