Stop by and meet Chip at the Sales Office

Egg Toss Champs (biggest crowd of season)

Limbo Winners (all age groups went extremely low this week)

Strawberry Park is proud to introduce Chip Yonge as the manager of the Sales Office. While Rob E will continue to handle site improvement requests and site violation issues, Chip will be there every day but Wednesday to run the site sales program. Be sure to stop in and see him, as he is offering some great incentives for current seasonals, as well as for any referrals that may come from current Strawberry Park unit owners. The office will be open from 9AM to 5PM, with Sunday hours from 12PM to 5PM. If you have any questions, you may call him directly at 860-892-2086. Looks like the summer humidity has finally arrived, as the Sunday night danc ehad to moved under the Rec Center due to the heavy, damp mist in the air. All week looks fairly warm, with a chance of pop-up thunderstorms. We had our largest egg toss crowd of the year this past Saturday night, with nearly 400 participants (almost as many as the Friday night Bingo crowd). We have been averaging 12-18 players for our weekly "Wii Bowling Night" on Thursdays. Great job by this week's Limbo crowd--all age group winners reached our 17th post or lower, which is quite rare. Lastly, it is nice to come out of the All Star break on a nice little win streak, such that things in the AL East are really heating up.

Sorry a week has passed without a post

Limbo Ribbon Winner from 7/14

Karaoke

Ant Race Winners

Steve's Show on 7/20

Between Brock's bronchitis and my laryngitis, it has been a strange week. Also, my apologies to dancers last Saturday night, as their was some confusion with booked dates and a DJ. We primarily use just 2, and they are always here as planned, so it looks like we wrote down different dates. Thanks to Rodney and Matt for putting together some dance tunes, as it was the first Sat night that I was away in ages, as we were at the Billy Joel/Elton John concert in Foxboro, MA. We have a new bonfire performer this Thur, and a new band at the pool this Sunday evening. Mark G had asked about the Outriggers next date, which will be Sunday, Aug 9. Today was wet, but as bad as forecast...should be OK for tie dye and karaoke tonight. For folks who sometimes complain about certain rates for various services, the winner in that category is parking for big concerts and football games. Driving down the road, the $20 signs start about 2 miles from the stadium. $30 was in the mile range, and $40 if you tried to get closer. Talk about a profit margin for a normally closed business having one person collect cash and park 50-100 cars in your lot for the concert. As much as I like to follow the various postings and comments that campers may make on some review websites, I don't see every one. However, must admit that I found some irony in a complaint from a camper about the pools being crowded and there being too many people camping. This is the same person who upon checking in, could not understand why there was an additional fee for the 2nd family camping on her site, and that all 8 people were not included in the base rate. The reason for limiting the number of people on a site (and for charging for beyond a family up to 5) is to prevent situations where people are trying to overload...which if enough people were to do it, would result in more campers than anticipated.

Steve Wronker's Hypnosis Show on July 13

Great crowd on Monday night for Bingo (over 300 players) and for the hypnosis show. For more (and better) photos, visit Steve's website at http://www.swfb.net...but/ for now, here are a couple of shots. Keep up the nice weather Mother Nature.

Front Gate Pond & Waterfall by Gene B

Thanks to Gene Burch for all his hard work on the front gate flower garden, pond and waterfall feature. Glen & Jim needed to remove a bunch of stumps and add the utilities, while Gene designed and built the water feature and garden. Be sure to take a look, as my photos do not do it justice. In one picture, you can see stone mason Ron working on the pillar at the entrance which got clipped last weekend by a camper's truck (surprisingly little damage to the vehicle other than the side view mirrow). I won't mention the camper's name because that would be indiscreet (sorry Frank, no blog stardom for you). While it will take all day to fix, Ron will have it as good as new (he always keeps a photo of his work to model repairs, if needed). Looks like a nice weekend, with music at the pool Sat AM and the Outriggers on Sunday night. Nice crowd at the bonfire last night for World's Smallest Quartet--the duo will return for another bonfire as well as a Saturday pool concert. Also added a shot of Brock trying to pull the boat at Ballard's on Block Island into the ocean.

Whose feet are these?...I think I know

With apologies to Robert Frost, just a reminder as we are bound to see some sunshine soon, don't forget your body parts that may not regularly see the rays. Although my toes may have been buried in the sand, my summer ankle tan turned into a painful reminder of my least favorite baseball team. There are other blotches that I seem to have missed in terms of sunblock as well. Oh well. We had a beautiful day on Block Island, back in time to call Wed night Bingo. Brock enoyed the ocean until he got clobbered by a wave, and despite a little green in the gills, I survived both directions on the ferry (I am not the best motion person). Although today feels like April, it is supoosed to warm soon. Perfect fall night for a bonfire.

Reed's 1/2 Birthday

Here are a couple of candids of Reed's half birthday.

A few more scattered showers...

This morning's showers lingered a little longer than expected, and we may get a little more this afternoon. The long term forecast looks pretty good. Here are a few photos from last weekend, with our Egg Toss Champs and some Hokey Pokey dancers. We do have a few new faces on the activity staff, so if you have not met Katina or Emily, be sure to say hello. Jon M did graduate to the semi-real world, so his availability has been somewhat limited, but he may be still help out with a Bingo here and there. Speaking of which, time to go sell cards for today's Bingo session. Sorry no photos of Reed's 1/2 birthday, but Jen did make a delicious half cake. I think from now on when people ask how old he is, I am answering "zero and a 1/2", like the older kids who are always something and a 1/2. Either that or just "point 5".

Photos from Mud Wrestling

The rain held off, and we had about 10 matches. Congrats to our Greased Pole Climb winners, as a rainbow formed during that event. A record 655 players took part in Bingo tonight, with numerous winners of $480 or more.

Mud Wrestling Later Today

Still taking registration forms for Mud Wrestling this afternoon. Looks like a decent day, but some pop up showers are appearing on the radar--but still much better than Wed & Thur AM. Supposed to be even nicer on Sat & Sun, with fireworks in Norwich on Sat night. Noted on an email to our site owners that Judy Balletti's mother (site 110) passed away unexpectedly. Will post more info when I have it available. Starting to wonder if Brock is spending too much time with the dogs. It is one thing when he decides that the best thing about his John Deere tractor is that it collects rain water so he can lick it off like the dogs, but now that he has started digging in the yard (same technique as Harvey), and he wonders why Harvey likes to chew rocks, maybe he needs to ignore the dogs as role models. He still scratches his itches like a little boy, so that is progress.