No one really knows when it happened, but somewhere between dumping out last year's backpack and shopping for the next year's, best friends - life long buddies- were created. It didn't happen over an arithmetic question or swapping out sandwiches in the lunchroom. No, these buddies were created over a flying leap into a foam pit,a handstand competition, and the understanding smile that says "wow, that was good!". These buddies were created at a summer camp that somehow cannot be recreated anywhere else. Gym Camp.

Everyone has seen some movie or other - Heavy Weights, The Parent Trap- that depicts a typical summer camp complete with a lake, camp counselors, and a battle to beat out an opposing camp. Well, gym camp doesn't exactly have a lake but it does have a foam pit as big as an Olympic-size pool. It doesn't really have camp counselors but it does have coaches that can lend an ear just as well as they spot a back handspring. And it doesn't really compete against some other camp but each camper in there is competing. They're competing for personal bests - beating their own record for the sheer joy of doing it.

Gym camp didn't start out being called 'Gym Camp". It started out with the generic title of "Day Camp". Day Camp didn't seem fair. Every camp has a day, but not every camp is packed full of nothing but trampolines, bungee harnesses, foam pits, and rod floors. No, the word 'day' just didn't seem to fit, and it was the kids themselves; it was the die-hard campers who renamed their own summer family. And so, the ArtSport's "Day Camp" became the ArtSport's Gym Camp. And the camper's began to affectionately refer to themselves as 'gym rats'. That was eight years ago.

My daughter wasnot quite fivethat first year of camp. It was also my first year running anything of that nature. The kids and I were all facing a summer of growth. Them in their gymnastic abilities, and me in my professional abilities. But Kenzie, my little girl, was only four, and she latched on to this other little girl with strawberry blonde hair and spitfire in her eyes. Tiana was just shy of her fifth year of life as well, but neither of them would admit it to the other. Both of them playing off the slightly stretched truth that they were close enough to five and therefore, it was fine just to say it was so. And finally, there was Austin. A pretty blonde with a wit that far exceeded her actual five years. That first summer, those three became life long friends.

Summer after summer, the three of them would meet in what they considered the hallowed walls of ArtSports to learn more about the now Olympic sport of trampoline and power tumbling, and to play the silly games and contests that I invented each year and tested on my unsuspecting campers. We would cheer for the good ones, and laugh hysterically over the not so good ones. And we all grew, just like I knew we would. I became an experienced camp manager, and the girls, they became accomplished athletes.

The camp is now eight years old. Many of the campers today were with my daughter and me that first summer. Many are too old to be actual campers anymore but couldn't give it up. For them, we created the CIT program (coach in training). So they still come, and we all still spend hours learning the sport, and hours playing the now tried'n'true games and contests, as well, as testing out more experimental ones. And we all still laugh.

Since that first year, the camp and the staff has grown in numbers. It's no longer just me and a couple of coaches and a handful of kids. It's me, a fleet of coaches and CIT's, and enough kids to now run three different camps depending on age and ability. But the size doesn't take away from the feeling of family that's still there. Just like the early years, the kids still walk in and leave a trail of shoes and socks and jackets as they make their way to the trampolines. And I still follow along, the appointed 'mom' to scoop up their belongings, carefully stow them away in the cubby holes as I half-heartedly scold them for their sloppiness, and smile on the inside.

And now that another summer camp season is coming to an end, and I am already starting to say good-bye to some of the kids who are moving away, or taking their last shot at a family vacation before school starts, I can't help but get a little sentimental. I know that they will be back, and I know I'll get to see most of them throughout the school year; some for classes, some for birthday parties, and some just for the occasional camp day when their school closes. And where I am grateful; grateful to be able to work where I can watch my little girl, and now little boy, grow up and create those life long buddies, grateful to have had the great honor of being part of so many kids happy childhood memories, grateful for the friendships that I have with their parents, and grateful in knowing that it's not really over, just on hold, I still let a tear or two fall every year at this time. Saying good-bye, even the temporary ones, is hard to do especially when it's something special. There's something special about summer, and something special about that gym camp.