Time sure does fly when you are “living the dream” at Camp Watitoh! The last two weeks have been a whirlwind of special events, evening activities, and an awesome four days of Olympiad!
Starting with our super fun Carnival with game booths, Cotton Candy, Sno-Cones, a dunk booth, face-painting, inflatables, and water slides, our campers couldn’t have had a more fun afternoon!!
August 2nd kicked off a myriad of all camp traditions in the final weeks of camp:
The 50th Anniversary of Watitoh Gardens, the basketball game where the Waiters play the Staff in a game of baske
tball for everyone to watch! The whole camp made signs for their Waiter while the Senior boys of camp got the court ready. It was an unbelievable game and the Waiters won in a back-to-back championship. Brandon Gelb was the Camper MVP!!
Memory Lane was a huge hit this summer! Former Camp Director, Billy Hoch, did a Zoom photo presentation of the history of camp while pointing out some of the parents of our 2nd multi-generation campers! The slide show was followed by a peek at this summer’s highlight video and the final version will be shared over the winter!
Color War broke to end the week and we spent four amazing days in awesome competition between Tan Sorteria and Green Horus. Tan, led by Jared Schwartz, Emily Hoberman, Macy Cumming, and Harrison Lyman challenged Green, led by Jackson Schreiber, Lindsay Greenblatt, Jake Harwas, and Aine Loughman to a great four days of awesome competition. Land sports, sailing, rock climbing, cooking, chess, art, and more were all been displayed throughout this Olympiad. Both teams brought the spirit and upheld the tradition of healthy competition throughout. In the final event before the SING, the Tan Sorteria won the Apache Relay! The entire team jumped into the lake with enthusiasm celebrating their win!
Monday night we experienced one of the most incredible traditions at Watitoh, the Olympiad Sing and Art Presentation. Both teams sang their hearts out to beautiful songs and both presented camper banners that were creative and demonstrated amazing talent. A huge congratulations to GREEN HORUSfor winning SING and to TAN SORTERIA for winning Olympiad 2022! We are so proud of all of the participants and especially the leadership of both teams for their amazing efforts.
Earlier this week, we went to Six Flags, endured the heat to go on rides, played games, and ate our way through the park! The past two days have been filled with new and old traditions: NFL Day on Boys side and Watitoh “Flowerbed” for the girls (a basketball game between the TICS and the girls staff.)
Last night was our Final Banquet and the reveal of this summer’s camp calendar by Emily Hargis, our Art Director. Inspired by the art of the Navajo tribe, Emily incorporated the actual nets from the Gardens game and there is one thread for every day of the summer. How unique and special! After the Banquet was an incredible performance of Shrek, the Musical! We were all rolling on the floor with laughter and so impressed with the incredible talent of our campers. There was even a cameo by the Waiters and our very own, Drew Bitterman!
Today was packing and “plaquing” until this afternoon when the counselors played in a big soccer game, the World vs. the USA…the World came out on top! The canteen “sellout” was definitely the hit of the day! Tonight we had the Scroll, a review of the whole summer in the Social Hall, followed by the traditional Candle Boat ceremony. The TIC2s and Waiter2s led us in singing “Friends” one last time this summer. It was a beautiful end to an incredible summer!
Tomorrow, the campers will return to you and we will say goodbye to summer 2022. It’s been amazing and we can’t wait for you to hear all of the wonderful stories and review all of the photos with your camper(s) together!
