Good Afternoon Folks!

The Trekker Village is trekkin’ forward for their campout tonight. It should be a fantastic time! We have the whole night planned with many activities from our weekly “best meal” in a foil bag to a game of Wolf-Call to time to relax and calm down from a day of activity and our friends. We hope it’s a starry night, where we can find different constellations as well.

In the spirit of the Trekker Village – We say knee to you!

P.S. Spruce West took down Spruce East in the game of GaGa Ball! They’re the official Trekker Village Champions this week! Good job girls!

After lunch today all of the day campers created their own survival game! We started by making fishing poles with twigs, string, and paper clips. Then, we folded and decorated oragami fish. Once everyone was finished, we took turns trying to catch each others’ fish. I was impressed with how patient and polite our campers were with each other – Way to go! We had a great time!

The message you tried to print is protected with Information Rights Management. You don’t have the necessary user rights to print the message.

We just completed our village time, “The Trekker Amazing Race.” WOW…it was pretty amazing! It started off with each cabin choosing their fate by choosing which side of the climbing wall they would have to climb (easy, medium, and hard). Spruce East dominated the wall, archery, drawing, basketball, bowling, Alpine Balance, Sand Stacking, and more, but the Spruce West and Kettle Hole weren’t far behind. What it came down to was GAGA ball!!! It was stiff competition until the girls of Spruce East and West teamed up to eliminate the Kettle Hole Boys. Boys held their own for awhile until the girls knocked them out. However, what happened to the two girl cabins that teamed up together? That’s right, it came down to fierce competition between two Spruce West campers and two Spruce East campers.

After the awesome GAGA ball game, we came together as a village and sang our village night song and parted ways for the evening. It was truly an amazing day and the Trekkers are really building relationships with one another. And we really can’t wait for our camp-out tomorrow!

Write your prediction on who won in our blog and the answer will be up in the next 24 hours!

Sincerely,

Andrew J. Gappa I
Trekker Village Director

After having a week together and learning how to be counselors, the Counselors in Training are beginning to settle into their cabins! They are divided among the three villages and are having fun getting to know the campers in their cabins. As much as they miss being with their fellow C.I.T.’s all the time, they enjoy being with the campers and practicing the skills that we learned the first week of the program. Learning how to deal with missing home and exclusion are some of the most challenging parts of being in the cabin. But as they learn skills to become counselors, the C.I.T.’s mature and gain more respect for themselves as well as the campers. We cannont wait to see how the rest of this week goes as they learn and grow even more!
-Your friendly neighborhood CIT directors, Katie and Mike!

I hope everyone has been enjoying their week!  I wanted to give everyone an update half way through this amazing session of camp!!  If you have been watching the weather, you know that this week has been either hot or rainy, sometime both at the same time!  We have been keeping cool and hydrated by taking breaks in our air conditioned cabins and lodge, swimming in the pool, and even playing water games with the very chilly hose water!  

You may have also seen on the news that tonight we had a tornado warning in our county.  The stormed missed us by quite a big distance, but your kids will still come home with stories of singing songs in the storm shelter!  Everyone is staff and well.  We were able to get back outside for some games after the storm was well passed.  In addition, Wednesdays are usually our campout nights, so we had foil dinners and hotdogs in the dining hall and it has never smelled so good!  The Pioneers (7-9 year olds) and Frontiers (10-12 year olds) are outside now making s’mores with the help of their counselors and the CITS before lights out at ten!  The Trekkers (13-15 year olds) had desert already and headed back to the cabins to set up tents inside!  They are VERY excited about camping IN!  )

 If you haven’t had a chance, check out pictures from this week by visiting www.matawa.org and clicking on “Summer Camp Photos” in the bottom right corner. 

Thanks so much and have a great rest of the week!!  I know we will!

Annie Hernandez

The horses are looking forward to their first day of camp!  They helped me get ready by mowing the outdoor riding arena for me.  I’m really looking forward to work with all the equestrians this week! Tyler, Tamera, and Jennifer are joining us again this week, and we are happy to welcome Claudia to the Matawa equestrian family!

Boy, are we getting busy at Camp Matawa.  Over the past few weeks we have seen several groups come to Camp and have a great time.  We have had the pleasure of serving University School of Milwaukee’s Cub Scout Troop 383, Southside church of Christ Men’s Group, Park Ridge Y Adventure Guides and Big Waters Y Adventure Guides in the past three weekends.  So busy, but so fun!  Camp also hosted two amazing school groups so far in April.  Zablocki School and Elm Creative Arts School both had an awesome time at Camp and really impressed us with their outstanding students, teachers and parents.  We are making sure to pack in as much fun as possible before summer gets here.  It’s good practice for Summer Camp!

Hi guys I’m Dani from Colombia, I know one more time with you guys and I hope to live an amazing summer with all of you, singing new songs, I have a new one!!! Playing some soccer and some amazing games at camp! I hope to see all of you guys (and my American family) and I can’t wait to finish college so, I can travel to Wisconsin(you gotta love Wisconsin) in a few months!!! See you all in a bit!! Un abrazo!!! Dani

I know what you’re thinking… Quilting and Camp don’t go together!  Well, they sure did last weekend.  We were lucky enough to be host to a group of outstanding ladies who come together at Matawa every March for a quilting retreat.  They travel from all over Wisconsin and Northern Illinois for this great weekend.  Although quilting was the first and last thing on everyone’s mind, there was still plenty of time for other fun activities.  The ladies enjoyed some tasty meals and snacks, energizing hikes, informative presentations and most importantly, fellowship with other women.  They even had a massage therapist out to Camp to soothe their tired, sewing muscles.  At the end of the four day retreat, the generosity of “The Quilters” was apparent.  They made a $300 donation to our Strong Kids Campaign and are all working together to make a quilt for our Strong Kids Raffle this summer.  It is sure to be beautiful!  We are so thankful for their continued kindness and support of Camp Matawa. 

It’s not too late! Sign up for today and share camp with your family and friends!! Matawapalooza Starts: March 26th at 6pm Ends: March 27th at 5pm Always wanted to share Camp Matawa with a friend? Here’s your chance! Matawapalooza is a weekend specifically designed for returning campers to bring a friend to camp in a fun and inexpensive way! Join us for a fun filled night of traditional camp games like capture the flag and spend the day participating in everything from the climbing wall to archery to kissing the Buffalo! What a great way to share the Spirit of Matawa with a friend and to get closer to earning your Recruiter gift! Individual Camper Fee: $40 Bring a new friend and you both pay only $20! FREE Family Pizza and Game Night March 27 6pm-8pm Join us for a free evening of family fun! Mingle with other camp families or bring a new family along and introduce them to camp! The pizza is on us and we’ll provide a variety of fun games for the whole family! A perfect fit for those of you picking up your kids from Matawapalooza! Please RSVP to 262-626-2149 or ahernandez@ymcamke.org.