A Session at West is Perfect for Me!

Favorite colors: Pink & Purple (and of course red & white too!)
Favorite song: “Feel This Moment” by Pitbull ft Christina Aguilera
Favorite book: Beneath the Glitter by Elle and Blair Fowler.
Favorite quote: “What I love most about home is who I share it with.” – Tad Carpenter

Hi! My name is Gabi (I’m in the middle with the pink shorts), and I live on Long Island with my parents, my sister Ashley (who will be a Sophomore at camp this summer), and my brother Cooper who’s a future West camper!  I love to dance and hang out with my friends all the time! When I’m not at camp, I go to school in Melville with a few of my closest camp friends.

I started coming to TLW as a Cadet in 2010, and this will be my 4th summer – I’ll be a senior! I ended up at camp for so many reasons. My neighbor, who will be a Junior Counselor at camp this summer, was always coming home from TLW with so many great stories about camp.  So my parents and I looked into it and here I am years later, still LOVING every second of West! I’ll never forget when I got onto the bus for the first time. At the end of my 4 weeks, I came home as a different person – this had been the best summer of my life (which is what I find myself thinking after each summer…) Another great thing about having chosen West was that I didn’t want to be away from home for the entire summer.  It just seemed like it would be for too long for me.  So 4 weeks was perfect! I thought that I would end up switching camps for something longer after my first summer, but after those first 4 weeks, I realized that I never wanted to be anywhere else!

I love camp for everything it is! The friends I’ve made at West are not only my best friends but they are also my sisters. I love being able to have some place to call my summer home that no one can ever take away from me! My friends from home think I’m crazy every time I start talking about camp and they don’t understand why I start laughing at random things, but it’s just because those random things remind me of camp. I would never trade my experiences at West for anything in the world!

I’ve had so many of the BEST memories at camp! My favorite was when my friend Ryan and I got into a soda fight during canteen. We were outside and before we knew it, soda was being poured on each other’s heads – but we didn’t realize how messy and sticky it would become! We ran back to the bunk, dripping with soda all over us! We had so much fun (I’m sure much to the dismay of our counselors!) It was hilarious!  I’ll never ever forget that!

TLW has given me best friends that I know I will keep forever. If I ever have a problem, not only can I go to my home friends or my parents for help, but I know that I can always count on my camp friends too. Camp has made me 10 times more independent than I was before I came to camp. The moment the buses pull into camp on the last day, you can’t help but start bawling your eyes out because you’ve had the most amazing summer of your life. These past 3 summers have been my best ones yet and I’m counting down the days (only 107!) until I’m back to the place where my heart was left at last July.