An Epic Weekend

Wow, what a weekend! I have so much stuff to say! I think I'm going to split it into two or three posts so y'all don't get overwhelmed. I don't use "y'all" very often, but sometimes it is just the best contraction EVER. I find it very useful. It's not quite up there with "pointy" and "abort" (which, as some of you know, are my two most favourite words), but it's still pretty cool. I don't care what you think of confederate America, they came up with "y'all", and that's at least worth something. Although I do believe that slavery and the Georges Bush are somewhat regrettable ("somewhat" applying only to the Bush thing and not at all to the slavery thing--that's just plain regrettable).

*Ahem*...back to the weekend. This weekend, Aaron and I went up to a camp retreat with the youth group from our church. On the ride up, I quite unintentionally used reverse psychology to get three thirteen-year-old boys hooked on Bjork. I handed them my CD binder to choose some music and said, "There's mostly just mix CD's in there...oh, and the CD nobody ever wants to listen to."
"What if I want to listen to it?"
"NO, REALLY. Nobody ever wants to listen to it." (I was being completely honest here, no foolin'!)
"I want to listen to it."
"Okay, but don't say I didn't warn you."
So, I pop in good old Medulla, Bjork's weirdest album yet (and that's saying something). Lo and behold, the boys thought it was pretty cool, and even headbanged to a few of the more upbeat songs. They asked to borrow it (except I had just promised it to someone else), and wrote down the name of the artist and album so they could download it. Go figure.

The highlight of the weekend was spelunking on Saturday. That means having fun in caves. To get to the caves, we had to hike up to the top of a mountain, and that took us almost 2 hours. Thankfully, the leaders of the excursion made us all do it in silence. It meant less complaining, and more noticing/admiring our surroundings. The view was pretty darn cool, the Fraser river was below us, and there was lots of moss and ferns and it was pretty. When we got to the top of the mountain, we reversed directions and began climbing down, but this time into the mountain. The caves were neat and dark and mildewy and chilly and I got really dirty and climbed up and down rocks and shimmied through a little tunnel and scraped my knee. It was awesome. Then we had to climb down again, and we were already sore from climbing up, so it was kind of ouchy on the way down. But it was not nearly as ouch as I am today. Oh boy!

That evening we played a wide game in the dark where the point was to run/sneak around in the dark without flashlights and capture each other, etc., and the precise rules were a mere framework for all that fun in the dark. I had a fantastic time! I decided to play the role of the well-concealed ambusher guarding a certain location of interest. I had the perfect lair! I hid behind a tree where a yardlight was illuminating the area I was guarding and also blinding any approaching sneaky people. Just when they got close to where I was, they would start to sprint, for their goal was in sight and I was not! But alas and alack! In the blink of an eye, I would be sprinting right at them! The first time I captured somebody, I actually clotheslined myself on a low branch just at the moment of the nabbing. The second time, I completely took the guy down. As we were both sitting up after our tumble, I realised that I had nabbed an unsuspecting camp kid (whose parents run the camp) who wasn't even playing at all! I caught him COMPLETELY unawares, as he didn't even know there was a game going on. Thankfully, being a permanent resident of a summer camp must make one accustomed to all sorts of oddities in the name of fun, and we both laughed it off and thoroughly enjoyed retelling the tale!

Sadly, our retreat weekend was cut somewhat short by Aaron contracting a random but vicious little flu bug that had him vomit the entire contents of his stomach and then some over the course of a few hours. When there was nothing left, we drove home. More specifically, I drove us home. This was a major accomplishment for me, because I am not much of a driver. I'm not a bad driver, I'm just an inexperienced and easily intimidated driver. I drove on fast 6-lane highway for 2 hours and then through the city all the way back to our house. I'm proud of me. I'm pretty sure I also broke the spirit if not the letter of the law because my Ontario G1 license says I must not drive on any 400-series highways (the #1 in my part of BC is a close equivalent, although as anyone can see, #1 is not a #400-something), and I'm supposed to have someone with 5 years driving experience in the passenger seat (it never mentions anything about that person not being deliriously ill and/or asleep with the seat fully reclined). But I was good and nobody pulled me over, so I got away with it. Anyway, by the time we went to bed last night Aaron had a crazy high fever (we didn't have a thermometer to measure it) and I was afraid because he had puked away most of his liquids that day and was probably quite dehydrated. It was like sleeping next to a thermonuclear reactor, he was so hot. Vicious little bug. But half way through the night the fever broke and I could rest a little easier. Today he's recovering quite well and he'll be able to go to school again tomorrow.

The end.