week 3

Super Saturday went swimmingly! GRSing (welcoming) went very well, pretty cruisy now that I know what I am doing. On Saturday night the staff instructors had a regatta canoe tournament where we painted ourselves different colours and then had different types of canoe races. It was pretty fun.

No Bay Sunday was luckily a smooth day. I was rostered on a double split this week which was great. In the mornings I was in a super air nautique with Jon and in the arvos a small 206 ski boat with Blake which has been a good change from all the big boats surprisingly.

All the kids are really cool and its soo great to see them grow in their skills over the week. I have had a couple of smart alec kids who don’t know what it means to be quiet which can get frustrating at times. Sunday night had a great small group and hopper time yet again.

Monday – great day. Early morning swim, great boat rides with good company. Got to go both slalom skiing in the afternoon, which I feel I am improving significantly in, and in the morning I had a decent wake surf session, which I am definitely improving in as well. Sun shining, ipod playing, boat driving, rhys smiling.

Monday night – night off. After dinner I headed into Bracebridge with Mark, Jon, Blake, Jonathan, Johnavive and Lois. Got me some washing done – much needed. Finally had the chance to post mail home. And had my first experience with the world renowned Canadian Tim Hortons. Got me some Timbits – which are little flavoured dough ball sweets. Very nice. And an ice float chocolate type thing. I will definitely be paying another visit to this fine institution.

Tuesday morning – early morning wakeboard. Getting closer to that tantrum…not yet though. It was really smooth but really foggy when heading back into camp which was pretty crazy cool. The day went swimmingly. Picked up my cabin for stayover at lunchtime. My cabin Willow 2 played a match of soccer against Neily Poos cabin Willow 1. It was a good chance to get to bond with the boys. That night for J2 activity we had another turkey hunt type game but no tackling (shattered!). The aim was to catch as many villains and get them back by avoiding their ‘phobias’ eg grass.

After this there was a gymnastics demonstration from the gymnastics staff and a high school national cheerleading team that was on tour to the camp for a couple of days. VERY impressive!

The boys I had for Tuesday night were a bit more rebellious than the week before but still pretty cool. Unfortunately I didn’t take too much effort to learn their names and connect with them because I was so exhausted. So when it came to bedtime, the boys wanted to shout laugh and do everything but sleep. After lights out they kept on shouting and I thought I would be in for a long night. As a stab in the dark to get some hush I decided to say that the next person to shout out would have to clean the toilets in cabin cleanup the next day. At that, the cabin went dead silent for the rest of the night. I had an awesome sleep!

Wednesday was great. Enjoyed the wacky Wednesday sleep in, got to have both a ski and a wakeboard. Getting closer to that tantrum so hopefully it will come soon.

Wednesday night there was a skate demonstration up at the skate park with a bunch of professional skaters that came to camp for the day. I missed out unfortunately because I had to practice for impact. Impact was great fun yet again. I got to play piano backing up for Cam doing a Jack Johnson rendition and also a unsigned original artist called Julie Rains.

Some of the other boys did a backstreet boys dance/song which was really cool. It was a great laugh.

Thursday I skipped out on a wakeboard and a gym early in the morning for a sleep in. My calf was a bit sore from wakeboarding the day before. The whole day was spent on the water. Morning split, and then headed out to lunch at port carling with my afternoon group. Had a great chat to talyse before dinner. Then spontaneously left with Steve, Craig, Dan and Mark to watch the mind blowing movie Inception. We made it back a bit late for cabin cleanup and got a word from some people high up, luckily not in much trouble.

The kids in our afternoon boat love hearing stories from Blake. He has tonnes of great stories from his adventures and his life in Durban. When they asked me for a story I felt I needed something big to match up to Blake. So I told them that one time when I was 16 I broke out of jail. I expanded on a big elaborate story off the cuff and they fully bought it haha. Had to clarify that this was not true at the end of the week.

Friday was unfortunately an overcast day. Luckily the rain only hit for about 10 minutes out on the lake. Got me some yummy chocolate fudge in port carling at lunchtime. After cleaning the boats at night and having a nice vegetable and gravy dinner, I headed with a few of the boys to the Parrot’s cottage. It was about an hour away. But such a nice cottage!! Went for a slalom ski, played some euchre, and then watched a canadian tv show called mantracker, where professional tracker on a horse had to find two random guys who were trying to get from A to B and avoid the mantracker. It was really cool. It would be great fun to participate in…trying to hide from the tracker. The two guys got caught in this episode.

Had a great sleep in. The night was interrupted by Kenton who had a night terror, and was shouting and banging on the walls and stomping. It was pretty crazy. “DAVE DAVE LET ME OUT!!” haha. Then he woke up and realised what was going on, he was standing at the door out of his bunk. We all had a good laugh then went back to sleep.

In the morning I had a great home cooked breakfast with eggs and toast and peanut butter. Peanut butter you ask?? Why? Because at camp none of the food whatsoever is allowed to have nuts because of allergies. So peanut butter is quite the delicacy on our days off.

Went out for another ski, barefoot, wakeskate with the boys. I got to have a good fun tube ride. Then we packed up and drove an hour back to camp for Cadence and another week of Canadian summer fun!

Ps. Staff paintball tonight!!!!!

photos still coming...sorry