To Ohio & Back: Part III

{As yet more happened!}...

Saturday: Canoeing, Park Day & Dancing
8am~ Despite the ungodly hour we were up at the night before after that late night scavenger hunt (and prank-pulling on the guys by a few of the girls!) we still had to get up early and leave for the canoeing/rental center by 8am-ish.

Before we went, we donned the new (first-ever-official!) CP! T-shirts we had received the night before and took groups photos in the morning sunlight.

 

Snazzy, no? :)
Collee Plus! Dayton, Ohio Event group photo
Left to Right: Rebekah, Bethany, Marie, Morgan, JD, Hattie, Brittany, Mac, Emily, Alex, Derek, Noah, Nate, India, Benjamin, Merry, Steven, Amanda, Marissa, Lisa, Atalie, Hannah (me), and Leah.
courtesy Brittany Wellvang



Goofy picture! Love this one. ;)



 Did I mention I loved the car/van rides that went on during those four days? :) It was one of the best parts of this event! How can one not have a blast being squeezed in with a bunch of other people in a vehicle and talking/singing/gabbing the whole way to your destination? ;) It's just fun.

9:30am~ We arrive there, pay for our canoes & life vests, and team up into pairs of 3-a-person per canoe. I, lucky girl, got to canoe with two of my favorite people: Ben & Hattie! :D We made a good team, if I may say so myself. ;)
10ish~ The rental center helped us find vests and bundled us into their big 15-passenger vans, over to the launch site, four miles upstream. By 10:30am, I think everyone was on the water of the creek/river. It was funny watching everyone try to grab enough oars for themselves, steer the canoes into the water, and get in without tipping over! Of course, it's funny until...it's your turn. :) Ben, Hattie & I got in fine.

Did I mention that that was my first time canoeing? It was! :D I've kayaked before, but never canoed.
I loved it; a great first experience. And Ben and Hattie had done it before so I was in good hands all around. Ben took the rear/steering, Hattie the middle, and I at the bow/front. Let me tell you, canoeing really builds arms muscles! ;)



Our canoe is the red one all the way to the right, a three-seater.
We were one of the first canoes to finish too, I believe. :)
Picture by Steven.



It was a gorgeous warm (but not hot), sunny day and the woods and surrounding areas around the creek were very pretty. I truly enjoyed this CP! activity. Kudos to whoever thought of it (the Sanders family most likely. :)

11am~ We all made it down the stream, four miles in total, with only one canoe capsizing. (I will leave those folks to anonymity. Everyone in that canoe was fine, just wet.) Thankfully, the creek was down in water capacity considerably, so the water wasn't too rough, fast or deep. :) I will look forward to trying tougher canoeing later, but in time. In time. ;)

12:30pm~ Merry, Alex, (who else? I can't remember.) went to the Waynesville grocer to pick up somethings for the picnic happening at one. That was fun too. :) The grocer reminded me of the old, old Kennie's Market we used to have in town here. Water, soda, chips, hot dogs, and...to the park!

1pm~ Park Time
Another wonderful way to spend some time hanging out and getting to know each other. :)
It took a while for everyone to get there, but eventually they did. We had a superb time eating lunch & talking and got to meet some new people too! We prayed and ate and swung in the swings, and hit balls around, played Frisbee (and Ultimate), blew bubbles, shot tiny squirt guns, laughed, talked , lounge din the grass, played four-square, explored the park, and generally had good, no GREAT time. :)

Group picture at the park!
(Noah's photo)

Nate, Mac, and Alex. Doing....what they do! :)
(Brit's picture)

Benjamin getting some serious air on those swings!
(Noah's photo)

JD & Brittany, rocking those crazy shades that got passed around all weekend!
(Emily's psychedelic ones, left; and Brit's Gucci's, right.)

~ People under the pavilion. ~
(picture credit: Steven)

Swingin'...
(Photo credit: Steven)



Leah and I, with the watermelons. Contemplating how to slice them
and enjoying their big, roundedness? I guess! ;)
Picture credit: Steven



And believe it or not, the day wasn't over yet! I'll have to save telling about the rest of this day, and Sunday, until the next post.
I'll be back....
:)

To Ohio & Back, Part II

The continuing story....

Thursday- Arrivals & Bowling
Ah, yes! The rest of Thursday I can't remember much about, except a lot of "Hi, Hello, What's your name?"s and lots of laughing & talking & settling in. Several other people showed up in the afternoon that day as well I think(?) Hattie, Amanda, Lisa and Mac, was it? :) Anyway, the more there were, the merrier! :D I could tell that it was going to be a wild, fun 4 days.



Breakfast at Grandma's again. :)

 9pm~ Bowling! That night, after pizza at a local, yummy pizza parlor, we all went over to a bowling alley for games! Only $1 per person per game, $5 for the shoes. I was on a team with Leah, JD, Steven, and Emily. I think we did really well! The guys were in contest and I was just trying to stay OUT of the gutters. :) My final game score was a personal best: 121! But even for those who didn't score high (like me, the first two games :P ) we all still had a lot of fun. :D My favorite try was throwing my pink bowling ball under my legs with Marissa and getting a strike! Leah also bought me fries which I restrained from organizing. ;) *cough*cough* Barely.

Bowling!

11pm~ We also had a late night Walmart run, whilst Leah and I found *cue music* DIET, CHERRY, VANILLA Dr. Pepper! And Skittles & Sour Patch Kids, of course.

Friday- Work Day & Movie Night.


Car ride over to the church for the work day!


10am~ Everyone up and dressed & fed, ready to head over to the Sanders' church. They were in need of some cleaning, painting and repairs. So...what better way to get it done really fast than call in a couple dozen young, able bodies? :D JD gave us a pep-talk, Leah and I made sure that we had plenty of 'fuel' for our day, and we signed up for the various teams.
The Moving/Lifters
The Cleaning Ladies
The Painters (They had the most fun, it sounded like!)
...and then there was Brit, flitting around with the camera. ;)

I was one of the cleaning ladies, as I ADORE cleaning. :) We did a complete scrub-down and organizational tornado in the nursery! Lots of windows to clean, chairs to scrub (with magic sponges) and toys to wash. Those magic sponges really worked, but they wear themselves out doing it. *boohoo* lol. I also discovered lots of dead spiders and grime in the kitchen windows.  The painters had a blast singing while painting... Brit recording it all on film. :P :)
1pm-ish~ Lunchtime! Merry and Rebekah (I think?) worked on making a sumptuous chili for all of us! It was delicious. :) Everyone chowed down, while I discovered that there is a strange chemical reaction that happens when you put soda + Skittles together. (They turn rock hard and the soda loses its sweetness! Strange....) After lunch, people started finishing up and doing whatever.

2-4pm-ish~ Me and a couple others headed back to the house to take showers that couldn't be gotten in any other time while Merry and Beks hid the balloons for the BIG scavenger hunt that was to happen later that evening. :) Balloons allllll over the yard! It looked hilarious. Then, back to the church.
Turns out, the rest had a great jam session/hymn sing while we were gone! :( Sad to miss that, but it was nice to get cleaned up.


Brit & I! <3

6-9pm~ Cleaning up the church areas, moving the furniture back in, rearranging stuff. I finished the toy-cleaning and paint roller washing with Mac. We all watched The Emperor's New Groove (which I never saw before, but is a hilarious movie!!)

10-12pm~ Back to the house for that scavenger hunt! We divided into five teams and went out. it turned out to be a lot trickier than we thought, because several of the balloons popped and it just wasn't that easy seeing the balloons! The winning team had garnered around 500+ points from the balloons they found, which included a black one (100 points.) :) Way to go people!
1am~ Crash time! I was T-I-R-E-D. Made a call home and then went right to bed. :)

To be continued...

To Ohio & Back

I'm just going to pick up right where I left off on my other blog, Grace Upon Grace. The reason I have now switched back to Blogger is because of one thing: convience! Having everything connected (via Google) is extremely convient, if questionable internet-saftey-wise. So, here I am. Happy now that I can put multiple pictures per post into my writing and have all these amazing customizable abilities at my fingertips! I knew I always liked Blogger better. ;) Plus, I can now follow my friends blogs easily as well...

Now, about that "big Ohio trip" I just took!

What was it?
A CollegePlus! approved student recreational gathering, open to any CP! student, nationwide.

Who came?
Quite a few CP!ers! We had a group of at least 22 students, not including their siblings and families that showed up at different times. :) It was amazing! I finally got to meet all these people I've only talked to on the CP! forums or Skype or Facebook. It was great to finally put names to (sometimes hiliarous and crazy) "faces". ;) I made some new friends too!  All of these guys were outstanding, humorous and courteous kids! I thought we felt like long, lost siblings or something; it was awesome. :D

One of the new CP! friends I made at the Ohio gathering: Hattie!
I actually met her first through her blog & Etsy shops. Photo credit: Britt Wellvang

Where was it?
At the home of the wonderful and gracious Sanders family (whose daughter Emily, is in CP!) in Waynesville, Ohio! It was a beautiful area that really reminded me of my favorite place on earth, Sullivan County, PA. :) Lots of sunshine, trees & hills! We spent most of our time at their house talking, eating meals, sleeping etc. The girls, all 15 of us, sleep either in the house in various rooms, or out in the pop-up camper one family brought. The guys (all 8 of them!) slept in a 10'x12' cabin in the would with double lofts--packed in like sardines! But they thoroughly enjoyed the arrangement, you could tell by all the bonding that went on and late night talks we heard about. ;)

The inside top floor of the "Waynesville Antique Mall", where I found several goodies. :)

A walk through the woods to Grandmother
Sander's house for a delicious, huge breakfast!



Downtown Waynesville, which was positively LINED with antique shops!

 What went on?
LOTS went on! It going to be hard to describe it all! I'll try to start by day, and see what I can remember:

Wednesday~ 5pm I head out of PA with three other CP! guy friends (Ben, Noah & Steven) in Steven's white van, packed out with our stuff. :) Lots of talking & jamming to music involved.
7pm ~ We stop for a break and dinner at Burger King. I got a huge chicken sandwich, yum! But I somehow grabbed a coffee straw for my extra large root beer and the soda machine spurts all over Noah's hand! lol We hop back in the van and keep driving. Favorite new thing: hold-your-breath contests through the tunnels. (Noah can hold his breath for 3 minutes flat!)

Yes, Steven drives *that* fast. (jk!!!)

12pm ~ We arrive in Waynesville and find the Sander's home after only one small turn around. :) Turns out several CP!ers are already there, waiting up for us while playing 'Psychiatrist'. Intros all around and then we jump right into the fun. We drove poor Alex nuts with that game! :D Eventually, everyone decides we *should* go to bed soon enough. "Goodnights!" to all... and onto the next day.

Thursday~
8:30 am~ I take a walk down the Sander's road to the main road & back (about 1 mile.) Refreshing! Then by the time I'm back, more people are getting up & looking for the "life juice": Coffee. :D 

The "blue" T-shirt team for a day! L to R: Merry, Emily
(the two best friends & CP! organizers for this event) and Atalie.

9:30~ The boys come out from their cabin and join us for a breakfast of lots of fruit & cereal. (Everyone was just trying to wake up I think.)  Atalie arrives! She lives only a couple hours away in Ohio.  After Ben, Steven, Alex and Amanda head out to pick up people from the airport, the rest of us head into town for antique shopping! This was so fun.

12:30pm~ Lunch at McDonalds downtown (where I organize my fries and get teased for it!! ;) and then back to the house.

1-2ishpm~ Derek & Marissa arrive (they drove) from Canada! :D Not bad time, eh?

To be continued.....