Fall Retreat Funness

This post is way too long.

   This weekend was unbelievably fun. We had our Emmaus fall retreat, and I think that I, even though the oldest after my boss, acted like the biggest kid there. I played so hard and had so much fun.
First of all, I had the opportunity to introduce students to the wonderfulness that comes in a deck of cards called Dutch Blitz. This game will never not be fun. However, I was slightly disappointed with my performance, because some of the people I taught started to beat me by the end of the retreat…I’ll have to work on this.
   So Saturday happened, and the child in me exploded through the walls of normalcy that try to contain me. It reminded me of The Nutty Professor where Buddy (the skinny version of Professor Klumps) is battling Prof. Klumps for control of his body. Weird analogy, but that’s what it was like! I tried to keep composure and maturity at first, but then I just let it go, and boy did I have fun!
   I played frisbee first. This was interesting. First off, after playing league and having organization on the field, watching 20 people run around in circles, all competing for the disk, feels incredibly chaotic. It reminded me of church Frisbee—fun, but completely insane, and normally only the boys get the disk more than twice. *funny/humbling moment while playing=immediately after I told my team that we needed to slow down and try to make smarter throws (because we kept losing the disk), I got the disk and tried to throw it to someone, but instead threw a line drive to the ground…oops.
   Right after Frisbee, the group kind of spread out, but I stayed and played football with the guys (of course, and I have battle wounds to prove my intensity). So fun; however, I was reminded that I am not good at all. My bbffl (boy bffl), Danny Chu, was qb for my team, and he was determined to get me the ball. Meaning, after 900 great throws but really bad catching attempts, he didn’t give up on me—true friend. I finally did get a couple catches in, but I estimate the catch drop ratio to be about 3:20. Yeah, not good.
   Ok this next part had to be one of my highlights. So we were at a camp for this retreat, and were sharing the space with a church that was having a family retreat. Right after our football game, the families came up to the field for a wiffle ball game. This was quite possibly the cutest/funniest thing I have watched in a long time—I mean, I really can’t wait until I get to go to my kids’ t-ball games. Most of the kids were from 2-6 years old, and as you can imagine, they still haven’t quite figured out how their body’s move…oh my. One of my favorites was when this 2 year old little boy (Conner) came up to home plate to bat. So prec! He walked up, stood on the base, kicked some dirt, I think he spat too, then bent his knees, held the bat behind his head and looked at the pitcher, because clearly he was ready to hit! Well after he tried, and didn’t quite get it, he still decided he needed to run around the bases anyway—an obvious conclusion.  Well somewhere between third and home, Conner, while running at full two year old speed, and another little kiddo being distracted by something in the distance collided! They were both ok, but Conner, still determined to make it to home plate, while being slightly disoriented from the collision, pushed the interfering ADD kid out of the way and staggered to home. Remember, he was two. Talk about determination. Too cute.  My second most favorite moment from this game was Danny. Absolutely ridiculous—nothing out of the ordinary for him. He was the loudest fan out there. Any kid who ran by, he obnoxiously cheered for—even to the point of cheering this poor little boy to home plate when clearly, the little guy was not going to make it without getting out. And he did get out, then he cried…good job, Chu.
   So after all this greatness, I thought the day was surely winding down…well, no. After getting semi cleaned up, no shower of course, I headed down from the cabins with a few others. Then I remembered some people were playing sand volleyball! Some of you know how not gifted at volleyball I am. Well, I wasn’t as bad as usual, but I definitely demonstrated my struggle with this sport—still super fun though.
   The sugar on top of this fun, fun, wonderful day was this game called murder ball. Sounds dangerous, because it was! This game is like a deadly version of dodge ball. When I walked into the gym where everyone was playing, there was a curtain that divided the room, so I couldn’t see what was going on on the other side. All I could hear was what sounded like missiles launching across the room and violently exploding on the opposite wall. My life flashed before my ears. Terrified at what I might find, I peered through the crack of the curtain and was amazed. There were missiles being launched across the room—red, plastic coated, foam missiles, launched from deceptively small men, flying at the speed of light and punching their way into the lined wall, creating a sound that made you tremble at the idea of interfering with its course.

So I did what anyone would do, I joined the game. Best decision ever. So fun.

So now I can’t move due to the soreness, but it was all so worth it.