Adventure!

This May Holiday I went camping with quite a bunch of friends and students.

It would take me a very long time write out the full version of what happened, so here are some highlights.  

Climbing THROUGH a barbed wire fence.  Nine of us, and all of our abundant gear.  On the other side of this fence was a steep muddy hill.  Getting up it was a huge team effort.

The break wherein Bridge began blasting Aaron Shust music and Caston opened his backpack... I assumed to get out water, but what he actually pulled out was a set of numchucns.  

us:  "Caston????  WHAT????  What are those for?"

Caston:  *nonchalantly flipping them around*  "You know, when you go into the woods around my hometown, you should take something to protect yourself.  So I brought these!!"

all of us:  "...and we brought you."

At the top of the hill we got to climb a firetower and had an incredible view of Changchun.  We could see the whole way back to our school.  

Awesome food... because the guys brought a grill and meat to cook!  AND we had s'mores... the first time for any of our Chinese pengyous.  

 Playing "hot seat" for probably about four hours.  This is a game where you take turns answering whatever questions the other people feel like asking.  Great game to get to know people, and easy to adjust the level of intensity.

Incredible beauty of His creation.  "We could be in Colorado," Jonathan said.  "We could be in Eastern Tennessee," Emily said.  "We could be in Alabama," Sydney said.  "We could be in Western Pennsylvania," I said.  It's awesome how nautre can feel so similar anywhere, and refreshing...

It was cold during the night.  Really cold.  So most people didn't get much sleep... we got back to campus around 8:30 this morning and most of us promptly went home and slept for about four hours.   Around 4:30 or 5, when most people had come out of their tents to huddle around the campfire again, we took turns reading Psalms.

It was great.

Top quotes:

"It's getting dark already??  What time is it?" ~ an hour and a half after we went to see the sun set... and had been sitting around the campfire for quite a long time...

"Get. In. The. Tent."

"WHOEVER YOU ARE, JUST GET IN  THE TENT!!"

"Why?  Why?  WHY??????" ~ Caston at 3 in the morning, being freezing in his tent

"Well, at least I don't have to worry about missing the sunrise!" ~ Alicia, being incredibly optimistic about being awake super early.

"Oh my word, is this my life right now?"

It is my life... and it's pretty awesome.  There were a lot of moments of the trip that weren't the most fun moments in and of themselves, but the experience was one that I'm glad to have been a part of with such great friends.