Dorset Weekend

This weekend was AWESOME!!

It started out Friday morning when I didn't have to go to work. all the mountbattens met up at the london bridge train station. we hopped on the train and three hours later were at a little farm in dorset. after getting settled into our rooms (tanya and i got our own room!) and lunch we jumped into our first team task, orienteering. we were given a map and had to find the answers to questions such as: what is unusual about this gate, there looks like there is something growing out of the tree by this gate: what is it, etc. My team actually sucked, but i still had fun wandering around the hills and woods.

after orienteering we had free time. there was a big field on the property so while the guys played some rugby i got some of the girls to play keep up/volleyball with a soccer ball. then after the guys got done with their rugby game i joined some of them in a soccer game. kicked some ass! well actually my team lost 1-5, but i scored the one goal that we got!!!

after all the sports and dinner, we headed out to the campfire pit. the rest of the night was spent drinking, joking around, singing, and watching the fire. it was lots of fun.

saturday we had to do some team tasks. one of them was getting cups out of the center of a circle. there was a pulley system with a hook in the middle. there were two people who could talk but not move, four people who could grab the ropes in the pulley system but not see, and three people who could move but not talk. i was one of the people who couldn't see. it wasn't too bad. except for the fact that there were quite a few people on my team who think that there is an "I" in team, if you get my drift!

After all the fun filled team tasks we were brought to a cliff along the shore of the channel to rock climb and abseil. it was lots of fun. after climbing we headed back and played around a bit more.

Aaron and i made up this game that we called Bounce. it started out with us bouncing a rugby ball back and forth to each other. then it progressed to us making two squares and making up a competitive game. you had to bounce the ball on the other person's side and they had to get it before it touched the ground again, but if you bounced it out of bounds then that person would get a point. we played up to five and played a 7 game series. it was probably really funny watching us because we started out being nice to each other and then our competitiveness came out. the games started to get pretty intense and vicious! we played a total of three 7 game series. i won the first two! Heck yeah!
that night we had another bonfire and joking around.

Sunday was the greatest day ever! we went to this high/low ropes course. our first task was to walk across these wires that were attached to trees about 2 feet above the ground. the wires were attached to 6 different trees and the distance between each tree continued to get further and further apart. my team members finally got it inside their heads that there is no "I" in team! one of the guys decided that we were all going to go across the wires on our own. he then proceeded to fall off the first one again and again! i then suggested that someone should get on the rope behind him and hold onto the tree and help him across. surprise, it worked!

another rope course that we did was called jacob's ladder. it was about 30 feet high and each "step" got further and further apart. The website below has the description and a few pictures

http://www.kellycollege.com/adventure/page83.aspx

we went in teams of 4 and we all made it up to the top! it was pretty intense. the top ones were soo far apart that while i was standing on the last log i could just barely reach the top log. it was sooo much fun.

one of my other favorite courses was one where you had to climb up this pole about 30 feet and then climb onto a platform that was about 2 feet by 4 feet. you then had to stand up while the pole was wobbling a bit and jump to a trapeze bar. you were then able to swing on the trapeze bar as long as you wanted and then the person who was belaying would lower you down. The rope course was great and a lot of people were able to overcome their fear of heights slightly!

needless to say, the train ride back was really quiet. we were all extremely tired from our physically active weekend and slept. was a little tired at work today!

this thursday becker is finally here!! i'm going to bring him out on thursday night so that he can meet a bunch of the mountbatten people. friday night we are going to the lion king, saturday we're doing some sightseeing, sunday we're probably going out towards the country for some bike riding and rafting, and then monday we're heading to ireland. its going to be great!