seek, achieve, retain

well i've returned from camp RYLA in good spirits, new friendships, and so many new memories. not to mention the pictures that i will have...you never know.
i truly felt privliged to go to camp, and get so wrapped up in something that was so much bigger than myself. i thought it would be best to sum up a recap of the week, and the most important of the memories. here goes:
Sunday: after the three hour car drive to crookston we finally arive in the gym as family d begins chanting "megan-megan-megan-megan", i just met my "mom and dad" for the next week, and Dayna (mom) leads me to my dorm. my roomate isn't there. we all meet for the first time in the auditorium and first impressions are made within the family. icebreakers, the seven habits of highly effective teens, four way test, handshakes, and around nine o'clock my roomate finally arrives! we head to the dorm and get the most sleep we recieve all week. ( oh yeah and at dinner we meet brad as he and michael demonstrate "snaps"-the canadian game of telepethy- it's amazing!)

Monday:we are woken up by the national guard and whistles! ewww.twenty minutes of boot camp training at 7:15 and we slump back to the dorms. we watched the video about the fish market in seattle and it actually made sense. then the random acts of kindness, to tug at the heart strings. we wore our rotary shirts and my sisters and i headed for the local hospital, with a dozen roses for the patients. it was great, and i gave this one to an old man heading to the parking lot and he took pictures with us. we also made a rose dance with the video camera in the elevator.

Tuesday' tubing day! woohoo! start the day with some relay's and heard the story of dick beardsly (famous runner) he got stuck in a tractor, hit by a truck running, had a car accident, fell off a cliff and had a tree stuck in his eye! he was a standing miracle, but he made his stories funny. finally tubing with my favorite family down the red river. something i have never done before! we shared stories the whole way.

Wednesday: start again at 7:15 with an african workout video, convincing me to search for a leopard/zebra full length leo. ropes challenges, where we had fun in the hypothetical situations of being trapped in a forcefield and having to get each other out. to getting each member through interesting horizontal string designs (evil spider web) where i was lifted through tiny holes no bigger than my TV by six other people. and of course follies probably my favorite part. each family A-O does a cheer, poster and a skit. our cheer was to the adams family song, a poster that included all our socks (symbolicly) and our favorite d-words. then the skit! it was great: micheal and lauren were a couple eating dinner when the waitress (jenessa) asked when the baby was due (not pregnant), then at kelcey and my table we gossipped until she brought a salad with TOMATOES! (allergic). then she goes to the guy's checking us out and grant "drops" his fork and slap's her but (not an actual slap rehersed!!!) jenessa's face was priceless, but she wasn't mad.

Thursday' being on activities committtee i begin the scavenger hunt, then we do "BAFA FAFA"(a cultural expirement) something you must experience to understand. Lunch with crookston rotary, followed by the most boaring speech i have ever heard, then info about UMC where i definitly will not be attending. things ran so late we only had a few minutes to watch the video on etiquitte( and make fun of it) then had to rush to the dorms to get dressed and i didn't even bring shoes! (borrowed from lauren) it was time for fine dining. there were five courses, and we had fun the whole time regardless if they were trying to teach us. dinner even included a violin accompaniement playing yankee doodle dandy, which inspired jenessa to tell us hellen keller jokes. they were sooo bad but sooo funny. one of my favorites: how do you punish hellen keller? leave the plunger in the toilet..........or make her read a basketball. LOL! after dinner we took lots oof pictures and went to the camp talent show. including things from bananna eating, violins, piano's, trumpets, jokes, singing, 2 great humor speeches (the state champs), and "purple donuts" performed by chip ( the camp dance champ), which we think was originally dane cook! oh yes and the defining moment of camp RYLA: paul aka flex-0 comes out to do his routine and there's a hamster dance from google in the back (?) then he folds himself forward and someone has to help him up, she does and.........SMACK he falls straight back on the floor!!OMG! michael says to me " we so called it" it's okay bc he was fine but right after he fell they played a video of cats doing funny things like you see on AFV, and everyone's attention turns to the cats. that night we replayed the moment a million times: paul..... smack 1 2 3 "oh look! CATS! haha!

Friday: marshall olson speaks about loosing his son and concidence or god talking to him. another speech on anything is possible and then we worked on our final speeches. well actually lauren michael and i hung out in the guys dorms till dinner, but it was fun. after dinner there was more free time and then we finally gave our speeches and ended the night with the dance! for the most part it was pretty fun and the only time i will go to a dance with my new friends who i only knew a couple day's and actually don't attend BHS.

then it was the last day and we all promise to stay in touch, as i relflect on everything i learned.
i've never laughed so hard in my life and the people are amazing. i did meet some canadians and they are quite interesting, but we learned to love them and their ketchup chips and candy. there is so much to tell and so many pictures to send and develop. family "D" represent and Lead the way Rylarians!
Megan Kummet