Despite the fact that we were thirty random kids thrown together for a week, I would say we acted as best friends after the first hour that day. Working together and achieving the impossible. I'm being honest when I say if I had realized before I left the things I would accomplish this past week, I never would have believed it.
This particular tree took all our strength to push over. It was one of many that was still barely attached, but laying on the ground and in the way. We worked together to pull it off of the ground, dodging our way through the prickley bushes that seemed to be everywhere. Brent got a prickley stuck in his shirt and when he went to wipe the sweat from his face accidentally scraped a line across his forehead. Let me remind you, it was like 30 degrees and we were sweating like pigs. I wanted so badly to take off my jacket but I knew if I did my arms would be even more scraped up than they got. Yes, I got scrapes even through my jacket.
But we did it. With little to no complaint we worked together and achieved what seemed to be impossible. I never thought I'd lift those giant trees. No one was angry. No one blamed others or got mad when someone sat for a second to take a rest. Everyone worked endlessly and even when they were exhausted, were completely willing to take the burden off of others. The following picture includes about half of the logs we moved. The first day. I'm not even kidding... (Including all that wood in the background... even the chopped up firewood if you can see that back there... we had a separate team chopping some of the wood into firewood)
The second day Trevor was handing out assignments. I, like everybody else, really wanted to go to the pool to paint. But, since everyone else wanted to, I figured I'd stay and see what everyone else wanted to do. I ended up being put with a group of three other girls to paint the pantry. First we moved everything out of the pantry and swept it.
This room was empty when we started. It's the room that everything that was in the pantry was put in while we painted. Not only did we move every single item you see in this room, but we also moved the furniture that this used to stand on, including taking a shelving unit off of the wall. It took all four of us to throw some of the giant metal shelving into the dumpster. Again, something I normally would have considered impossible.
This is the room before:
And after about five coats of paint on the wood. We added about two more after this as well because Trevor told us to. Two of the girls I worked with were super upset about this... funnily enough they were the two that didn't have to paint it (Farah and I were the ones that painted the wooden shelving... Chantell and Amber took care of the ceiling and other walls).
And this is after we moved almost everything back in. We washed each of those plastic trays by hand. We worked on this room every single day so it was kind of our main project of the week. I was just relieved not to be moving giant logs anymore (not that I didn't do any more of that at all), but I do wish I had gotten to spend more time outside.
This is where we stayed. The girls stayed in the upstairs of the boat house and the boys in the downstairs. I was on the top left bunk in this room. I had to climb up the window sill and sort of jump to get up there. Fortunately, the boys found mattresses for us and brought them up for us to sleep on. Unfortunately, there weren't enough so many of the guys went without. Farah was so kind and gave up her mattress the second day since she had brought a mattress pad.
I remember Wednesday morning waking up and the first words out of my mouth were, "Wow. Every single muscle in my body is sore...." and Farah's response was, "Yeah, imagine how the poor guys feel, they don't even get mattresses like us..." I felt terrible. But the guys wouldn't accept my mattress, even had I offered it, knowing I didn't have a mattress pad. We had enough trouble convincing them to go first at just one meal (we thought they deserved it since they let ladies first every single time and I knew they were starving). We still never got them to fully comply. They went ahead, got food, and then served that food to us.
Also, as I stated before, I think, there were no bathrooms... Well, there was one... it was just... yeah.
There was one indoor toilet available for us to use. I'm pretty sure most of the guys used the outdoor porta-potties as I hardly ever saw one inside. The toilet we used was located in a different building where we slept and actually inside the apartment of a guy who lived on property. We had to interrupt him in order to use it, but fortunately, he was extremely nice and happy to allow us to use it and even left the door unlocked during the day to let us in.
Everything this week wasn't hard, however. Probably the hardest part was not showering all week long, but no one else had showered either so it was much better. Plus, I've never gotten so much male attention in my entire life, so it was totally worth it. There were other great parts too. We got to visit two senior homes in Logan... at least I think it was Logan. We sang to them and made cheesy love notes. It was great.
We also played Ultimate Frisbee which was super fun, even though my team lost each time. I also went canoeing which turned out to be one of the best experiences of my life. It was freezing outside, but Daniel and I grabbed a canoe. I felt safe with him since he had recited the Boy Scout pledge thing earlier in the week and I thought he had said he was an Eagle Scout. As we got into the canoe, however, I tried to clarify that he was in the back so he'd be the one steering (I think that's how it works at least...) and he informed me that he had never set foot in a canoe in his life. Apparently, he couldn't pass his swim test so they wouldn't let him canoe. Not an Eagle. Plus, it was by far the most wobbly canoe I've ever been in, not that I've been in very many. I have no pictures of this adventure because I left my camera safely on shore. We didn't tip, but we came ridiculously close several times. Despite his lack of experience, Daniel could get the canoe moving extremely fast and it was very fun and relaxing to be out on the water. We actually got very far into the lake when I asked if we could turn back. The amount of tipping we were doing was freaking me out and Dan didn't have a life jacket. Plus, the water was insanely freezing. We canoed for a while closer to shore and then stopped. As freaked out as I was, it was one of the highlights of my week.
Speaking of highlights, however, the food was definitely up there as well. Jenny was in charge of the food and did a fabulous job at it, too. She went to culinary school, so she was formally trained in feeding crowds of people. I'll be honest, on the first day when there was barely enough for one grilled cheese sandwich and a tiny cup of tomato soup for each person, I was worried about portion sizes and not having enough food. However, every other meal proved me wrong. We had plenty and even ended up with leftovers at most meals! Even the guys were totally stuffed. Everyone took turns helping out in the kitchen cooking the meals and serving them, and then cleaning up afterwards. This is one of the meals I helped with.
It really was one of the best weeks of my life. I'd do it again in a heartbeat if I could.
