Long, long post

Wow! What a weekend. I would normally just write what happened as it came to my head, but since I have SOOOOOO much to write, I’ll try to write everything strictly in chronological order.

Evan came to my house at 8:45 on Friday morning and drove us and our luggage to Chestnut Hill Chapel in our van. There we picked up Melody Fulone. We then drove straight to Fairwood with the rest of the Fulone family following behind in their van. Mr. Knowles had the first meeting, which was at 10. He introduced to us the theme of the convention: friendship with God.
After the meeting we went to sports, where Diane Randall divided everyone (about twenty girls and five guys before Tim Brown and Josh Littlefield arrived on Saturday) into four teams of six or seven. I was on team one. Elizabeth and Clyde were the team leaders, and the other members of that team were Tim Brown, Shannon Randall, Kate Knowles, Katherine and Klara Holscher, and Philip Reed. Each team’s points were added up throughout the weekend. The points came from almost anything, including sports, games, and extra-special conduct certificates (for things like helping with the dishes, setting up chairs, etc.).

Back to the subject of sports: on the first of the two sports times we played blind volleyball; wizards, trolls, and hobbits; and basketball. We might have played some other games, too, but if we did I don’t remember them. Blind volleyball is really fun. A large rubber ball is used instead of the normal leather one, and large sheets are hung on the net to obstruct each team’s view of the other side. Wizards, trolls, and hobbits was fun, too, but it was very confusing at first. Jeff Turner made it up. The game is a mixture of scissors, paper, rock and octopus or red rover or one of those games. Each team decides which type they will be (wizards, trolls, or hobbits) and faces off against the line in the middle. Wizards beat trolls, trolls beat hobbits, and hobbits beat wizards. If one team is wizards and the other team is trolls, the wizard team chases the troll team back to their side of the gym, and all the trolls who the wizards tag joins the wizard team. When everyone is on the same side, that side’s original team wins. The concept is pretty straightforward, but it’s hard to remember whether to chase or run when the other team reveals what they decided to be. Fortunately, I don’t think I need to explain basketball at all!

After lunch and another meeting (which Evan had), we were able to go play Ping-Pong and other games in the Fellowship Room, which had been temporarily made into a recreation room for the youth. I played a lot of Ping-Pong matches over the weekend, and to my surprise and delight I won more than half of them! I beat Ben three out of four times, Joseph one out of two, and Devan one out of one. The only people I played that I didn’t beat were Jeff Lyman, whom I played twice, and Tim Brown, whom I played once. I played Around the World two or three times, but, although I came in the top four each time, I never won. We were allowing three misses, and once I got to the end with Zohrab Najarian, and he was one miss ahead of me. I got him once so we were equal, but he won in the end. I played Rook for the second time in my life. It’s much easier to get the required foursome when you have dozens of people to ask. We had to end the game early, and my partnership (Kate Knowles and I) lost to Andrew Bean and Devan, but I had fun anyway.

We played TONS of games on Friday night and Saturday. Andrea was in charge of Friday night games, and we played song pictionary, the friends game, and Famous Friends charades. I had a really awesome time with the song pictionary, but I got a really bad headache that lessened my enjoyment potential. I took two Advil and felt better in time for Sabbath treat. I still enjoyed the other games, but I didn’t feel well enough to really participate.
On Saturday morning, Claire had us play a bunch of team games which were loads of fun. We first played a marshmallow toss game. That was kind of gross and messy. The next game Claire thought up was called skit in a bag. Each team was given a bag and had twenty minutes to think up a skit to use the props in. Team One (my team) acted out a spoof on the story of David’s mighty men who risked their lives to get him a drink of water. Instead of water, however, David craved Tuna in our skit! That was one on the most fun parts of the day for me. Next we had to draw all our team members’ faces on balloons. Each team got points for how many of its balloons were guessed correctly and how many of the other teams’ points it guessed. I drew Klara.

The next game time on the schedule was a Quiz Bowl, hosted by Chad. I had fun with that. My team won all three rounds for first place, and then played the team leaders as a bonus. Fortunately the bonus round didn’t affect our score, because we lost 15-5. I knew a lot of the questions given, but Zohrab, who was on the other team, was much faster at pressing the button.

The final game session was later in the afternoon. Craig hosted it, and everyone played a bunch of games that were, to me, somewhat harder than the others. In one game the members of the team had to line up in order of whatever he called (e.g. shoe size, hair length). There were some relay races: putting spaghetti in a bottle, and eating items pulled from a paper bag in the shortest time. But what I thought was the most fun game of all that Craig thought of – which, by the way, my team won – was the cheese curl toss. One volunteer wore a shower cap and a trash bag poncho and had his head covered with shaving cream for thirty seconds. Then the rest of the team threw cheese curls at his head for two minutes, and the winner was the team with the most stuck in the shaving cream. Shannon, Team One’s volunteer, had one hundred thirty-seven.

The meetings were really good throughout the weekend. As I mentioned above, the theme of the weekend was friendship with God. There were six meetings in all, not counting Sunday worship service. In that meeting five people were baptized! Allison Knowles was baptized first, and then Uncle Neil, who was having the meeting, asked if anyone else wanted to be baptized. Andy and Jane Reed, Alex Hersey (a friend of the Randalls) and someone named Josh (who is a friend of the Lymans) all came up. It was very inspirational.

Sunday was also my birthday. I am now 16!!!!!!!!!!!! I am going to get my license in about two weeks. Mama took me to a production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s H.M.S. Pinafore that afternoon. Chad was in it. I enjoyed it a lot, and Mama did too, but I think I still like the Pirates of Penzance better. No matter! I had an awesome birthday. I got a stack of 100 CD-R’s, so I don’t have to worry about buying them or getting them from Daddy’s office any more when I need them. I got a really nice pocket watch from Mama, too. Daddy gave me an office chair from his office for my room. Cara gave me a huge, beautiful kite, which I can’t wait to fly, and Ryan gave me an electric pencil sharpener that works incredibly well. Before I had to go down two flights of stairs and back up to sharpen my pencil well, but now I can do it right in my room! Bria is going to bring me a present from the UK, so I haven’t got hers yet. Another few of my favorite presents were the special editions of both Spider-man and Spider-man 2, CD labels, and a hand-knit ear-warmer from my Grandmother.