a sunrise, bananas and surfing

may 7. 2008
9:15 PM
camp drewe

not wanting to miss the sunrise, jodi and i headed to the beach at 5:30 this morning. although we ended up sitting on the beach for an hour, waiting, it was well worth it. i loved watching the sky transition into a final full bloom of sunshine over the ocean's waves in the quiet of the morning. another bonus was seeing lightning in a cloud formation some distance off causing pink flashes.
a little before 6:30 we were joined by most of the rest of our group and we all witnessed the glory of the sunrise.

our first stop today was the big banana-a large yellow banana, which is just one of the many "big" structures to be found in australia. i thoroughly enjoyed my chocolate covered banana with sprinkles, along with seeing all the banana-themed merchandise.
"its exciting-so exciting. almost as exciting as the pope coming in 69 days." -carl

"maybe i'll be like australians and just shorten everything now-this muff is quite good." -sean, as he ate his muffin for morning tea

we ate delicious sandwiches with carrots, pickles, cheese, meat, lettuce and cucumbers (provided by the camp) in preparation for our afternoon of surfing. although i'd had a little practice last summer with matt in hawaii, i signed up for surfing lessons. this was a smart choice, even if it was a bit humbling. =) i was able to get up once and partially multiple times, but i don't think surfing is my calling. boogie-boarding might be more my style, since standing up isn't necessary. i'm glad i had another go at it though. it was great fun to wear a wet suit and spend about 2 hours in the water!

we were photographed for our entire time attempting surfing and we had the opportunity to view/purchase the photos. when people were sitting watching the photos on the screen, carl announced it was time to go. i started to head to the bus and laughed wen i realized that i was the only one who cared to follow carl-to which he responded by grabbing my hand and "holding my hand" until we reached the bus. what an imp.

on our 2 and 1/2 hour drive to camp drewe, i had my first turn sitting up front (on the left side!) and was quit entertained by carl's antics. we played a highly competitive version of the alphabet game and a guessing game. i was a little better at the guessing game than he was. i guessed his submarine not long after the game commenced, but carl had trouble guessing a safe , but he got a second try and was able to guess a torch. it was fun to meet carl's parents tonight, as well as eat his favorite dessert of golden syrup dumplings. they have become one of my favorites, as well, especially warm with ice cream.

11:15PM
camp drewe

i was intending to head to bed, when i was distracted by a game of nerts-an exciting group version of solitaire. the teams were as follows: carl + saundra (his mom), dennis (his dad) + chris, reneca + sean, along with jim + me. as the game went on it became clear that our team was pretty neck-and-neck with carl + saundra. and boy, is carl competitive! but it ended with a close round, with jim and i as the winners! carl commented that i was mighty pleased with myself, even though i needed help to finally win at something. somehow i don't have too much difficulty imagining him as the pesky little brother i'm sure he was...and probably still is.
card games are some of my favorites, and tonight was quite fun, in spite of being accused of not shuffling adequately. =)