faulker009

Football, Soccer, Ping-pong, Gockey. Name a game and we pretty much played it during our school’s three-day retreat to the mountains last week. And that was just during our “free” time. There was not shortage of activities, which made for some great father/daughter bonding time. She beat me in Tetherball.  By cheating. I beat everyone in Ga-Ga, three times.  By getting lucky. We lost as a team in Ping-Pong.  By two points. After two action packed days, the trip was coming to an end, but not without the finale:  Eco-Stratego, Mini-Survivor meets tag meets hide-and-go-seek Here are the rules -- two teams hide in the mountains... each player represents an animal...  one player on each team is the sun. Find the sun and you win.   Along the way, if you run down someone from the other team, tag them, and exchange your rank. Spider beats fly.  Human beats lizard.  Bear beats Lion or is it Lion beats Bear. Rule book please. As you might imagine, this is s...

Even though my recent three-day retreat with my daughter’s class felt like a vacation at times, as one of about a dozen chaperones, there was definitely work to be done. There was making sure the kids cleaned their plates and cleaned their tables at every meal. There was making sure that our group got to every assignment on time. And of course, we needed to make sure EVERYBODY had a good attitude and a good time. I didn’t say it was hard work, but a job is a job.   Especially these days. But perhaps my greatest responsibility was being the voice of reason, along with one other parent, as we shared a cabin with seven 7th grade boys, ages 12-13. And we were really tough.   Well, not really. LIGHTS OUT AT 9:00PM!!!     Ok, 11. YOU NEED TO SHOWER!!!   Unless you don’t want to. WOULD YOU TALK LIKE THAT IF YOUR DAD WAS HERE? Surprisingly, of the 25 or so boys that came on the trip, not one of their dads joined them. Those working people really have it tough. All of ...