Reflecting Nehemiah... my life at Calvin College

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

A Water-ful Weekend

josh pott’s is driving the boat, and he was our awesome host!

this summer, there were two big events: niagra falls, and this. both events were being planned even before college ended. needless to say, i had been anticipating this for a while, and when the day finally came, i was pretty excited.

saturday morning, my neighbor/ex-floormate/friend tim ferdinands, my fellow-international-student/friend david cutter, and i ran a 5k race in nearby byron center. none of us slept really well the night before, and we had to get up around 7 since the race began at 8:30. i hadn’t seriously run in about 4 years, and i decided to run the race purely on impulse. my goal was to run without stopping and beat 25 minutes.

i started out near the front of the pack, and since this was my first real race in a very long time, i got swept away by the other runners and ran waaaay too fast. after the first mile, i had to slow down, and for the rest of the race (except for the sprint), people were passing me. there were these kids there who looked like they just started middle school, and they were flying past me late into the 2nd mile. maybe some of them will become olympic runners… that’d be pretty sweet.

i managed to finish the race without stopping and under 25 minutes. mission accomplished!

after the morning run, we ate tons of free food provided by the sponsors, then drove to lisa’s house in jenison. we took showers at her house and watched the second last leg of the tour de france before grabbing some food at a nearby grocery store to bring to josh’s house.

we carpooled in lisa’s car, and after about an hour on the road, we arrived in grand junction. josh lived by a lake where roads don’t have names, but numbers. it’s a beautiful area, with clear skies, lush forests, and people who don’t care about driving on their lawns. i love going to the country for a weekend; it’s always refreshing.

lisa, tim, cutter, and i were the first to arrive. josh came out to greet us, followed closely by his wonderfully stupid dog, magnum. magnum was a yellow lab that loved to dive into the river, come out, roll all over a patch of dirt, then shake himself off when he was next to people. if i could get into magnum’s mind, i think his three greatest pleasures would be water, dirt, and people. in other words, his dream would be to roll in mudfields with hordes of people petting him all at the same time.

the weather was amazing all weekend

and then there was love at first sight: croquet. sadly, i only got 3 games in, but it was amazingly fun. it has my 3 passions all smashed into one: lawn bowling, minigolfing, and nintendo wii golf. im proud to say that i won 2 of the 3 games, with the final game being quite a dramatic finish. we were about to head out to the lake again, so we were in a hurry to finish. i told josh to wait 5 minutes or so, and i had 3-4 wickets left. julienne and i were tied at the same wicket, but then i caught fire. needless to say, i was awesome and nailed 3 straight wickets. and then from there, i just cruised to the finish line. we got back on the lake in 5 minutes.

i love seeing faraway friends again!

some people had to travel a few hours to get here. cathryn on the left came all the way from detroit, and megan on the right came up from indiana. megan lived on first beets, which was a girls floor my sophomore year. this year, it’s turning back into a guys floor after moderate amounts of drama. 1st beets was going to be a girls floor, but then calvin had another housing crunch, and calvin had too many incoming guys than girls. so 1st beets was going to be split in half, literally with a wall down the middle, and part of the floor would be guys and the other part girls. but once some of the girls received the news, some began moving out of first beets. now, calvin has settled on turning 1st beets back into a guys floor, and the 1st beets girls have chosen to relocate to veenstra (the sister side of the dorm), the KE apartments, or elsewhere. im so lucky to have experienced a girls floor on the guys side of the dorm sophomore year!

tim chillin’ on the pimpin’ speedboat josh borrowed from his neighbours

yes, i did spell neighbours the canadian way. this canadian habit has stuck with me like a multi-coloured rainbow (i know that didn’t make sense, but i just wanted to spell “colour” the canadian way).

sarah never even knew i took this photo

some people love photos… and some don’t.

our host again. of course we can’t have enough of him

our dorm’s deskie, david cutter, vroom-ing along

luke chillin’ in the back of the boat, enjoying the show

josh loves the toys luke brought. we all did…

...except when they flipped over!

that’s where the tomahawk missile landed. ok, it’s a 40mph donut, geez.

more toys, more donuts

a random guy who invited us to his party

i guess he had some of his friends in from chicago, and they were also staying at the lakefront. so he invited us over to hang out. how nice of him. but really, he was just jealous because all the girls were with us. i wanted to accept the invitation and just have all the guys in our group show up at his house. i thought it’d be fun to see his reaction, if he’d be like, “soo… where are all the girls?” i thought it was a good idea, but everyone else shot it down. *sigh* i justed wanted to play a small prank on him!

tubing is so tiring.

after that evening, i think my forearms and chest were puffed up to double their size. i felt like i’d just bench-pressed the whole lake while swallowing half of it. and i felt the same way until wednesday night, 3 days later. that’s when i soaked in the hot tub at luke’s house and jumped out and danced as if peter and john had healed the cripple at solomon’s gate. hot tubs are amazing. and don’t tell me if i got the bible story mixed up.

speaking of hot tubs, i think the new fieldhouse being constructed should have a hundred-person hot tub so all the athletes can loosen up their muscles. and since i’m a super athlete, i’d jump right in there and do my religion homework in the water.

josh’s dad wanted in on the fun too