I flew into Atlanta on a Sunday, that afternoon was the official check-in day. After I checked in, I met my team. Our team seems to mesh really well. I think we will work quite well together for this summer. After we met, we went on our first adventure together. We had an “Amazing Race” in which we were given riddles about places we had to go and things we had to do. These places/things consisted of shooting archery (Devan did this), going to McDonald’s and chugging a largish size “suicide drink” (Jared did this challenge), shooting a half court shot in basketball (Logan), “borrowing” a tube and sitting in the river (me), counting parking spaces at the bowling alley and multiplying and dividing them by a certain number (team work), etc. It was a lot of fun! At one point we were in first, but we lost our lead when we went to the wrong Putt-Putt place. Oh well, it was still fun! We also got to go to this CRAZY little town called Helen. Everything in this town screams tourist trap. Plus, when we were there, it was Memorial Day weekend….so there were TONS of people there. Let’s just say this….it is not a place I would choose to vacation at, but it was very interesting. All of the architecture was “German” inspired. Like I said, I have never seen anything like that! Later on in the week, we went back to Helen with a group of Summer Staff and went tubing in this little town. That deserves a post of its own later on!
Other fun stuff that we did at training was that we went bowling. Every year there is some kind of challenge between Summer Staff and National Staff. From what I have gathered, National Staff normally wins….because they cheat. But this year, the Summer Staff won. We went by averages, and our team’s average was seventy-something….not impressive! But, the Summer Staff team with Lewis on it had a large average. I believe Lewis bowled like a 224! Needless to say, their team won…thus making Summer Staff beat National staff! It was a lot of fun, even though I am not a bowler at all!
Now training was fun…but it was also a lot of work. Each position had over 28 hours of position training over the span of a week. By the end of the day, I was pretty much brain dead from the vast amount of information that was conveyed to me each day! It was crazy! We also had driving school where we learned how to hook up our trailer to our Expedition. We then each had to back up the trailer, as well as drive around with it attached. Now, I am used to my cute smallish Red Honda CRV….so driving an Expedition is very different…much less an Expedition with a trailer attached. Luckily, I am just a secondary driver (because I am not 20 yet) and my other teammates are all primary drivers. So chances are, I will never have to pull the trailer. I will get to drive once we get to our sites and get to drop the trailer. But, you should be happy to know, that our whole team passed driving school!
Once we were done with all of our position training, it was time for “Mock Set Up.” We had our mock at a church in Cumming. Our team went and set up just like we will at the camps. Our National Staff member, Jon Hodge, then came and inspected! He said we were the best of the day out of the teams he was assigned to check. Everything went so smoothly. That night, another team came and stayed with us. Our team leader Logan, is very good friends with their AV Blake….they are pretty much in a bromance. They stayed with us the second night in the church we were at. Our two teams did a lot together over the span of training. That night, we went out to eat with a few other teams and then went to the movies to celebrate our last night together. You could either see the X-Men movie, or Pirates. Since I have already seen Pirates, I saw X-Men. I have never seen any X-Men movies, so I got the run down on it from Blake and Michael. It was actually a pretty good movie….even if it didn’t end until after midnight.
Training was super fun, but it FLEW by! Even though there were busy and long days…we still got to hang out with and meet a ton of people. I am so thankful for the people I have met. Training was a total success! Bring on the real deal now!
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| I love these ladies! |
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