Piping Woodpeckers - July 29, 2014

Today at Wynchemna we had another fun day out on the water.  Yesterday we canoed, today we learned how to paddle kayaks! It was great fun, though at times it was a bit difficult. Mastering the paddle wasn’t so easy for some of us, but we all still had a great time.  We paddled around a reservoir that seems to be in the centre of the city; it was very picturesque and peaceful nonetheless.  Nobody fell out of their kayak (a good thing) and we learned some basic strokes that served us well in the races we had against each other.After kayaking we played a game of baseball in the park.  Many of us had never played the game before, but the best way to learn a new game is to play a new game so we dove right in! It was a hot, dry summer day, so the weather was perfect for a game (well... maybe a bit too hot) and the match was well-contested as both teams were all novices.  It was pretty cool, every person managed to hit the ball at least once and there was even one home run!  Baseball might appear boring when on the television, but it is a fun game to play in real life, even for those of us who never thought we might play a game. After baseball, we all went to Boston Pizza for a much needed pasta dinner; Cody from Taiwan had 3 plates full!Once we got home, we got all showered and gussied up for Casino Night! Yes, that is right, we went to a casino for a night of living large and gambling guilt-free... well sort of. The teachers had organized a mock casino for us using fake money.  It might have been all for fun, but we had a real poker game going and a real Blackjack table as well, and hearts and hopes rose and fell with the flip of a card.  Victor from France once won ten thousand dollars on a single hand at the Blackjack table while others   won at bingo, poker and a card game called Slap. Some of us shot pool in between winning and losing money and some of us just took in all the excitement and mock despair.  We all looked wonderful dressed up in our best clothes; even the teachers were dressed up.At the end of the evening we put our money to good use as we held an auction using all the money we had won.  It was a night of big winners becoming big spenders as each winner tried to outbid the other and take home kitschy Canadian prized like mini-hockey sticks and tissue printed to look like Canadian money. It was all a flurry of laughs and shouts and excitement to end the night, which ran much later than usual.  Good times...[AFG_gallery id='199']