Sometimes the Detour is the Destination
It is the end of yet another busy week in Pickle Lake, full of teaching, dodgeball, Mother’s Day, road trips, campfires and – unfortunately – the stomach flu. One thing we have not been busy doing though, is blogging, so hopefully you can bear with us as we jump all the way back to last weekend…
Saturday we got to experience our first ever Pickle Lake Community Dance and man, do these folks know how to have a good time! At the kids dance they had everything from mocktails and popcorn to chocolate bars and glow sticks. We took this opportunity to have an epic three-hour dance party with all the kids, much to their amusement.
On Monday this week we tagged along with Team Mish to spend a day at Missabay. Lindsey demonstrated the art of tooth brushing for a couple of classes, and Sandra got to participate in cultural class, which was spent around a campfire with the grade 3’s. One thing we did not prepare ourselves for was the temperature of the school (turns out we are quite the fair-weather gals) and we found ourselves wishing we had worn our parkas for most of the day!
After school we had the privilege of reading some personal stories written by mothers in Mishkeegogamang for a Mother’s Day short story contest. We were touched by many of the stories and found it very difficult to judge the winner!Back at Crolancia we did a number of lessons throughout the week, including: communication, motivation, peer pressure, bullying and conflict resolution. We introduced the kids to some of our favourite TV shows, Arthur and Recess, during our bullying lessons. Sadly, none of the kids had ever seen these shows before, making us feel very old… BUT these shows are timeless and the kids loved them, so we are going to use them for teaching and provide these youngsters with a proper TV education too!On Wednesday, we were all set to go to Dryden to help with a track meet… until Lindsey got the flu. Heather was subbed in last minute to go with Sandra for the drive and enjoy a night in a hotel (bet we’re the only Northern PEs to do that!). We were lucky enough to see a moose AND a bear on the drive, although Heather was unlucky enough to be sleeping when Sandra started yelling “BEAR! BEAR!”. Thursday was a beautiful sunny day for standing outside and cheering the kids on at the track met. Despite being the smallest team there, they did an awesome job competing in various running events, javelin and discus.
Sandra, Heather and Nick kicked off the long weekend in style, with an overnight camping trip to Mud Lake which featured fishing, s’mores, bannock dogs and fireworks! We even got a glimpse of the famous Northern lights! Saturday was no less exciting, as some of the high school kids organized a Crolancia Dodgeball Tournament that was loads of fun. When we got home our fabulous hosts had some moose burgers & steaks ready for us to try – thanks for sharing and YUM ☺ It was also the opening weekend for fishing in Pickle, so we decided to try our hand at it on Sunday. Sadly, the only things biting that day were the bugs.
Today we hosted a Boys-to-Man-A-Thon at Crolancia for all the boys in grades 4-8. They competed in a variety of manly challenges, including a monkey bar contest, an army-style relay race, last-man-standing dodgeball and a pom-pom catapult task. We gave out awards for Best Bro, MVP, Best Spirit and Most Manly. All-in-all, it was a very successful event!Until next time,Sandra & Lindsey
