Lac du Bonnet Camp Out June 23-24

A group of youth, under the banner of Faith-O-Rama(the youth group I'm involved in), headed out on the Saturday June 23rd morning, for Lac du Bonnet. We were going out to help a family in need of some assistance, and to have a little fun!
We got to our destination around 11-11:30am, and got straight to work. The guys piled wood and mowed the lawn, while the girls helped inside the house with cleaning, sorting, packing etc. . After our work was complete we stopped for lunch/afternoon lunch, then headed for the beach for some cool down time.....did I forget to mention, it was quite warm.
The lake was great, we swam, played football, hung out...and then there was the mud fight. The floor of the lake was rather muddy in places, and to some people, rather gross. I got the idea to bring some of the mud to the surface, well this opened a Pandora's box, everyone in the water somehow got hit with mud, or at the extreme, dumped with mud....whoops!
After the lake, we went back to camp for some supper, and a little birthday celebration. We had great eats all weekend, and for supper that evening we had burgers and smokies....and to finish it all off some birthday cake for yours truly, my birthday was coming on the 25th.
Following supper we had some rec. time around the house, some threw the football around, others sat around a smoldering fire eating candies. The smoldering fire brings up another thing, it had rained there a lot before we had come, so everything was pretty damp. With dampness comes tons of mosquitoes....lets just say bug spray was in high demand!
Later that evening we where treated to one intense thunderstorm, we watched it for a while from the dock on the lake until the storm was on top of us, we then headed for the vehicles and watched a little more. The storm got pretty intense, so in tents(a little pun, for those paying attention) that it knocked my tent down, and soaked the girls tent pretty good. A few of us had to sleep inside (in the small house we where helping out at), and a couple slept in a camper...but most could still sleep in their tents, in the end we all had rather dry places to sleep.
The following day a couple people left early, so those that remained went on a tour of the area. We went all over the place and saw many neat things, but unfortunately the mosquitoes followed us everywhere we went, we couldn't spend a lot of time at one place. Once we had been all toured out, we returned home and so ended the Lac du Bonnet Camp Out.
I don't think I made this clear, but the whole group worked really hard, and I'm very proud to say that I was apart of this Camp Out gang!


Took some videos and got some pictures of the Camp Out, enjoy the visual goodness!

Campout 2007

Sonshine 2007 July 11-15th

Sonshine 2007

This was my second year to Sonshine, and it just keeps getting better. I had such a great time there, and really enjoyed the company! Our group consisted of 6 guys, Mike Chopeck and myself where the men in charge, followed by 2 vets from last year Travis Plett and Josh Verinder, and the "rookies" (the nickname our vets gave the 2 newcomers this year) Ben Plett, and Sea....er Iain Hilderbrand.

Last year our Sonshine experience was marred by a nasty thunderstorm, which cause show cancellations and ruined some camping arrangements. Well this year was awesome when it came to weather, it wasn't too hot and the rain we did have, was barely noticeable!

Some of my highlights of this year were... Toby Mac-donald, from getting people to do the "combine" (hard to explain, ask me to show you sometime) to just grooving to the music, way too much fun!...Flatfoot 56, never seen these guys before, I heard them a little on Myspace, but their show was awesome! They formed: the biggest mosh pit of the festival, a meat grinder(no dying invovled), and a Braveheart charge between the members of the crowd! good times... Just.Live, a hip hop group, a very pleasant surprise, their show was so full of energy you couldn't help but move to the music (I took some video on them, so you can see it for yourself!) ...Hip Hop Under The Big Top, new this year, was a tent totally set aside for......you guessed it Hip hop! I really enjoyed this tent, and it was a good break from all the rock shows...Meeting cool people, not a band, but we meet a bunch of really cool people, like our camping neighbor (I forget his name...), a guy with the nickname "the Zipper" (we forgot his name so we called him by his nickname), it seemed to be a bad habit of ours forgetting everyones name we met...Good eats, again not a band. We had pretty good food the whole festival, maybe not the healthiest but it sure tasted good! Walking Tacos, Domino's pizza, Cheeseburgers on the way down, breakfast buffet on the way back home, who could forget Funnel cakes, Pancakes and deep fried Snicker Bars! There were soo many highlights, I think I could go on for a while!

Last year, I was challenged *ahem $10 bet* by Mike and Josh to approach a female and speak to her in the thirdish person. They even gave me the line they wanted to hear "I'm Diesel, Diesel likes you" a simple line, but one problem.... Sonshine seems to be populated by girls 12 and under, with their moms in toe (nothing against 12 and unders, or their moms......just doesn't look right when a 26 year old does such things to such peoples). So last year it didn't work out, but this was a new year with even newer possibilities. Josh and Mike got all the guys on board for the challenge, everyone had their eyes open for a prospective target (haha, sounds kinda crude). Unfortunately Sonshine proved the same as last year, so we packed up and headed home unsuccessful.....or where we?! We hit up a breakfast buffet on the way home, well wouldn't you know it there was a waitress there that at least didn't look too young or too old.... but just right (kinda like Goldie Locks)! After finishing our breakfast I approached the girl and said my line "I'm Diesel, Diesel likes you." and her response you ask?! "You guys are silly!" We had been joking around, and telling jokes all breakfast, so she must have thought it was just another one of our laugh out loud moments....I guess it kinda was, cause we all couldn't keep a straight face afterward. Yes, I made 10 bucks at her expense, and I'm a big jerk.....but if memory serves correct, I laid most of that down as tip, so we both profited!

Wow this is a long post, hopefully it gives you a small taste of our Sonshine adventure, and that at least it makes some sense.

Again, media to follow and pictures at the top...enjoy!

Toby Mac-donald


Just.Live


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