Mentor Games

This year the annual Mentor Games were hosted at the home of Eric and Staci Kolb, who have an amazing house, that all the kids like to attend.   Davis' mentor Rick Mays was not able to attend, but he had Chris Baker fill in for him.   Sam had Chuck West as a mentor this year.   Anabelle also did not have her mentor, Crystal Dean, but she did have a fill in of Kelly Baker.   Our mascot Ruby got to pair up with Gina West for the games.   Magan, for the first time, did not have a Mentee, so she got to be the photographer/videographer, and enjoy being with the other adults.   My mentee this year was Cash Hamilton.   

Instead of a grouping of different mentor games, there was just one activity.   it was to build a boat with a limited amount of supplies to get your weird rubby ducky (ours was one with an owl head).   Then you had to get your boat from one side of the pool to the other.  You could answer bible questions to get alternate wind sources, and alternate supplies for your craft.   And you had 60 minutes to create your ship to ride the mighty seas.   Plus you also had to have a story for your duck and why they wanted to venture across the "pond"

And then we were off.   I felt bad for Cash, because creativity in scenarios like this is not my strong suit.   And I will say Cash was not real enthusiastic about our task either, so both of us struggled to even get started.   Then when trying to get extra supplies, we realized we did not know the Bible well either, so I think we were only able to get a balloon with our bible knowledge.   And while I thought Cash would have a good story for the owl (he is a very quiet funny guy), he did not think of anything, so we kind of made ours up on the fly with a depressing scene from Gattaca that I remembered from a less-remembered movie.   

Sam and Chuck created a very small boat, with Sam taking the large piece I assumed was for a sail, and converting it into like a blowdart gun nozzle where he was able to use his own windpower to get the boat down the pool.   Belle and Kelly were able to get 2 balloons, and created a really nice unsinkable craft and with an added electric air blower did quite well.   Ruby and Gina had a cute little house boat for their duck, but it did not do well in the water.   Mine and Cash's was the same, once it touched the water, it began to tip over and sink.   

The races began and were very slow, trying to get a craft across the pool (if you did not get the prize of using the air blower) was extremely slow.   None of the ships would completely sink due to the rubby ducky inside keeping it all afloat.   All will remember my chant of "CREDIT" everytime it took over 5 minutes to get the craft to the other side.   Like a "GIMME" in golf, dear me, I am not patient enough to wait for a boat to make it to the other side.   This whole time with the worst safety concern I have ever seen.   We were traveling all around the pool with an electric boxfan plugged into the wall...allowing many of the kids to hold the fan over water.   We did form a safety line keeping the electric cord from running through the pool, so I guess that was good.   

But our champion once again, for like the third year, was Davis.   I missed their story of the duck crossing the water, but was told they had a long poem that rhymed about their duck (thanks to Mr. Chris that is a talented song writer).   Then when they were contemplating how to build their craft, they both decided to just stick the duck in the ziplock bag full of air, and not waste any further time making a ship.  So their craft was just a duck inside a plastic bag.   They built large house structure around it, but it was all just a decoy.   Then with the super Bible studied Chris, they had access to the battery air blower and took that duck across the pool in record breaking time.   

And while our tradition of playing the kazoo and singing "We are the Champions" was missed, our champions signed the official bowling pin, which again is at our house.   An lastly, with little Ruby asking me the whole time about getting in the pool, I told her to just jump in.   She was nervous and kept saying no dad.   I asked her if she wanted to swim just for a little bit, and she gave me her cute little smile, and said "I wish we could, just for a little bit".   So I turned around with my bottom stuck out just a little bit further, and bumped her into the pool.   She quickly came up screaming "DAAAAD", to which I replied "Ruby, oh no, you accidentally fell in, so I guess you can swim a little".   But Ruby was embarrassed, maybe because she had a dress on.   But I hope she will remember this later as Dad not just pushing her in...but her silly dad trying to sneakily get her an opportunity to swim that she was not going to get otherwise.   Oh well, you win some and you lose some.