Weyburn, Saskatchewan – Thanksgiving weekend – October 11th to 14th

From Pincher Creek we drove all the way to Weyburn in southern Saskatchewan, where we would be spending the weekend with many other people! It seems that every Thanksgiving weekend there is a weekend organised for heaps and heaps of young people from various places in Canada, mainly Alberta and Saskatchewan, including duck hunting, hockey, and lots of other fun things! It’s held at Robert’s brother’s house in Weyburn, so we met LOTS more Stewarts, including some of Robert’s brothers, and many MANY nieces and nephews! Not to mention also lots of people who weren’t related!

Famous teepee just out of Medicine Hat, Alberta, on the way through

Sights on the way to Weyburn

Saskatchewan... Directions involve 'Turn off after the hill, or the bend'

We saw a few familiar faces from New Zealand too – cool to catch up with Jane Freeman, Brodie and Blake Helms, and Savanna Blair, who we’d finally met in Pincher Creek!

To start off the weekend there was a hockey game in town – although not many were fully geared up, to me it was a pretty fast game, with people rotating on and off pretty quickly! Lots of range in skill level, from some really good Canadians through to some Aussies and Kiwis! Lots of fun had by all! J

Lining up for hockey - Jane

Lawrie

Early the next morning a whole bunch went duck hunting, but as we’d stayed up til a ridiculous time the night/morning before, we passed on that one… Not to mention we need a rather expensive license to shoot anyway (you don’t mess with poaching here…) – so although it would have been fun, we gave it a miss, and slept in a little instead, as did quite a few people by the look of it! There were quite a few more people who had arrived overnight, so there was quite a crowd of young ones!

Apparently it was pretty muddy when they went out shooting...

Some of the spoils from one trip...

Through the day on Saturday we played a bunch of different games inside, and people went on various little duck hunts nearby, some clay pigeon (‘skeet’) shooting in the yard, and did some pretty impressive trampolining tricks, particularly the Kiwis! That night we headed to the nearby Junior High school gym to play some basketball and volleyball, followed by dodgeball! Lots of fun, but I didn’t take any photos…

Shooting 'skeet' with awesome 'Fall' colours

Brodie on the trampoline

Proud 'Uncle' Wade, all the way from Australia

The 'Sign' game

After another too late night, we had an amazing meeting on Sunday with SO many young ones in a massive meeting, then a gospel meeting in the afternoon which was even better! Even more people came back to the Stewart’s place for supper that night, and we played some more games inside and heard the testimony of Leah, the younger worker, which was pretty special!

The next day we were all heading off back home, but not before… The Hunger Games! Basically, the name says it all (if you’ve read the book…), we played a ‘fight to the death’, with ‘death’ being a splotch of paint bigger than a ‘loony’ (dollar coin), or having your plastic bead necklace broken or torn off. We started off in a circle, than ran to find paint weapons such as a paint can, brush, sponge, or tennis ball or something else we could cover in paint then throw… There were some areas that were paint free areas (‘death’ by beads only!) too. There were also a couple of ‘immunity masks’ hidden around, which meant that if wearing or carrying one, you couldn’t ‘die’ by paint. The games went on for a while although many of us got painted pretty quickly (especially by those who found the masks!) – then it was pretty funny watching the last few fight it out! Carma Lewis won at the end, in a battle that had to end by paint on the face or tearing of beads – and a fight it was!

With the immunity mask for paint...

Jeremy about to lose to a girl!

The aftermath - Taylor, Tya, Jo, Mike

The aftermath - Jenna

The aftermath - Tya, Jo, Savanna, Jenna

The finale - Josh vs. Carma

The finale - Josh vs. Carma

The victory - Carma

Then it was discovered that only some of the paint was water soluble, so there was much washing of faces and hair! And after another wonderful lunch, and saying goodbye and thank you to our wonderful hosts, Brad & Deanna, we headed off towards our next destination – Saskatoon!

Brad & Deanna