Name: Prestine

Teacher: Ms.Babb

Date: Wednesday, November 13, 2013.

Adventures At Teen Ranch

    Have you ever wondered about all the cool and excited things that happened at Teen Ranch? Well the whole entire grade sevens got to go on a week-long trip to Teen Ranch. Teen Ranch is a trip for grade sevens to learn to be more independent. It is also a place to have a good time with your friends and teachers. At Teen Ranch there are many activities to do. Like horse-back riding, rock climbing, skating, and free time. But since it was winter we weren't able to play with the water activities. Teen Ranch was mostly grass because were in farmland far away from traffic and buildings. They have lots of horses, cats, alpacas, and dogs. I've never heard of a single person that said that they didn't like Teen Ranch. It's such a fun place to be!

    On Thursday afternoon we played a game called predator vs. prey. Some people played herbivores, omnivores, carnivores, diseases, and humans. My character was to play a raccoon which is an omnivore. The game playing area was in the forest. The forest was big so there would be a lot of hiding spots but harder to find food and water points to keep us alive. Herbivores tried to get 30 points, omnivores tried to get 20, and carnivores tried to get 10 points. The diseases got points by tagging the person and getting the card by the disease that caught them. The game was hard and complicated. The game got even harder when it started to hail and when the mud got damper which made it hard to run. But finding food and water points were also hard because they could be hiding on anything. And what made it even worse was when I fell on a metal fence and got bruises and scratches on my legs. The teachers played humans and whenever they say you they could give you another life point or kill you. Yeah, it doesn't sound much fun when your own teacher would want to kill you.

    My cabin and everyone else had to stay in the Coach House. The Coach House was the biggest building at Teen Ranch. It was clean inside too. Well except for the entrance part where everyone just threw their muddy boots on the ground. But besides that the couches and everything was comfy.  Jhazel, Praveena, Makayla, Asia-Marie, Dianne, Dakari, Azia, and I slept in the Dunn Room. It was bigger than the other cabins. Then there was a separate room with one bunk but no one slept in it because the weird door thingy scared us at night. My favourite part was when every time before we would go to sleep we would tell stories about each other. We wouldn't fall asleep until 11:30pm .  Probably the funniest thing that happened is that during the night Asia-Marie would breathe hard in her sleep because she was running her dream and the cops were chasing her because they thought she was mental. I'll miss those days.

    One of my favourite activities that we did was horse-back riding. It's one of my favourites because I've never been on a horse before and we got to choose the horse we wanted to ride. The horse I chose was Sanka. Sanka was dark brown, black, and had some white spots on her body. When I first went on to Sanka's back I got a little nervous. I'm pretty sure all mostly everyone was too. But Sanka was a good horse. She listened to me and didn't argue. I thought it was fascinating that we could be up close to a real horse and get to ride on a trail by myself. My horse didn't like stepping in mud so my face would always hit the branches like a 1000 times. But besides the face hitting on the branches, I had a really great time going on the trail.

    When I came back from Teen Ranch I felt like something was missing. I felt that our bond would go away and we would go back into our little groups. But that wasn't true. Teen Ranch has also taught me to be more responsible and independent. It taught me to do set up and clean up after all three meals. I liked the concept of sitting with new people every meal because that's when you get to know the person a little better and see them from a different point of view. The part that I'll miss the most is when the teacher would give us free time after dinner because that's when everyone would huddle like penguins and tell scary stories and stay warm. I will probably never have the chance to go on such an amazing trip again!