Bennion Center Winter Retreat 2011

This past weekend, I was fortunate to attend the Bennion Center’s Winter Retreat at Brighton Resort along with about 35 other student leaders/volunteers.

As everyone arrived, we progressively settled in and eventually began engaging in free-time activities.
The first activity on my, as well as a few others’ agenda was to build snow caves.
We headed out and soon enough, the digging had begun.
Fortunately, we had two snow-caving experts who started and stabilized the caves, and then the rest of us took turns helping.
The first time I crawled in, I was about 40% sure that I would have a panic attack; I mean, how many times have I crawled into a tight, dark tunnel supporting hundreds of pounds of snow?
But eventually the fear went away and I realized (and was reassured) that the cave was stable, and I chipped away at the inside like a mad woman, contributing to the expansion of this inverted igloo.

That's me coming out of a snow cave.

Here is Kyle and Nick all enthusiastic about being inside that thing.

This is Drew crawling out of the snow cave he built single-handedly!

And I know you probably want to see what it was like inside but I couldn’t get any good photos of it because it was either a) too dark without a flash or b) too bright with a flash, not to mention the depth would not have been visible in a photo…
But rest assured, for it was awesome

Soon after the completion of the snow caves, I slipped on some snow shoes and trekked to the nearby Brighton ski run with my camera in hopes of getting some cool photos of skiers/boarders.

Wishing I was one of them, dang it.

Playing with cropping here...love it?

Then, back to the lodge.
Here’s what it looked like from the outside:

A two-story building almost completely buried in snow!

Everyone else was already engaged in their own activities of games-galore, but one guy, Dillon (spelling?), took interest in the vintage piano and provided everyone with some pretty great music.
Here’s a collage of some photos I got of him:

Dillon playing the vintage piano inside the lodge.

Meanwhile, many people had gathered to play some wild rounds of Jenga.
I decided that this would be a great time to take some more photos, and that I did.

Concentrate...concentrate...careful...oh no!!!!!!

"Look whatcha did, ya little jerk!" - Home Alone (all-time favorite movie )

Vivi and others relieved that the tower didn't collapse after that one.

As you can see, everyone was just having a ball, as was I documenting it all.
But finally, I succumbed to my desire to join in the fun, and the rest of my night was filled to the brim with Rummy, Spoons, Texas Hold’em (complete with poker chips), and Fluxx.

To end this post, I will leave you with a photo I took during a late-night outdoor walk with some other folks.

Clear, beautiful, starry night.

Overall, I’m so glad I was able to go because I got to meet and get to know a lot of people.
I learned a lot about interacting with others, and that some people are just plain good and can always be trusted.

I hope you enjoyed my post…feedback welcome as always!

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