Un-Birthday and Youthfest!

Hello to all the readers of the NET blog from Team Five. Well, I've had quite the eventful week. Saturday was my un-birthday! It was so much fun. It was so unexpected because we switched host home. It was also our team day, and we were heading into Ottawa for Youthfest. So, after our host home switch we loaded ourselves up into the van to head to Ottawa for team day. As soon as we were all buckled in, Rebecca handed me an envelope saying that she thinks I left this at our previous host home. I was really confused because I never bought a card or was in possession of a card at our last host home, but she insisted I check just in case. I opened it, and it was a Hoops and Yoyo card. On the front where it says Happy Birthday they wrote an ‘un’ in front of birthday. I was so surprised. I did not expect it. I specifically told the team to do an un-birthday for me last because I’m going to have my real birthday while on NET anyways. So, they put me first instead…the little buggers!

Their first surprise for me was they rented the movie ‘Up’ for me to watch on our way into Ottawa. I’m always talking about that movie saying how awesome it is. I also quote it quite often. I was really excited to get watching it. Now the whole team can share in my love for the movie because now we all understand the jokes that I used to laugh at with myself. As soon as we got into Ottawa, we headed down to the Rideau Canal. Yup, that’s right! We went skating. It was so nice to walk down to the ice. On our way there we passed through the ice sculpture park. There weren’t many sculptures, but the ones that were there were still pretty awesome. It was quite the adventure once we started to skate. I think we all felt pretty rusty on the ice. I knew I was especially rusty because my feet started to really hurt, and we weren’t even on the ice for a long time. Poor Rebecca fell on the ice, and Danica was so cute because she’s not used to skating so we held her hand.

After skating we hit the Rideau mall to play some picture scavenger hunt. We took many pictures of us doing random things. We posed like a manikin, posed for an i-pod picture, took a picture with an i-pod seller dude, and wore Olympic clothes. There were other things we had to pose like, but when we were done, we were ready to eat. We went to the food court and my team bought me my food. That was nice of them.

This brings me now to Youthfest. After the mall we headed to Tudor Hall. I already knew that my family was going to be there so I was really excited to see them. As soon as I got there I was bombarded with people I knew from Ottawa. Funny thing…they all knew about my un-birthday. That surprised me because everyone was coming up to me wishing me a happy birthday. To top it off, my family knew! They made me a card and left me little notes. That whole day was just really special to me. I really felt loved. I love my team! (That's Tom on the right on our adventures to the Rideau Canal)

Youthfest itself was extremely powerful, and the Adoration was a bonus. It was about vocations. The Holy Spirit was just so alive, and we had a group of our teens that wanted to come, so they got there on their own. If they wanted to experience God…that was the night, so powerful. The whole night felt like a breath of fresh air spending time with just me and God. The whole day I felt so overwhelmed with love. Truly a gift.

Until next week,
God Bless,
Shayla Doucette