October Retreat @ Brickell's Cottage

On Friday October 26th we (the whole gang) left TYS in the infamous YORK van to the Cawartha Lake area (aka Brickells cottage). Our 4 hour drive was very interesting and included..playing awkward question games (thanks to Erin), making a stop at the Peterborough grocery store, seeing the local Peterborough people and listening to interesting music at very high volumes :)

Once we got to Brickell's cottage, we all settled in, calling dibs on the rooms. Josh got especially comfortable and broke a glass candle holder from India within the first 10 minutes :) After that we made dinner (Hamburgers!), and got serenaded by Mr. Brickell, Josh and Harry around the fire......Speaking of Fire, on the retreat we watched a movie called Fire which we all determined was the most interesting movie we'd ever seen. It was good times! We all bonded over the appropriatness of the movie (good selection Mr. Brickell)!

Saturday morning we all awoke to the smell of bacon and pancakes. We bundled up in our warmest and set off in groups around the bay with only a compass in hand. We paddled around for hours, navigating around the lake to find our clues to peice together the story of India (including history, culture, food etc.). We finally arrived at a point in the lake which looked like it could have been painted by the group of 7 to have our picnic :) After we were all finished, we paddled back; amazed that no one had tipped their canoe yet.
Apparently, we had spoken too soon.....
Within 2 minutes from Mr. Brickell's cottage (aka safety and warmth) Katie got really anxious and "lightly" encourage Max to up his game and increase his speed! They got a little too carried away and within seconds they were in the freezing depths of the lake. Katie, being the AMAZING tripper she is, responded to the situation promptly.
"CANOE OVER CANOE RESCUE...FORM A TEE"
Max Levitt and his Under Armour saved the day!
Overall, it was a great weekend of bonding and made us all SO much more excited for India!