Yeah We Ballin'

This morning we woke up tired and sore. Last night we all slept in a Christian Reformed Church and the girls got all the air mattresses while the guys slept on the floor or in my case on the table...yup it was pretty much as soft as the floor ;). So we rolled up our sleeping bags and moved out to the vans. Once the vans were packed to capacity we drove about 45 min to Tampa where we met the Josh (this is the same man and company that put together the race around gas lamp quarters in San Diego). The majority of us were not excited at all to see him because 1. it meant we would have to be competitive. 2. we were all extremely tired. and 3. the last time we did a race like this there was some discrepancy in the final standings.
But, Aaron and i kept a positive outlook and decided to just walk it and try to get as many as possible. When we started out there was a light rain coming in spurts...But about ten minutes in the hard stuff started coming down. Aaron and I went from one clue to the next and after the second clue was completed our socks were saturated and our upper bodies drenched. We stuck it out and kept up positive attitudes and it all ended up working out. In order to get the answer to one of the clues one partner (me) had to navigate a maze - that was painted on the ground - with only our partners instructions to get us through. My eyes were covered but after ten minutes we made it through and were on our way to solve another.
Of course the rain backed off once we were ready to finish. We decided that it would be ok to run to the finish since we had walked pretty much everywhere all day. So we sprinted to the park and met up with Josh who told us we were team number 2!!!! so that was a second place finish for today.
Then we loaded up the vans again and took off toward Orlando... We drove by Disney, and Bush Gardens and all the amusement parks. Eventually our van guessed right - We were going to an Orlando Magic game - that's pretty swah!
We parked the vans in the parking garage and met up with Shelly. She is the activities coordinator (her real title is much more official sounding but this is what i will describe her as). She gave us all passes we had to wear since we were in the stadium early. First we went to our suite (yes a whole box to ourselves) and then we went down on the court to find out what our next challenge was going to be. Shelly told us that there were six envelopes spread out among the 15,000 seats and that the teams to find them would either get to do something where you spin around and then shoot a layup, or at the end of the fourth quarter throw tee-shirts into the crowd (both of these were on the court in front of everyone) So we raced all around and Aaron found an envelope and we were stoked! So Aaron and I got to do the dizzy shot! That was totally sweet! So we spun and spun and shot...but before i shot i managed to run and fall all the way out of bounds....
Later at half-time Mr. Vander Weide took us on a tour of the Orlando Magic offices. We saw the conference room, the "war room" where they all gather to do the NBA draft, Van Gundys' office, and some other important sweet offices and rooms.
Today turned out to be one of the best days on the trip. Not only because we solidified our spot in the final race (because we had two second place finishes today). But, also because Aaron has decided that what we did tonight is one of the top 3 favorite times in his life! I have to say that it was really something special and we owe a huge thank you to the Vander Weides.

-Scott