This post is not going to do justice to the amazing day we had. I will do my best to explain it but this is a day that I'm sure Becky and I will remember for the rest of our lives.
We got up early as a force of habit. There were no morning classes on the schedule at Les Mills that neither Becky nor I were particularly interested in. I am still a bit sore from Thursday but Becky wanted to get her "ya-yas" out so she planned to head to the gym for a run. The plan was that I was going to stay home until about 11 and then meet the whole Canadian crew at the gym and we would walk to Les Mills International head office together.
Becky went for a cup of coffee before her run and bumped into Kim at the coffee shop. Becky asked what Kim was wearing for our daily adventure and told Becky that we should be wearing dresses. At this point, I was still at home, happily strutting my board shorts and an oversize blue t-shirt. Becky ran home and we both changed. She didn't get her run in but it didn't matter.
While I was home, I had noticed that I had misplaced my sunglasses (the non-prescription ones). I figured that they were misplaced in the blackout. I did go back to the gym to see if they had been turned in. No luck. We went to replace them with cheapo glasses at Victoria market. $12. Done.
After these piggies went to market, we met Kim and Jim. Trisha wasn't feeling well so she stayed home and got some rest.
We walked to the LMI offices completely unaware of what was about to come next.
We got there and had a tour of the building. WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It was surreal. This is the real Mothership of all the programming and people that make our passion!
All our 'heroes' were there as was Mo. After our quick tour, we all hopped into cabs and went to the ferry docks for a ride to Waiheke island.
We sat down on the boat with Rachel Cohen (the Sh'Bam and Body Combat program director). She was great. We asked her tons of questions and snapped a few photos with her.
When we arrived on Waiheke, it started to rain. We got onto a bus and headed off to the Stony Ridge Vineyard for lunch. We were shmoozing with the owners of Les Mills (Philip and Jackie Mills) and all the international presenters. It was unreal.
We sat down for an amazing lunch of lamb, chicken, fish and salads. We drank tons of wine and laughed and shared stories for a couple of hours in the afternoon. The wine was good but not worth picking up. (The white was waaaaaaaayyyyy better than the red).
After lunch we boarded the bus. I turned to Becky and said, "did that just happen?". She confirmed it did as we stumbled onto the bus.
We got on a 4 o'clock ferry and sat with some locals. They were happy to meet us. We laughed with them and I got a super funny pic of Becky with them. Its nice to meet locals.
We got off the ferry and decided to walk in the rain back to the LMI offices.
En route, Mo decided that she wanted to stop and shop. She pulled us into this store on Albert St. It was a store that sold clothing that was what I can only describe as Hippie-chic. Please remember that Jim was with us at this time.
Mo bought a very expensive hooded sweatshirt in a beautiful colour blue. The shirt itself was not my taste but it looked great on Mo.
We puddle jumped all the way back to the offices and were greeted by Trisha. There was a reception for us upstairs. Once again wine and food was provided. We took this opportunity to drink more and scarf down some pizza. I didn't do any pizza scarfing but I did partake in more wine.
We took tons of pictures and enjoyed evey moment.
At LMI, they have a drinking game called Buffalo.
The rules of Buffalo are simple:
1. Drink with your left hand
2. If you are caught by anyone drinking with your right hand, they can lift their elbow at you and call "buffalo"; wherein at this point you must chug the contents of your glass
3. If you chug with your right hand, you get "double buffalo-ed".
4. If you call Buffalo when someone is not drinking alcohol, or drinking with their right hand, you automatically get Buffalo-ed.
Kim got double Buffalo-ed but Susan Renata (Body Pump superstar icon). Because Kim is the instructor of the year this made the whole experience even better.
After we were all sufficiently toasted, we cleared out of the offices. Kim, Jim, Becky and I continued the party at thte Drake pub, down the street.
I ordered a tray of GF chips and Becky ordered shots. After 3 shots each, we called it a night. Kim was cooked.
We stumbled home in the pouring rain. Everything was soaked.
We dried off and went to bed. Neither of us could sleep because of the amazing reality bestowed upon us.
We finally called it and we were sleeping by 11.
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