"and I almost died!"

Ok so today I was recalling a story from the summer... or maybe spring of last year and I decided that it was blog worthy so here it goes:

So last year heather was the youth leader at our church and she decided that it would be fun to have a jr. high youth trip... just a day to Nanaimo... it was all planned out and it was going to be so fun! So we had heather and I as leaders/drivers, Kaila and Jono as sr. high leaders and then 5 or 6 jr. highs... not a huge group but a very great one!

So off we went to Nanaimo we had a sweet scavenger hunt/car rally type game thing on the way there and it went amazingly! Then we went mini golfing... we had some sweet costumes etc. After that we had lunch and went to New Castle Island for a few hours... I really like it there... after that it was dinner and off to Parksville beach. For anyone who hasn't been to Parksville beach it also has a HUGE play ground and was going to be the PERFECT place to play a wonderful night game heather and I had planned. We showed up... it was dark and there were a few people a bit further down closer to the skate park but no one at the park. So heather and I go about setting up the game and we see that these people by the skate park are drinking and maybe doing something more... We just told the youth to stay on our side of the beach and figured we would be ok. Well the game started and the drunk people started to come closer and closer... I started to feel a bit uncomfortable so I decided that I was going to go and protect the girls so I started to walk around with their group.... well this guy was starting to talk to us... my great idea was to ignore him... BAD IDEA! He started to follow us and was getting bit ticked... he ended up getting distracted by some other people who had shown up and drunk guy #1 and #2 started to harass them... by this time we were all one big group because we were all getting a bit scared of the drunks. This other group decided not to put up with drunky #1 and #2 and they left... but not without more harassment... they were banging on their car and throwing stuff at it. Well after this car left they decided to turn their attention back to us... by this time we were all getting pretty close to the beach. Heather had managed to get her cell phone out of the car at one point... not entirely sure when... but I do remember it being a scary moment. So their attention is back on us and they are even more drunk or whatever they were by this time. They ended up starting to follow us down the beach... We start walking faster and faster and they started walking faster and faster. They are also yelling at us and becoming quite harassing... that made no sense... ok they were really starting to harass us! Heather told us to head down the beach to the hotel becuase it was all lit up and the people wouldn't dare attack us there... ok she didn't say they would attack us but she did tell us to go to the hotel. By this time she is on the phone calling 911 to get some police here to get these drunks to leave us and our 6 jr highs alone. By this time all the jr highs are running down the beach as fast as they can, some of them are almost crying and by this time we were all sure we were going to be killed by these guys. Once we were all in front of the hotel they stopped following us and turned around... the police ended up coming... they though we made the whole thing up... the drunks were gone by this time... we decided that a night game might not be the best idea and instead we opted to go home early... Needless to say I have never gone back to that place after dark and I never plan to... i value my life too much. My favorite part though was hearing one of the youth tell a friend about the story at church the next day as she finished up the story she ended with "and we almost died!" Now I look back and think man she was exagerating but she wasn't they were really, really scary, big and drunk!