Author: SengkangBabies

We joined a few families at Focus Adventure‘s Ultimate Challenge! Camp  recently. When the invite came from Cheekiemonkies, we can expect the itinerary to be packed with Fun 🙂

Not really a “real” camp, but we got to enjoy 2D1N of non-stop Fun and Thrills. Families motivated, nudged (and sometimes pushed)  each other to conquer our own fears and achieve new milestones.

Ultimate Challenge! Camp urged participants to stay FOCUS everywhere. The feeling is different on the Ground and 25m up in the Hourglass Tower 🙂

I conveniently forgot to mention the high-elements to my family haha, in case anyone decided to back off. They just need to know  the Fun camping stuffs (BBQ, camp fire etc)

Teamwork will bring us Higher, Further!

(literally, it means dragging ourselves up the 24m Hourglass tower, and optionally leap off the platform at 25m! )

In fact, without teamwork (encouragement and motivation), many of us would have given up earlier or taken the easier way out.

We started Ultimate Challenge! Camp with ice breaking games, kids and adults had tons of laughter with silly antics Octopus and Squirrels (etc). It was hilarious to see adults do impossible wriggling or balancing acts!

I always remind the kids that we must learn to laugh at ourselves. We must be thick skin when facing criticisms from anyone.

(Kids nowadays might be developed physically but their psychology state might still be fragile)

It helped that we were performing all these activities at Palawan Beach (end). Looked at the scenic sea-view, framed by coconut trees, we felt like like we were at a faraway resort.

All sorts of archery tag (and Nerfgun), our mission was to work as a team to take down the other camp. Aim for the Target board, not human :p

Teamwork not only let us overcome our individual obstacle, but teamwork can also encourage “Minimum effort, Maximum result”.

We all know about Angry Birds, but not many of us had build a catapult before. With zero engineering skills, and some “raw” materials, families and teams were supposed to build and mold everything from scratch (yes, the Birds too).

Checkout the video below when teams destroyed the Pigs’ castles. Quite Fun and satisfying when Angry Birds destroyed the Towers!

All these team building tasks encouraged us to work with one another.

Hey, kids learned that too many cooks spoil the broth too. Too much instructions flowing around.

Campers need not worry about sanitation, as toilet and shower facilities are good, and there is hot shower too 🙂

The main Function room is our meal room, playground and bedroom too. Kids mingled with each other and when night come, sleeping bags were laid out.
Day 1 was designed to let participants get comfortable with each other.

One of the Biggest challenge with parenting is trying to get our kids to “Listen to instructions”.

My kids are easily distracted, or they are sometimes over-confident. We would soon realised that Teamwork and following instructions will make overcoming Day 2’s tasks slightly easier.

A Beautiful Sunset to bring us near to Day 1’s closure.

We had a nice Campfire and BBQ, plus a lot of Sing and Dance from families. The older kids perform a skit about “One Day in the life of a Mom”. with the usual dragging-child-out-of-bed, homework, housework etc.

Parenting duties are mostly taken for granted and unappreciated, it was a nice gesture to see the kids playout their “parental” roles, showing everyone how much we love our parents. Kudos!

Our family sang “One Call Away”, but Superman sang so soft with Boon Yee and Boon Xin hiding behind the parents (haha).

Hello why so Shy? The kids love to sing with gusto at home leh.
Kids, nevermind if people laugh at us, or if we act the fool.

As long as you believe in yourself, we can overcome many hurdles and reach new milestones. We must at least Try and give our Best Effort 🙂

We woke up to Day 2 and diy our Breakfast, Pasta and spaghetti.

Then it was Challenge Hourglass, the tall structure which will validate our team-building skills.

High elements brought many of us out of our comfort zone. The kids handled their fears better than me, and that made me so proud!

To be honest, my heart would miss a beat if I should witness my child slip and dangle on his or her harness! How do I save him when I myself am scared?

But it was precisely these “dangerous” moments when we learn to trust each other, and grew a bit more confident so that that we can overcome our own fears. “We can do this!”

One week after our camp and climb experience, Boon Xin told Mom she wanted to go back Sentosa and climb again!

I was beaming as the Mrs told me girl’s wish. This is considered weird, as Xin was terrified up in the Tower, holding onto me tightly.

Either Boon Xin really enjoyed her death-defying stunts, or she is confident that Daddy will always be there to support her.

We had to coax her multiple times before she join us up the Tower. I did promised her that she can opt out at the first Cage. She hesitated for a long while before deciding to exit.

I was so happy that Boon Xin trusted me and climb the first layer with me, she even calm herself down to wefie 🙂  #OneProudDadMoment

Girl, hold on to my hand. Daddy will support you.

As we go round and round the Hourglass, look up and you will see Uncle Kelvin 🙂

A moment’s breather, before we face the rock wall. Actually we had to skip a few obstacles due to impending rain (lucky me haha).

As we climbed higher, it gets more challenging. Some obstacles can only be overcome with teamwork. HATE the swingings of the tyres or the planks!

I am very proud of my boys, they both went beyond their own fears and followed me up the structure. In fact, Boon Wee (no1) even surpassed me in conquering more obstacles!

I was most worried about Boon Yee (no3) as I could only take care of Boon Xin (no4). Boon Wee the older sibling tried his best to guide Yee along.

Kids displayed determination and independence across the obstacles. Step by step, swing by swing, we cleared another hurdle.

Celebrate every stage with a photo. Felt so proud of Kids’ achievement,

At 25m, no matter how prepared you are, or how good are the coaches, you will be the only one leaping off, ALONE! Pardon me if I was shaking too much.

Video (Youtube link) : Para Jumping off the 25m platform is optional. I needed coach Deep to push me off the ledge.

The panoramic view can only distract our  attention for a while.

To be honest, my mind was blank standing at the edge of the para jump. My legs felt so heavy and I had to ask coach Deep to pushed me off :p

Comparing the jump to our ascend up the tower, the JUMP effort (or fear factor) is only 3 to 5% of overall fear.

Back on ground, after some Hi5 and packing, we were ready for lunch. As it was Mother’s Day weekend, we got to enjoy an extra cake with our Moms and spouses 🙂

Kudos to the bunch of Instructors! (Deep, Kannan, Wan, Irwin, Erwan, Sidek).

These chaps really exceeded our expectations and brought the participants along for an entertaining 2D1N of activities.

Ultimate Challenge! Camp declared Mission success 🙂

When it come to facing our own fears, everyone had their own kryptonite. Some hate Heights, some do not like to socialise, and some do not like to “perform”. My kids are shy and refuse to sing or dance along haha. They were so malu (embarrassed) to perform infront of a stage.

That’s when parents and peers step in to encourage each other to step out of our comfort zone.

Again, kudos to the Fun (and super Game) participants and coaches, you guys really make our 2D1N stay memorable!

Para Jump: Participants need to be above 40kg in order to enjoy 1.5s of Free Fall. May you and your family achieve new milestones together too 🙂

Thank you Focus Adventure and Cheekiemonkies for the FUN and challenging invite. More Fun photos uploaded on our Fanpage album.