Thursday, July 26, 2007

Extreme fun with kids

Sometimes I just love being a youth director. Sometimes I think I'm just insane.

We've decided that we're not going to do the whole "theme park" thing this year. Well, that's what I thought anyway.

Last year, I had 2 kids go to "The Land of the Giant Mouse". One of them went twice! Once with a school honors program and once with her family. Talk about overkill. Then, I had kids that went to church camp, were invited to go to other "theme parks" with some of their friends. They told me they'd had enough of the "theme park" thing for a loooooooooong while.

Ok. I can handle that. Usually, C will drive there, go crazy with the kids, and totally wear himself out, and I'll drive home. It's a system that's worked for us. I don't usually get motion sick, but somebody's got to be fit to drive the entire way home - dropping off kids on the way. So, I elected myself.

Now, that sounds like I don't have any fun, but sometimes it's necessary to have a "keeper of The Stuff". The Stuff consists of sunglasses (for roller coasters), any animals of the stuffed persuasion that have been won thru any type of game play, cameras, cell phones, blah, blah, blah. So, that person has been me. (On a side note, I'm not sure that I would want to subject myself to the public humiliation that it would cause to be too big for the rides. One of the guys & C told me that they were almost too big to fit into the harness. That is definitely not my idea of fun.)

So, since they said they'd had enough of the park thing, what was I going to do for a summer trip? They told me that they'd like to maybe go to the Newport Aquarium and the Cincinnati Zoo - and maybe some other places in that area. That was fine by me.

Here's where it gets extreme. The original idea was to make a long weekend out of it, but I've also been looking at the Youth Fund and the Quarterly budget we work under. The long weekend wasn't possible. We were going to have to regroup.

After meeting with the kids again, they decided to make it a day trip. We've gone back to the original idea. The Newport Aquarium and the Cincinnati Zoo. We're only about 3 hours-ish away. Plans are to leave the church at (**here it is**) 5-ish AM.

AM, people! You mean it does come twice a day?!?!?!?!

Anyway, that will give about 3-1/2 hours to get there (potty breaks for those girlies who "just can't wait"). The zoo will be hit first (it's cooler in the morning and closes first). Then, we'll leave the zoo and grab somthing to eat on the way to the aquarium - and we can take our time. No rushing on this trip. Next, the aquarium. Nice and air conditioned. When they're good and sea sick, it'll be time to leave and catch some dinner on the way home.

Having everything close by 6 or 7 makes it nice. You can still make the 3 hour trip home, drop everybody off, and get to bed about the same time as normal (11-ish PM).

It makes for a long day, but it'll be worth it. I'll try to get some pics.

Just a funny

I think you all can appreciate this one...


I went into the gas station today and asked for five dollars worth of gas.....


The clerk farted and gave me a receipt.

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

More fun with kids.....

Ok. I really don't think being with the kids is like "committing suicide - very slowly". We've taken this opportunity to work with them, since apparently, God's letting us take hiatus from having our own family.

So having said that, I'd like to tell you about our bowling trip. We took the kids bowling after the friday night of VBS. It was too funny.

The guys decided that they didn't want any girls on their lane. So, all 7 girls (including adults) were on one lane. The other 5 guys (more adults included) were on the other lane. Do you see something wrong with this picture? Our game took a sweet forever to finish. Mainly because the girls kept goofing off. What else are teenagers supposed to do when you take them somwhere?

Anyway, E made up this little dance to see if it would improve her scores. Basically, you get a ball, walk up to the line, face away from the lane, turn around a couple of times, bob up and down a couple of times, hop around on one foot, and "granny-roll" the ball through your legs toward the pins, it's supposed to work. All I know is when I pulled myself up off the floor from laughing at her little dance, she had all the guys trying it! One of the guys even got a strike when he did her dance - I think we all just about fell on the floor. Waaaaaaaaaaaay too funny.

Then, the next Saturday, we had a car wash with the kids. J & M brought their 2 kids. The baby stayed inside with M's mom. Their older daughter, C aka "Girlfriend" (3 yr old), was out helping with the car wash. She was too cute! She'd grab a sponge and tell the 'big kids', "No! You're doing it wrong! You do it like this!" and proceed to scrub one small spot on the side of the car. Then, she came over and smacked me on the butt. I turned around to see this sweet little girl with the craziest scowl on her face - then she looks at me and says, "You sprayed me with the water. You got me wet! How am I supposed to work like this?!". I laughed and apologized to her.

That Sunday before church, I asked her if she ever got dry. She told me that it "took an extremely long time and it was a lot of work".

Too funny!!!!!

Thursday, July 12, 2007

VBS Fun

I know, I'm slacking, but I've been trying to commit suicide the slow way having some laughs with the kids at church.

We had VBS last week, and that was kinda crazy in itself. We had class on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and the program was on Friday night. It was kinda stressful trying to fit everything into 3 days. Is "interesting" the appropriate word to use here? I'm not sure.

Anyway, VBS had a patriotic flavor. The sanctuary was decked out in all manner of red, white, and blue. It was too cool! The actual theme was "Armor of God". We had all kinds of "armor" pieces hanging on the walls. The theme song was "God's got an Army" by Carman.

The kids learned about all the different pieces of the armor, and what each piece represents. And I got to teach music again - surprised? No. I've taught music for the last 9 years. I will say it stretches my creativity each time I do it.

Since we didn't have a lot of time, I taught them the chorus and first verse of "God's got an Army". The 2-4 year olds sang "I'm in the Lord's Army" (which has only been around since the beginning of time - didn't Noah teach that to Shem, Ham, and Japeth? just kidding). Anyway, the 2-4 year olds and 5-11 year olds sang "Joshua fought the battle of Jericho" together. The teen class (my regular bunch) sang "In God We Trust". And as a tribute to all fallen soldiers (as well as our fallen Christian soldiers) we all sang "Taps". It was really pretty.

After the close of Friday's service, everybody went over to the fellowship hall for pizza.

What was really cute didn't even happen during the week. On Sunday morning (taking my seat in the choir) one of the "grandma's" got my attention. She told me that on the way to church that morning, the granddaughter asked if she was going to sing with AuntieB during church and was totally disappointed when grandma said no.

Everybody together----"Awwwwwwww".

Well, I thougth it deserved one!

Thursday, July 5, 2007

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