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.

2 comments:

Smiliegirl said...

Ahhh i'm deff excited about the trip, and yeah i got a blog, will i keep up with it is the question. (currently listening to Nicole C. Mullen) hee,hee.

Smiliegirl said...

hahaha i just realized u totally don't know who "smiliegirl" is. Its Em.