Well, I'm outta here!!

I'm out of The Office until Tuesday and one week til the Women's Meeting.

Lots of stuff to do this weekend.

EVERYBODY HAVE A FANTABULOUS LONG WEEKEND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WHERE HAVE I BEEN?????

I'm not sure.

JUST KIDDING!!!

I've been right here at The Office. I've just had some real work that needed done.

I know all of you are wondering about "The Trip". We went, we saw, we even bought the T-shirt. That's it in a nutshell.

Ok, I'll elaborate.

We left the church later than planned. (Big surprise - NOT!) Anyway, we went one hour down the road and stopped for dinner. (What do you expect out of a van full of Baptists?) Then, we hit the road. We arrived at the hotel at about 11:30 on that Friday night. There were a few that were ready for bed. We did have 2 girls that stayed up til 3 or 4 am and the alarm went off about 6:30. Those 2 girls stayed awake the whole day! How do they do that?!

When the description for the hotel says "Deluxe Breakfast" we assumed it would be like the regular breakfasts that the hotels give you when you purchase a nights stay at their hotel. No such luck, but there was a McStablishment right across the street. We're in luck!

We took our time getting everywhere. Kinda. We got to the zoo and took the big loop around. It was a little bigger than what I remembered. (Well, in all fairness, when I was there before, half of the zoo was closed for remodeling. Most everything was open for this trip.) We spent about 2-1/2 hours there. We could've stayed a little longer, but we were trying to make the aquarium by 2. Some of my girls were taking pics with everything they saw. E & K were hilarious. Cracked me up somthing fierce!

The aquarium was too cool!!! At the end of the first section, there was a "Red Sea" exhibit. There was this little girl standing in front of this tank. As I passed, she said "LOOK! THERE'S DOREY! but where's Nemo?". It was the cutest thing. Well, upon further investigation of other tanks, we found Nemo. He was cute!

One of the really cool things about the aquarium was the "tunnel" style hallways. The walls and celing were a really heavy plexiglass. It was really cool to "walk through water". In the middle of the second section, they had an alligator pit. YOU WALKED ACROSS THE ALLIGATOR PIT ON PLEXI FLOORING!!!!! It was kinda creepy. They had the same type of plexi in the floor when you walked through the "big tank" tunnel. Really neat! That's where we found Mr. Ray! They have sting rays in the big tank with some different breeds of sharks and a couple of shark rays. They were really cool!! (At one point in the big tank tunnel, I heard myself singing: "Let's name the zones, the zones, the zones...". It was very scary!!!)

At the end of the aquarium tour, they had a shark petting area. They also had this scale you could sit on and it would tell you what shark you would be based on your weight. Yeah, we didn't sit on it! I really don't care what kind of shark I would be. And in actuallity, I very well might have turned into one if I'd have sat on that thing. It wouldn't have been pretty.

Anyway, I'll be posting pics when I get copies of them from E & K.

SLACKER!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, I know I'm a total slacker!!!! I've been busier than a one-legged man in a back-side kicking contest, one-arm paper hanger, and...well, you get the idea.

Anyway, I've also been working on some other projects. Stuff to do with the kids during youth meeting, stuff for the women's meeting that I usually just help with but am now doing a whole host of things, and generally losing my mind. =) I hope you understand.

Kids Stuff:
We're taking the official "Summer Trip" this Saturday. We're going to go jump off a cliff the Cincinnati Zoo and the Newport Aquarium. I think they will have loads of fun! This trip does include an overnight stay. "THANK YOU, YO BOB!" for thinking of the people who would be doing all the driving. Although, I've done it before. Drive 3 hours, walk around in the heat all day while the kids get baked on crazy rides that would make you throw up dinner from 2 decades ago, pile back into the van, stop at "The Golden Hog Trough" on the way home, deposit children at the correct address, meander your way to your house, careen the van into our parking spot, pile into our house, take out contacts that are permantly sealed to your eyeballs, fall in the bed, and die......until morning. Then, you've got to get up and get ready for morning worship service and are expected to be in the "oh, so holy" vein. (Man, what run-on sentences you have! Says the big, bad wolf.)

WHATEVER!!! This trip works out really well. Every place we were going to go (we trimmed it from 4 different locations to visit down to 2 different locations - I was proud of them) opened at 9am-ish and everything was closed by 6. Ummmm, ok. So, out of the last 6 or 7 years we've been taking them on trips, this will be the first that we'll be getting to bed about the same time as normal! I'm liking it!!!!

Women's meeting:
My mom is the president for the WV State Women Active for Christ. Which means I get to help with the ladies retreat that will happen in about 3 weeks. The theme for this fall's meeting is "Farther On - I Can Only Imagine" and will be all about Heaven. Mom asked me to sing "I Can Only Imagine" for the meeting. I decided to spice things up a little by having the girls from my youth group doing the sign language to the song while I'm singing it. That should be good.

Mom and I went shopping last night. We bought some fabric to make a drape for the top of the baby grand in the sanctuary and a table runner for the communion table. Those will look nice!

Then, while in deep discussion with Mom about all things retreat-ish, she told me that she hadn't talked to anybody about doing a skit for the Saturday morning session. I offered a suggestion that maybe she give somebody an idea like doing commerical spots. Like for Philadelphia Cream Cheese "It's so heavenly, it's almost sinful!" kinda thing. So, since I came up with the idea, I'm going to work it out with Em. Oh, what fun. (It's kinda like slave labor, but not.) KIDDING!!!

I'm also in charge of the spoken word service (I stole the idea from Boomama's church. We did one last year and it tore the place up real good.). This will be interesting. I'm going to have about 3 weeks to get it all, and everyone who is going to participate, together. Lots of fun stuff!

Well, I think I'm tired of rambling, and I'm sure that you're much too busy to stay here much longer (that's why you're "doing reasearch online" right now, isn't it? Ok, if you say so.). So, I'm going to end this fun-fest. I'll be back at "the next appointed" bloggity time (we Baptists always refer to service times as "the next appointed time". You'll catch on quick.).

Oh, the amount of links and parenthasis' (I'm not sure I even spelled that right. I used spell check and it gave me 3 different possibilities. I don't know - that's why I'm asking you, stupid computer.) in this paragraph.

SOMEBODY GET ME OUT OF HERE!!!!!!

The store is now closing please take all purchases to the check out registers.

AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SOMEBODY STOP ME, PLEASE!!!!!!!

They've found me!!!!!

Yes, they have! The kids from my youth group have found me - well, at least one of them. The comments from the last post are from one of my kids.



She's too funny!



We (me & C) have a joke with the girls in the group. "If you line them up, what do you get? A wind tunnel!!!" I hope they all know we're kidding. Sometimes they search for the answers to your question on the celing, but they're my girls.

I'm kinda like a momma bear with the kids in my youth group. I just love them like that. I hope they all know that. ;)

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.

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!!!!!