You are currently browsing the monthly archive for July, 2009.
We have finally caught up from the lost sleep from BigStuf, but starting tomorrow, we will be getting ready for our S3Blast. This is our version of VBS and we are having an “Xtreme!” theme this year. We’ll be decorating all week and finished up all the last minute details. I haven’t had to be the VBS director since we moved to Goldsboro, but did have to take over a good bit of the responsibilities this year and I have forgotten how much work it is! We have great volunteers though, so it will all come together fine.
I really don’t know what I was thinking, but I had scheduled our first meeting of our new Life Group tonight. I had Praise team practice with the kids’ praise team for the S3 Blast from 2:30-4 and then our group came at 5. This is after we got home from camp at 10 Friday night and had to drive to Raleigh yesterday to return the rental van. Fortunately, I stayed up late last Sunday night before we left for BigStuf to make sure we left the house clean. So, the only messy part was our upstairs, where all 6 suitcases are still unpacked and laundry undone! I’ll get to it sometime!
The summer is going by waaaaayyy toooooo fast! After this week, we’ll have the S3 Blast from Sunday – Wednesday. We are vacationing in SC starting the next Sunday after church through Monday, Aug. 17. Then, we’re home for one week and school starts back. Didn’t we just get out??!??
This week, we are in Daytona with our students for BigStuf. It is a youth conference put on my Reggie Joyner and Lanny Donaho from the ReThink group. They were on staff at NorthPoint Community (Andy Stanley’s church) for years and it is an awesome experience! We left at 5 am on Monday and drove for 10 hours (that included 3 stops). The speakers this year are absolutely incredible: Steven Furtick of Elevation Church in Charlotte, Perry Noble who we know personally, and Andy Stanley. The worship leader for the week is Steve Fee who has some awesome Christian hits that our kids love! This morning, the Derija Children’s Choir from Nairobi, Kenya was here. They were so cute and so good.
As you can imagine, we are not getting much sleep or free time. I will say that our kids are some of the best I’ve seen here and I’m not just biased. I am constantly amazed for the good and the bad when I’m at a Christian event. The dress code is vague and they leave a lot to the youth leaders’ discretion, but they were very specific about bathing suits. “Two pieces are one piece too many” is the exact quote. And, what do we see everyday? Girls (and adult leaders!) in bikinis. There is another church here from Goldsboro who has not enforced this part of the dress code and our girls have noticed because they actually recognize these girls. I think I will be sending that youth pastor an email when we get home. We leave after the Friday morning session and will drive home, hopefully we’ll be there by 10 pm.
The hardest part of the week is that Bailey is having a really hard time. They are staying at my parent’s house. Since she and Madi were gone to Camp KidJam last week, this is the second week without mom! Even though I know she loves being at my parents and my mom is able to settle her down quickly, I wish I could get home quicker for her sake! She has always been our tender-hearted one! Don’t worry, Bailey…just one more night after tonight and I bought you something that you will love!! You too, Madi and Avery!
I’ll post a few pictures later. I’ve been uploading the photos to Facebook each night so the kids’ parents can see them. The kids are funny at this age about cameras…some love them and some hate them!
This has been one of the busiest weeks of my life!! Bailey and Madi were at Camp Kidjam at Wake Forest University and they had a blast. But, while they were gone, I taught a preschool music camp at the dance studio in the mornings and made decorations for our upcoming S3Blast…about 200 huge paint splotches that will make it look like giant paint splatters all over the church. We had lots of help, but it was a big job! I’ll post pictures in two weeks when we have it.
The music camp was great. The 9 girls learned a lot and did a great job on their performance today to end the camp. It was called The Preschool Musical and was the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Julia helped me (I paid her…she needed money for camp, I needed a helper!) and she played the part of Goldilocks. There were too many lines for a 4 year old to memorize in one week. Avery was Baby Bear. I did not intend to give her the second best part, but she really was the best one for that part and she proved that we do indeed have 4 girls that love acting!
We had to wash all the laundry when the girls got home last night to repack their clothes to go to SC for the week. Thayer, Julia and I will be going to Big Stuf (a camp for middle and high school students) next week with our church. It is in Daytona Beach. The younger three will have a blast at my parents, but Bailey cried when they were about to l eave Florence today. She hadn’t been home but 24 hours…she’s always been the one with the tender heart.
While we were in Florence, I got to eat supper with one of my best friends from college. We see her and her husband as often as we can but it hasn’t been near enough over the last 5 or 6 years. We had a great meal…they couldn’t get over Julia being almost 12. We spent the night with them 11 years ago last week when my brother got married and she was 11 months old then. Even though we’ve seen them many times since then, it was shocking for them to see her nearly as tall as me wearing my shoes!
Well, I’m exhausted from this week…tomorrow will be spent tying up loose ends before Sunday (S3 Blast volunteer training!!) and before having to get packed for camp. 5 am will come early on Monday morning!!
Have a great weekend!
Julia as Goldilocks
Avery and her friend Heather who played Mama Bear
The whole crew
Me with my college friend, Kim
We decided to ride down to Wilmington for the day today. I was looking at our calendar earlier this week and got really depressed…the summer is flying by!!! The middle two will be at Camp Kidjam next week while Julia helps me teach a music camp at the girl’s dance school. Then, the next week, Julia, Thayer and I will be going to Daytona for Big Stuf (a student camp) while the three younger girls go to my mom and dad’s. The next week will be spent getting ready for our S3Blast (our version of VBS) and I am responsible for lots and lots that week. The next week is the S3 Blast (we get to celebrate Thayer’s birthday and our anniversary on the first and last day of it!). Then, the summer is almost gone. We are planning a trip to SC in the middle of August to visit our families and although that will be extremely enjoyable, we will have one week to do school shopping and open houses before going back to school after that.
So, today was wonderful! We all love the beach. The girls are huge waterbugs! Even though Madi doesn’t enjoy being out in the waves, she will sit at the edge of the water for hours. If Thayer and I are with her, she enjoys floating out past where the waves break, but getting her out there and back in is a chore! Avery had an absolute blast. She was so fun to watch. No fear, whatsoever! We’ll really have to watch her. Bailey and Julia have always loved riding the waves on their boogie boards since they were small. And, as usual, Thayer and I enjoyed people watching…it really is interesting how people don’t mind showing complete strangers waaaayyyyy too much!
After four hours, we decided to go to Five Guys…they have awesome hamburgers. We only bought one large fry and it was plenty for all six of us! The potatos were from Driggs, ID today. Then, we checked out Coldstone. Wow! It was not a good nutritutional day for me, to say the least! But, we got home just in time to get our hour walk in before dark, so maybe it won’t be too bad!
Hope you’re enjoying your summer too…let us hear from you!
I had to put the picture of the hamburger in there!!
We have had a great weekend celebrating the birthday of our wonderful country! Yesterday, the girls all invited one friend to go to the pool with us and spend the night. Avery couldn’t understand why she was not allowed to invite a friend, but she was just as happy to play with the big sisters’ friends! After swimming and cooking out with our neighbors, Billie Jean, Alex and Logan, we made s’mores around a fire pit. Oh my…I had been dieting pretty well for two whole weeks, but couldn’t resist. I only made one, but finished half of Avey’s. The girls had a fashion show for us…at least those expensive dance costumes that get worn once do see the light of day again every now and then! Julia and her friend weren’t interested in dressing up but they did makeup and nails for the younger ones.
They stayed up until about 1:45 am but did sleep in until we woke them up for breakfast at 9:30. I would’ve let them sleep longer but their parents were all coming around 11 to pick them up.
Today, we had a great day just hanging out together. Thayer got a much needed haircut and we got milkshakes at The Cook-Out. It just opened in Goldsboro and has a huge selection! Yeah, when I break a diet, I do it right! I didn’t order one of my own because I knew I’d have at least 1/2 of Avery’s. I really wanted a blueberry cheesecake one, but she ordered a caramel fudge which was very yummy. Then, we went swimming again. I didn’t have the camera, but wish I could show you how well Avery is swimming. She started doing cannon balls today in the deep end! Madi is doing very well this year and I am so thankful for the opportunity to take her somewhere she can work on strengthening those muscles without it seeming like work to her! We grilled some more tonight and then had our own fireworks show. We missed the ones the city does because they moved them to July 3 and we didn’t find out about it until…July 3! They are always on the 4th and we had plans to go tonight. Anyway, our neighbors gave us a box of fireworks they weren’t going to use so we had our own little show. They were nothing special except for one that was a 25 round one. It went on and on for about a minute and was really cool. The price tag for less than one minutes entertainment…$16! After Thayer dropped one that chased us into the yard, fireworks time was over! The camera wasn’t cooperating very well in the dark, so this is all I got!
We hope you have had a great weekend celebrating our freedom too!
