What's Today?

August is literally a day away. I feel like just yesterday I was running out the door on my way to our End of the Year/Summer Kick-Off BBQ.

Where has my summer gone? When you have every single week planned out, things can pass you in the blink of an eye. In the past two months, we have had 2 weeks of VBS, 1 week of FCA day camp, 2 different weeks of overnight camp, a two day Wii tournament, 1 week of drop-in hours, a fundraiser, 3 community outreaches - Summer Festival, Bikes and BBQ, School Supply BBQ, a name brainstorming, several dinners and BBQs with families, and numerous meetings.

Today has been spent laying around the house, only leaving to run a few errands and treat myself to a decent dinner where I don't have to clean the dishes. (Our sink is currently leaking which makes doing the dishes TONS of fun.) Tomorrow I leave for a 4 day training in Colorado Springs with everyone on staff. It should be a really good time, I'm actually looking forward to it.

The only thing I am looking forward to more is Thursday! Mom is flying in around 12 and after staff meeting we are hitting the road to drive back to Oklahoma, where I will get to enjoy 2 GLORIOUS weeks of vacation. I am so excited for it, well except for the heat I'll be coming into. I mean seriously Oklahoma...100 degree days non-stop for the last month...NOT OKAY! You should work on that before I get there.

Like Father, Like Daughter

Working for a non-profit has definitely sharpened my skills at saving money, or so I like to think.

We decided to use lanyards for name tags this year. As a youth ministry staff, it took a while to convince ourselves to spend the money. But, after discussing although the pros (long term name tags for multiple events, easily identifying our kids at the rec center where we hold camp, an easier way to track and enforce discipline with kids traveling to multiple stations during camp, the list goes on and on...) we bit the bullet and made the investment.

Within the first day, several kids were coming up to us with their name tags in pieces. The plastic sleeves holding their names were breaking due to a number of issues. Determined to not let this affect our budget, I went to my bag of tricks. (Which is primarily filled with tricks from my wonderful father)

A roll of duct tape and a hole punch later....the name tags were fixed and held up through another 2 weeks of camp and we plan on using them for camp in July. Thanks Mom and Dad for teaching me how to improvise, get as much life out of one thing as possible, not be wasteful, and most importantly duct tape can fix anything! (I can tell you that while I am enjoying saving money, the ugliness of some of the name tags is driving me absolutely bonkers! My OCD, perfectionist at it's finest!)

A Taste of Home

When I type taste of home it makes me think of amazing food, i.e. Ricardo's, Freddie's Steak House, Los Cabos, and of course BUENO! Oh how I miss these places!! But the taste of home I'm referring to now is people! Although during a frustrating day last week, a good friend trying to cheer me up said let's go wherever you want to go to eat, I said Bueno, but it was 6 hours away. Being the amazing friend she is, she was up for it. We however didn't go.... mainly because they would have been closed by the time we got there :)

Back to people and relationships...

This past week we had a youth group come and do missions for us, during the days they ran a VBS for our kids, during the evenings they did different outreaches and served at other ministries in the community. It is their third year with us, and I LOVE them! Every year we get a mix of return students and new students, and every year I feel like I grow closer and closer to these amazing students! They bring such a taste of Oklahoma with them, even though they are a local group. It started last year when the boys tortured me all week with water guns through out the days and ended the week by throwing me in the pool. This year, it started from day 1 and escalated through the week. It reminded me of all my "fights" with the guys I grew up with, the guys a few years younger than me, and the teens I used to work with at Liberty.

My favorite memory from the week....when they gave all the kids water balloons and "dared them to be good" while telling them to attack me. I started running, because let's face it, when you give kids water balloons and tell them it's their choice whether or not they attack their leader, they're going to attack. As I turned from running, I realized my head start wasn't enough as I saw at least 40 kids running for me. I gave in and embraced the water balloon explosion that was heading my way, laughing the entire time.

How is it possible that I get paid to hang out with kids and teens all day?!?! Thank you God for allowing me to work in this ministry!!

Much love!

Summer Time

It's summer! Which means it's crazy busy!

One week of day camp down, it was a huge success! We are blessed with amazing volunteer groups!!! The picture is one of our upcoming middle school students praying for our day!

The kids and teens are away at overnight camp all this week! Spending the week hanging out with our middle school students....LOVE THEM! (for now, we'll see how I feel next week, it's a very hot and cold relationship...I'm constantly wondering how anyone liked us as at that age, below you can see me attempting to take a picture with some kids and the middle schoolers decided to attack me mid picture.)



When the kids get back we have two more weeks of day camp, a Wii Tournament, a week of overnight camp for middle school, and a few other things I'm forgetting. Needless to say, it's going be a very busy summer! And I couldn't be happier.

Summer is the time when I get to spend tons of time driving around with my kids, blaring crazy loud music, watching movies, laughing at the most ridiculous things. It is slowly becoming my favorite time of year....fall better step up it's game if it wants to remain on top. (Who are we really kidding, nothing can top football season...I'm already counting down the days.)

Take time to enjoy the simple things today!

Much love,

D