Year 3, June 2nd, 2018: Summer Fun in the Sun

Today, the church had two identical "tailgating parties" that included free food, bounce houses, dunking staff in a tank, face painting, bubbles, an orbeez balls filled pool, lawn games, gaga ball, and 9 square.  Music, too.  It was put on by the Kidustrial Park teams which is Infant through 5th grade.  Although most of the staff from middle school and high school were also there.  It was meant to be a KP family event, but anyone could attend and bring a friend.  I feel like it was well attended.  It was definitely busy but not "stand in long lines" busy, except for the face painting and dunk tank.  We had to get there early, so Abishai was the bounce house jump tester on all 5 bounce houses.  I had him for the first couple of hours and then Jared took over the last hour we were there.  It was 82 or so degrees with a slight breeze, which is hot, but perfect weather for what we were doing.  The kids came home exhausted and Abishai slept for nearly 4 hours with Jared.

Benaiah was off to the Ark Encounter with his school.  He said he thought it was awesome and he hung out with some of the 8th graders that didn't have parents with them.  I had asked him to help his classmates pay attention to the signage and actually learn something because a lot of them haven't been introduced to these concepts before, not even the real facts of the Noah story, and then the proposed "how did they really do that?" theories.  I finished reading a novel to discuss with Justin that we were supposed to finish within the school year. I also went through the school books and papers and did what I call a "soft" organization of everything for next year.  I have a stack of books I need to put away and then need to add in the new books, but that's a bit harder to do when they are buried behind other projects I'll get to this summer.  But they each have their summer book lists and work in an easy access place.  I'd say I'm 75% ready for the fall.  I would love to study up on some of their new Latin curriculum and maybe read some of the novels for history, and I need to figure out science, but other than that I'm good.  I have one more book to purchase, but I don't plan on buying any new school supplies like I did last year.  Easy peasy this year because we ARE NOT MOVING or have a brand new baby for once!  It should be a calmer summer, except that the kids are older and Benaiah has more places to go than ever, etc.  Sigh.

Anyway, I forgot my big camera, which was ok considering I had to watch Abishai most of the time and I was near a lot of bubble solution.  Gary and Leah were out of town, so we had no extra help there, and some of the volunteers backed out at the last minute.  In fact, I didn't see as many volunteers as there could have been.  Kind of sad, but we made do.

Starting the day off right with some sugar dunked in milk! He did eat an egg and toast before we left, too, but only because Daddy made it.

Someone was listening to her music and having a dance party while she did her outdoor dog chore this morning.

Best bounce house tester there is!  He went on all 5 of the bounce houses before they designated each one to different age groups.  They had this little one and then one of the regularly sized ones dedicated to preschoolers and younger.  Thank goodness because the older kids can be quite tough and unawares sometimes!

One little monkey jumping on the bed....

A bounce house you race against someone to get thrugh.

Lawn games like cornhole, frisbee in a can, ring toss, and I forget what that game is with the two balls attached to each other by a cord and you have to throw them onto the racks in a certain way to rack up points.

Gaga ball pit and 9 square grid!  Abishai loved seeing them outside.

He knew what to do of course.

Woah, those are some older cornhole boards!  That's like 11 years ago!  My kids were just babies.  It's probably one of the youth ministers' sets.

Preschooler bounce house.

Bubble station before he got all nasty.

Face painting, which was busy all day!  Keturah her whole face painted, but I think it took so long that they decided just to do small ones after that.

Collecting old and new shoes for charity.

Getting food prepared for guests.  They had hot dogs, hamburgers, chips, water, and freeze pops.  They put the hot dogs and hamburgers in buns and then wrapped in tinfoil, but I wasn't hungry enough to make them just give a bunless hot dog or hamburger.  Justin loved serving.  I told him to turn around his hat though because he looks like a nerd!  And how will the sun stay off of your face?  But Luke his favorite youth pastor wears it that way, so why not.

The grillmasters warming up the grill.

The 4 head people in KP. Preschool, Elementary (or is she everyone else's boss), nursery director, and 4th and 5th grader pastor.

Abishai literally scaled this without hesitation in 10 seconds.  Are you surprised? You shouldn't be!  Another mom posted that she was scared of her kindergartner doing it (she has older kids too).  I didn't think twice.  He was occupied and happy.

And right back down he comes without pausing!

Keturah getting her face painted!

Orbeeze are these gel like tiny balls that are sometimes used in nerf guns but also for sensory play with or without water.  They used water as well as the orbeeze today.  And that's all this was, a gigantic sensory bin.  The only person missing was our Access (special needs) minister.  I did see a few kids that go to Access though so this would have been perfect for them.

Flip, flip, flip.  At least he did put some sunscreen on today, which helped a little bit.

Mrs. Alison in the dunk tank.  Super cold water!

Mrs. Joanna from nursery!

The kids kept putting these electrical bubble guns into that big tub you see behind Abishai.  Abishai also did it.  It was driving me nuts that some moms weren't paying attention.  The water ruined some of them.

Rainbow Dash from My Little Pony!

I literally turned my head for one second to get a drink of water and swung back around to find this.  THIS IS MY KID! I'm the one running the station and MY KID was the one getting in the tub!  Say what?!  I took the picture and then immediately took him to Daddy who was supposed to be done grilling.  He was so slippery from the bubble solution that he slipped on the grass!  Thankfully he didn't try to sit in it and he had taken his shoes off and kept them off all day.

Justin wandering around aimlessly.

The racer was Abishai's favorite bounce house and he could run through those obstacles faster than some kids twice his size!  And he didn't get stuck or panic.

Take my picture with my favorite leader!  See the backwards hat?  Yup, that's Luke Green.

Kyle Dickerson in the dunk tank.  I remember when that kid was like 8 years old.  He's now 25 and married.  Crazy!  And the little guy is Wolfgang, Justin's friend.  Or is it Thornton?  I'd have to ask him!

Gotta love Instagram!  Screenshot of the "biggest Amazon package on the planet" according to Christ Pratt.  It's really just a large semi trailer they can pull apart to reveal something.  I like the design though.  It was a t-rex from the Jurassic World II movie which comes out soon.  Also, someone left their toy at the tailgate party and I knew exactly whose it was, not only because I did see them today, but because I'm friends with them via Instagram and I knew it was a favorite toy they got just yesterday.  So the grandma came back to pick it up.  Gotta love social media sometimes!

I got to see the famous bike trick guy on my way to get Benaiah from school!  He's usually at this parking lot most of the year because it's one of the busiest intersections in the city, Emerson and Thompson.  He just like to entertain the drivers on their way home from work during rush hour for free!  Awesome!

Exhaustion has now set in and tomorrow is another full day with me doing all the kid transportation save the first one in the morning to Shelby St. campus.  Jared is helping someone out with transportation including driving all the way up to Chicago and back.  But they will stop here first because it's a friend from PEI.  Here's to the long day ahead!