Church

Family Worship

Posted in Church, Leah, Molly on September 2nd, 2018 by c-had – Be the first to comment

August was Family Worship at Glen Mar, so the kids got involved. Molly and Leah were joined by Simon to read the scripture one Sunday.

Reading in church

The next Sunday was even better. I got to lead worship with both my daughters. I loved it, and both girls did a great job.

Family Worship band

Family Worship band

Playgroup friends for life

Posted in Church, Leah, Molly, Playdates on August 31st, 2018 by c-had – Be the first to comment

Friends for over 10 years for the big kids, and they always have fun when they are together.

Laser tag with playgroup friends

Telestrations is always fun and full of laughter!

Telestrations is always fun

Shipwreck VBS. Molly and Simon moved up to VBX (x-treme) this year for rising 6th & 7th grade. They all had a blast!

Shipwreck VBS

Choir May 2018

Posted in Church, Leah, Molly, Music on July 6th, 2018 by c-had – Be the first to comment

Molly and Leah sang with their choir at church again in May.

Super Christmas

Posted in Church on February 3rd, 2018 by c-had – Be the first to comment

Christmas Eve service was fun this year. It was a Super Christmas, featuring a band of superheroes (and Mary and Joseph). Molly was given the role of Wonder Woman. I was leading music, so Jen made me the perfect shirt to wear on stage.

Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman

Superhero Christmas

Hulk lifted this boulder in the skit, but clearly Wonder Woman would have had no trouble with it as well.

Strength

And here’s the whole skit for you to watch.

Leah was too young to act in the skit, but did an excellent job leading the call to worship.

Reader

Sadly, she was too short to see over the heads of all the standing adults.

December choir

Posted in Church, Leah, Molly, Music on December 23rd, 2017 by c-had – Be the first to comment

The girls’ choir sang again in mid-December.

Walk to Bethlehem

Posted in Church on December 10th, 2017 by c-had – Be the first to comment

Every year (for the past 10 years), our church has put on Walk to Bethlehem. This is a walk-through event where folks can experience the Christmas story. All four of us participated this year, with some new and fun roles.

A lot of people come through, and at times there can be a few hundred people waiting to get in outside. So, the church has a tent with chairs and entertainment alternating between music and magic. I was one of the entertainers, playing guitar and singing Christmas songs. It was warmer than it’s been in previous years, though my fingers were still numb by the end of each of my sets.

Jen worked a tent in the Bethlehem marketplace making macramé bracelets.

Bethlehem marketplace

Leah again worked the animal tent in the marketplace, helping patrons with little animals like hamsters and a hedgehog.

Bethlehem animal tent

This year Molly got her first larger role at Walk to Bethlehem. She played the child in the Simeon scene (when baby Jesus was presented at the temple).



Simeon scene

Baby Jesus looks a lot like Pastor Jen’s new baby.

Simeon scene

If any of you want to see Molly in another role, make sure to come to the 9:30am or 11:00am service on Christmas Eve at Glen Mar. I think she’ll be wonderful.

Family Fun Fair

Posted in Church, Leah on December 7th, 2017 by c-had – Be the first to comment

Our church held a Family Fun Fair, with lots of fair games and food. We ate dinner there, saw lots of friends, and the kids really enjoyed the fair games. Here’s Leah on the cupcake walk.

Family Fun Fair

Jen had made cupcakes for the cupcake walk, but Leah opted for the emoji cupcake instead.

Emoji cupcake

Many of the games let you win tickets which could be exchanged for prizes. Our kids ended up with way too many prizes, but our neighbors (who have 3 kids) ended up with even more. Bob was excited to carry them all home (though he doesn’t have the giant beachball yet in this picture).

Lots of toys

This was the church’s first year doing it, but I really hope the organizers keep it going every year. It was lots of fun.

Singing together

Posted in Church, Leah, Molly, Music on December 6th, 2017 by c-had – Be the first to comment

Most of the time, the girls are in two different choirs at church due to their age difference. But there’s an occasional year where they overlap, and this year is one of those years. Leah is now old enough to join Joyful Noise, and Molly won’t move up to middle school till next year. So, they get to sing together. Here’s there first performance in October.

In November, they sang again. I even got to accompany them on the second song.

My Manidokan Trip

Posted in Church, Molly, Trip on August 3rd, 2017 by molly – Comments Off on My Manidokan Trip

Hi, it’s Molly. I had a great time at camp. On Sunday, first I got there. Then I unpacked. I was sharing a room with my friends Riley and Keira at the time.

Old friends

I also had some more friends named Sarah, Emma, Jordan, Haley, Grace, Lilly, and Camille with me.

Friends

Riley, Keira, Molly (me), Lilly, Camille

Church friends

Sarah, Molly (me), Emma, Sarah (Emma’s older sister)

School friends

Jordan, Grace, Molly (me), Haley

Last year I only had one friend, this year I had nine friends.

After unpacking I changed into my bathing suit to take the swim test with Riley and Keira. After the swim test I had to say goodbye to my family. When they left I hung out in my lodge until dinner. After dinner I went to the campfire with my group. We sang some songs, saw pirates, and then some of my counselors came back from somewhere else claiming they had not seen the pirates like we did. We did not have s’mores that night though. After everything we went back to the lodge and had snack. Then I went to bed.

On Monday, first I woke up. Then I had breakfast. After breakfast I did Bible study. The 5-6 kids (me) had two groups of kids to do some things like rafting and pool games because we had 30 kids. I did the rock wall with group B. Group A did rafting. Here is me on the rock wall.

Climbing wall

After the rock wall Group B had lunch. Group A had lunch at land near the river they were rafting on. After lunch Group B had pool games. We didn’t have pool time though because they heard thunder. So I hung out at the lodge. Then after an hour of waiting we had store time. Store time is when you can buy stuff from the camp store. After store time we went back to our lodge and had free time until dinner. After dinner we had the evening activity. After the evening activity we went back to the lodge and had snack. Then I went to bed.

On Tuesday, first I woke up. Then I had breakfast. After breakfast I did Bible study. After Bible study I went on the Sawmill Creek Hike. I did not jump off the rock this time because the water was freezing. Anyone that jumped off the rock was shivering when their head was above water. It was hard to get used to the water. After Sawmill I had lunch. After lunch we did zip lining. Here’s a video of me on the zip line (I’m videoing on the zip line).

After zip lining I had pool time. Then I had store time. After I got my stuff from the store I went back to the lodge and had free time. After my free time I had dinner. Then I did the evening activity. After that I went back to the lodge and had snack. Then I went to bed.

On Wednesday, first I woke up. Then I had breakfast. After breakfast I did Bible study. Then I went to get ready for rafting with group B. After getting ready for rafting I got in a van and the driver drove us to the destination that we started rafting at. First we rafted to our lunch spot. Then when we got to our lunch destination and we ate lunch. After having lunch at the lunch destination we got to go swimming. Where we swam there was a jumping rock. The jumping rock was a long rock that was just above shore, but where you jumped in the water got a lot deeper. Here’s me and some of my friends when we jumped off.

Ready to jump

Jumping in the river

After swimming for 30-45 minutes we started rafting again. After 50 minutes to an hour we got to the rapids. After everyone went through the rapids we got to swim in the water. During that time we played king of the raft. But sadly, Jordan couldn’t play due to her swimmer’s ear. Just swimming the current took us far. After all our fun we got in the rafts and paddled to our end destination. But the kids in my raft were the lucky few. When we were almost there the kids in my raft were very tired of paddling so the adult in our raft let us get out and swim the rest of the way. When I got to shore I went to tell the other kids from other rafts that we got to swim some of the way back. Some of them were jealous.

After some waiting I got in a van and the driver drove us back to our lodge. When we got to our lodge we relaxed and some of us got ready for the pool. I was one of the kids that got ready for the pool. When it was pool time I went down to the pool. After pool time it was store time. After store time I went back to the lodge and had free time. After free time we had dinner. Then we had Mission Night. Mission Night is a night that explains what foundation you can give the rest of your store money to at the end of the week. This year it was the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. Also we played water games to learn about the foundation. After that we had our evening snack. Then we went to bed.

On Thursday, first I woke up. Then I had breakfast. After breakfast I did Bible study. After Bible study we got ready to go to Harper’s Ferry. After that we got in a van to drive us to the path that we walked on to Harper’s Ferry. The walk to Harper’s Ferry was long but felt short. After what felt like 10-30 minutes of walking and talking we got to the walking bridge. Then we stopped and got told a story. The story was about a man painting an ad for a powder company on a mountain. One day the man’s wife found out that the man cheated his wife and used his wife’s money! So one day when the man was painting the ad his wife cut the rope of the man’s paint bucket and the man’s rope. So the man fell to his death. On the mountain there was a splash of paint under the ad, that was from the man’s paint bucket from when the bucket fell. So we learned our lesson - don't cheat people, you could die. After hearing the story we walked across the walking bridge. Here is a picture of the train bridge right next to it.

Harpers Ferry hike

After we walked across the bridge we went to our lunch spot. After lunch we split up into four groups. First, my group went to the book store. Then we went to a historical candy shop. I got cotton candy there. It was homemade! Here is a picture of me with it.

Harper's Ferry treat

After that we went to an ice cream shop. Then we went back to the candy shop. After that I got some candy mint things. They were not homemade though. After shopping we went back to the lunch spot to meet the other groups before our journey back to where we started. When every group was there we started our journey back. Again it felt very short. But this time there was a lot of walking, talking, and singing. After some waiting I got in a van and the driver drove us back to our lodge. When we got back we relaxed in our lodge and then some of us went to the pool. After the pool we went to the store. After store time we had free time. Then we had dinner. After dinner we went up to the hill and played games and roasted marshmallows. After that some kids stayed at the hill to sleep there, and the rest of the kids went back to our lodge to sleep.

On Friday, first I woke up. Then I had breakfast. After that we had Bible study. After Bible study we did field games for 15-30 minutes. Then we had pool time for the rest of our two hours. After our field games/pool time we had lunch. After lunch we packed up our stuff. After everyone had packed we had snack while we watched the new version of Beauty and the Beast. In the beginning of the movie very few kids (including me) went to the pool. Then we had store time. After store time we had free time until dinner. After dinner my family came and every group there talked about their week at camp. All my friends were sad to go but had a fun time. Here is one of our final pictures.

Camp girls

I had a fun time at camp. It was even better than last year. Bye!

Small Group Field Day

Posted in Church, Family outings on June 30th, 2017 by c-had – Be the first to comment

After several years off, our small group from church restarted the tradition of holding Field Day. While the events previously involved only adults, now many of us have kids old enough to join in the fun.

Small Group Field Day

Tom did an excellent job at adjusting the games such that adults and kids could all have fun together.

Instructions

The three-legged race can make it tough to keep your balance.

Don't fall

Jen and I moved so quickly we were a blur for the camera.

Speed

The egg spoon relay returned to competition.

Egg spoon relay

Make sure to take breaks and stay hydrated.

Staying hydrated

Having fun

Molly jumped so fast in the sack race that her hat flew off her head.

Sack race

Nice air, Leah.

Nice air

There was a hula hoop chain.

Hula hoop chain

It’s the kids from BF2K7 (well, the three quarters that do not live in Texas, making it difficult to attend Field Day). They’ve grown a bit in the past 10 years.

BF2K7 returns

Dunk the sponge, pass it down, fill the bucket with water. Squeeze well to make sure you get every last drop out of the sponge.

Fill the bucket

Squeeze

Jen got a selfie with the official professional photographer.

Selfie

Look out, some drops are getting away.

Bucket brigade

Here we all (minus the photographer) are as we transitioned from outdoors to indoors for the indoor games.

Everyone

Tricycles again made an appearance for dizzy-bat tricycle. Observant readers may recognize the tricycle Leah is sitting on. Two of them were originally purchased for Field Day in 2009. When the day was over, we ended up hanging on to one since we had a toddler, and it became Molly’s tricycle. Then, it became Leah’s tricycle. Then, we handed it down/back to Tom (the original purchaser of the tricycle) since he then had a kid who could use it. And now it’s back at Field Day.

Tricycles

Field Day finished with a giant balloon war.

Balloon war

Thanks to the International Field Day Committee for putting on this awesome event. We hope that it can continue for many years to come.