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.
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.
Friends for over 10 years for the big kids, and they always have fun when they are together.
Telestrations is always fun and full of laughter!
Shipwreck VBS. Molly and Simon moved up to VBX (x-treme) this year for rising 6th & 7th grade. They all had a blast!
Molly and Leah sang with their choir at church again in May.
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.
Hulk lifted this boulder in the skit, but clearly Wonder Woman would have had no trouble with it as well.
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.
Sadly, she was too short to see over the heads of all the standing adults.
The girls’ choir sang again in mid-December.
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.
Leah again worked the animal tent in the marketplace, helping patrons with little animals like hamsters and a hedgehog.
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).
Baby Jesus looks a lot like Pastor Jen’s new baby.
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.
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.
Jen had made cupcakes for the cupcake walk, but Leah opted for the emoji cupcake instead.
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).
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.
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.
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.
I also had some more friends named Sarah, Emma, Jordan, Haley, Grace, Lilly, and Camille with me.
Riley, Keira, Molly (me), Lilly, Camille
Sarah, Molly (me), Emma, Sarah (Emma’s older sister)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I had a fun time at camp. It was even better than last year. Bye!
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.
Tom did an excellent job at adjusting the games such that adults and kids could all have fun together.
The three-legged race can make it tough to keep your balance.
Jen and I moved so quickly we were a blur for the camera.
The egg spoon relay returned to competition.
Make sure to take breaks and stay hydrated.
Molly jumped so fast in the sack race that her hat flew off her head.
Nice air, Leah.
There was a 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.
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.
Jen got a selfie with the official professional photographer.
Look out, some drops are getting away.
Here we all (minus the photographer) are as we transitioned from outdoors to indoors for the indoor games.
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.
Field Day finished with a giant 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.
