the Overnight plus the other days I've missed

Okay, clearly I am too busy for the last few weeks of my "year of blogging, part 2".

Thursday, I went to visit Molly. She is attending Hope College. It was almost 80 degrees so we had ice cream. It was yummy.

Friday, I spent most of the day preparing for the Jr. High Overnight. We had nine youth. We went to The Spark Foundation and made a donation.

Our super star mom, Denise, made the best dinner ever. Here's the menu:
Mini Eyeball subs

Mummy hotdogs

Veggies N Dip (Pumpkin shaped – carrots/broccoli)

Spider Cheese Ball n’ crackers

Bone Bread Sticks n’ Blood Dipping Sauce

Brain cupcakes

Eyeball cake pops

Then we went to the John Ball Zoo for a Twilight Tour. We saw the reptiles, a Screech Owl, a Chinchilla (which we got to pet), some monkeys (or relatives of them), we saw a Barn Owl, the Frogs, and the Aquarium (Penguins sound scary when you wake them up at night).

We watched a video clip (from the Skit Guys but it's not them... it's really good and spooky) and then "Goonies". 

Today I have spent the entire day (once I got home at 11:30am and cleaned up) on the couch watching tv. I watched shows I have dvr'd but haven't had a chance to watch.

Right now I am watching part two of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows". It's the end of my marathon. Three months later.

Hey, better late than never.

And just so I would be sure youth show up for Sunday school tomorrow morning, I bribed* them with prizes/treat. 

*Disclaimer: only two of them really came in costume last night and I had three prizes. I also had enough goodie bags for the youth plus the leaders. I had two youth who were grounded and only one leader took a goodie bag. I have plenty of treats left so better to give them away, even if it means bribing them. I am fairly certain the Bible doesn't say anything about not bribing your youth to show up at Sunday School the morning after an overnight. That is pretty specific so please correct me if you know of that particular Bible verse.

three days behind

No. I didn't post pictures.

I had lots of thoughts on what I could post.

Like, leave stuff alone that's not yours. I guess they needed it more than I did. The good news is; it was too big and I had been thinking about adding it to the donation pile and buying a new one. That still doesn't make it right that someone else took it.

I think I'm a serious runner now. I ran in the rain today. I didn't give up. It was miserable but I wasn't really miserable until I stopped.

I should think about waterproof mascara. I got a couple of weird looks from people as I ran by them.

I'm still eating sweet potato french fries. I gave up and froze the rest. I don't know if they'll make it but I couldn't just throw them away. I like them. Bill does not. I have made the mental note for next time to make a third of the batter and use one sweet potato.

They taste especially good with Ranch dressing.

I have a Halloween overnight this Friday with our Jr. High youth group. I'm very excited about it and am spending most of the week preparing for it. There's a lot to prepare for. I made goodie bags, I am creating the "worship" service (think Veggie Tales), I have to go shopping for tons of junk food (I'm making this breakfast on Saturday morning) and I have to gather the prizes for the costume contest. I found ribbons in the dollar bins at Target. There were three; Best Costume, Most Original Costume, and Scariest. Perfect!

I haven't given up on blogging yet. I've just been busy. There are still things in life that are more important and since I know none of you are out there waiting with baited breath, I can get away with missing a few posts here and there.

bagels and overnights

It's a good thing I got the z-pak to make me better because today is our Jr. High Overnight. We're going about it differently in that we'll be spending all day today hanging out in two separate groups: boys and girls. The separate groups isn't different, it's the all day part. And then tonight. Tomorrow morning I'll wake up (I always choose to go to bed early) and make breakfast. We'll be having pancakes (my special recipe) and sausages. It's going to be a lot of fun, if not completely exhausting for us adults. But the kids love it, so we love doing it for them. In fact, since the last overnight back in October, they have been begging and pleading for another one.

Pray for our safety, fun, honesty, and that they all find a way to be closer to God even if it's just for a moment.

This is where I struggle with this group. They are very physical (in a violent way) and very rude to each other. We continue to try to teach them it's not okay to treat each other like this, but it's pretty much ingrained into their social behavior. And I'm not just talking about the boys. Our girls are just as physical.

The best part is knowing that we are building a stronger class for next year (no pun intended). The majority are in 7th grade so next year they will be leaders.

Now to change the subject completely: I bought bagels, which I haven't done in a long time. Like at least five years (when we lived in Jersey and bagels were kosher), but we had some cream cheese that I wanted to use, so I bought them. They're good (I admit, no one can make a bagel like they can in NYC or Jersey), just okay, not even as good as the bagels we can get from Doug at West Coast Coffee (downtown GR, on Monroe Center - how's that for free advertising)!

I spread cream cheese on one half but decided to put peanut butter and honey on the other half. I love peanut butter and honey. I've been eating that on toast since I was a little girl. It's just as good on bagels. I had another one this morning. It made me happy and I just wanted to share!

Fall

A few weeks ago, my parents came to visit for the weekend. It was a beautiful autumn weekend. They brought Skylar too. We went to Robinette's, a local apple orchard! We saw them make apple cider, I picked out pumpkins (the cheapest I've ever paid), and we bought lots of apples!





Here's Skylar next to some of the bigger pumpkins. The ones I got aren't that big!














We went to the mall after lunch. Skylar is in front of the sculpture that is there.














Fall colors, soon snow will fall.















This last weekend was the Jr. High Overnight. Fun times! I baked cupcakes in these ghost shaped tins. Heather and I found them last year, but we never got to use them!





Here I am, in my costume. Yes, I made it. Yes, I made it just for the overnight...
















Heather was Queen of DeVine. (the name of our "youth group rooms" is collectively called "The Vine", and the room has a mural that is painted in green, black and purple....) Do you get it now?






After only a few hours of sleep, we're a couple of matching youth leaders, ready for a nap! The few hours of sleep were worth it! We were entertained into the wee hours of the morning by a couple of "charades".




I can't go anywhere without plunging a toilet... Seriously. They're always getting clogged (not by me). This toilet has been acting up. The last flush was the final straw. The stall flooded and we actually had to put into action Jason's, aka Joe the Plumber, plunger. I'm getting really good at plunging toilets....