Sub-sistence

Tomorrow night my church gets to host the world premiere of a movie titled “What If…”  at our Elgin campus.  Since my small group normally meets Monday nights, we agreed to go to the movie instead.  Since our church is at four campuses (five including a small one in the city) with 2-3 services at each, this single event at a single campus promises to be a crowded one, especially at the price they are charging- free.  Just today I learned this world premiere comes probably thanks to the director, Dallas Jenkins, joining the staff at the church as Director of Visual Media.  He is the son of author Jerry B. Jenkins (best known for coauthoring the Left Behind series).  Hmm… a partnership with a well-known actor, and now a movie director, son of a famous author on staff, not to mention my pastor whose name is out there- have you heard of  the radio program Walk in the Word?-  should I worry about my church becoming too public?  In any event, I am looking forward to the movie and meeting the three stars afterward.  I wonder if this appearance was part of their contract?  So- all I have to do is make sure I finish work no later than 5PM so I can get there- a half-hour drive from the store I end at in St. Charles (and a mere 5 min. from the store I start at- aargh!).  In any event, here is a link to the trailer.  Sorry, I couldn’t find it on youtube so I couldn’t embed it: FOUND IT!

Description from youtube page: Introducing What if… a Pure Flix and Jenkins Entertainment film. Starring, Kevin Sorbo, Kristy Swanson, Debby Ryan, and John Ratzenberger.
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What If tells the story of Ben Walker (Kevin Sorbo), who fifteen years ago left his college sweetheart Wendy (Kristy Swanson), and his calling to be a preacher, in order to pursue a business opportunity. Now with a high-paying executive gig, a trophy fiancé, and a new Mercedes, he hasnt considered a family nor felt the need to set foot in a church in fifteen years.
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But God has other plans. While on a thrill ride outside the city, his new car mysteriously breaks down, and hes visited by a tow truck driver named Mike (John Ratzenberger) who claims to be an angel sent to show Ben what his life would look like had he followed his true calling. Suddenly Ben wakes up in the middle of domestic chaos as his wife Wendy and daughters (including Disney Channels Debby Ryan) are getting ready for church, where Ben is the new pastor.
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Before he can get back to his old life, Ben must first embrace this reality and discover the value of faith and family, and perhaps restore his love for those who were heartbroken fifteen years ago: Wendyand God. In the tradition of Its a Wonderful Life and The Family Man, What If is a story of finding your true purpose in life.

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Hmm- well then- I just took a look at Jerry Jenkin’s home page and he provides a youtube link  to a behind the scenes video!  I also found a couple more on that account, and another youtube account containing director’s diaries.  Here are a couple to get you started.  I still have to view them myself…

What?  It’s time for my weekly post again?  I guess I should wrap up my camp series since I have been back for three weeks now…  Let’s see what I can write about.  How about the annual new thing at camp?  This year it was the water slide.  No, nothing fancy like at water parks- just a large, plastic(?) construction pipe shooting down into one of the camp’s many water holes- one that fortunately did not have a (deserved) name like Leech Lake.  Actually there were two pipes- only one of which the kids got to go down due to their age.  It went straight (well, angled) down into the lake.  The other one had a nasty upward curve at the end- this became the unofficial leader slide.  This pond, by the way, was 14 feet deep at maximum so  the kids wore life vests.  As well, there were a few lifeguards who were fortunately unneeded for our time there.  I helped a little with pushing kids down and managed to go down the leader slide twice during the time.  As leaders, we weren’t required to wear life vests and so I didn’t.   I have to say I didn’t entirely enjoy the experience, though it was certainly exhilarating.  It probably has to do with my paranoia of losing a contact in the water.  I wore goggles, but they were ripped off my head during the landing the second time I went down.  I felt it happen so I kept my eyes tightly closed while swimming, thereby keeping both contacts intact.  Needless to say, that was my last time down the slide.  After that I had a little fun dragging some of my campers through the water by their feet when they approached shore- something that could only be done because the life vests kept them afloat.

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An activity introduced last year was the pontoon boats.  The kids were taken on a tour over the lake on these boats, and even made a stop for some swimming fun and ice cream.  Unfortunately I didn’t get to partake this year due to overcrowding- only two leaders got to go with.  Notice in the above picture (remember, you can click on them for larger versions!) three different head-band colors on just the boys- that’s three different cabins without counting the girls cabins also present!  So, one leader promptly dragged down a kayak, intending to follow the pontoon boats and another quickly followed suit.  Never having been in a kayak before, I didn’t think following the pontoon boats would be suitable for me, but as I had been looking at these kayaks wistfully over the last few years I did decide to take one out.  I later learned that I could have just taken the kayak out to the swim and ice cream spot but I didn’t know at the time so I just paddled around the kids doing canoeing (an activity my cabin missed out on this year due to a windy day the day before).  It was fun, but I am not sure what I would have done had the kayak flipped.  I guess I would have had to slide out and drag it ashore as I can’t imagine how I could flip it back over while sitting in it or getting back in in the middle of the lake after sliding out and turning it over.  Fortunately I didn’t have to.

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Did I mention Leech Lake earlier? That last picture is Pastor Steve getting tossed into Leech Lake as one of the many rewards for treasures kids could find. After he climbed out, he counted out the leeches as he pulled them off. Don’t worry, there weren’t too many, but earlier in the week he had the service who had the most sign-ups shave his hair into a mohawk- poor Steve! My team lost this one by the flip of a coin (two services tied), oh well.

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My final say on camp week, unless I remember something else I wanted to write, is about the drama.  Every year there is drama included as part of the lesson time, but until this year I didn’t get to do it.  Part of this was due to uncertainty over whether I would even go to camp as summer work was unclear.  This year I was able to say that I was going for sure, but even so I didn’t get to perform until the last evening session.  Originally I was going to play a role as a soldier prepared for battle, but the day Pastor Steve came to get me during cabin rest time, my junior counselor was asleep so I couldn’t leave the cabin, and it was felt that I shouldn’t wake him up.  Instead, they switched my role to the Colonel who was waiting for the soldiers to be prepared (one was Private Slacker, so as you can imagine not everyone was prepared… long hair, wrong uniform, silly things in backpack, lack of understanding…).  On the last day everyone was surprised when Slacker was actually prepared much to the surprise of  his drill sergeant who was afraid to show him to the Colonel.  By the way, my name was Colonel Sanders- we were at war with the chickens of course- now why would chickens be at war with the Colonel?  Hmm…

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EDIT: A couple more waterslide shots I pulled from the camp video:
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A little something about the up front games.  They were based on a TV show apparently- Minute to Win it.  On one rainy morning the worship and teaching times were held inside and so we even got to see the blueprint for the game, chocolate unicorn:

If I recall, my team actually won that one though nobody completed “the task”, even with the required number being reduced to six.  Another up front game involved bouncing quarters into a bin that my cabin had happily colored for Miss Lisa, another leader of our church’s kid’s ministry.  No pie-in-face surprises that I know of like last year happened.

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One of the biggest changes from last year was the elimination of the morning competition in favor of a longer instructional time.  In some cases this new, longer instructional was two normal related instructionals tied together in the longer time, such as archery/riflery and wacky water games (actually two competition games from last year that didn’t count for points this year).  There were some new instructionals too.  On Tuesday was one of them- outdoor survival.  This was actually a combo of an older instructional, fishing, with a survival extension to it.  The first thing that happened was Jim, a leader in my cabin from last year, caught a bass which the first group cooked up while my group fished.  He later caught a trout for our group just before we switched.  For outdoor survival the instructor demonstrated cutting the fish, hopefully dead of lack of air by that time, and then taught how to start a fire with a magnesium block (with a flint strip on one side), a little paper and more natural fuel like leaves and twigs, and a pocket knife.  It looks like I failed this course as I was unable to help one of my 5th graders start and maintain a fire.

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A night event turned instructional was a hay ride.  Well, there was hay in a stack elsewhere in camp but not on the trailers.  One trailer was pulled by a 40s-era tractor, and ours (the “boys” trailer) was pulled by something a bit more recent- a little bulldozer like one of those Bobcats, but somewhat larger.  This was in one of the longer morning timeslots so this was a lazy time with a couple of stops, one at a big sand pit.

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We later returned to sand pit in the afternoon bike/hike instructional, though the kids didn’t get play time there this time around, being a shorter instructional.  We had the first day so the assigned instructors were still working out a few bugs such as taking the smaller group biking first, which would have been fine except we were to meet the hiking group along the way instead of back at the tent so there were not enough bikes for the second group- some of us had to run back to the tent and retrieve extra bikes.  I hope my advice of taking the larger group first was followed the rest of the week.  For the hike we walked through the woods for a time, off the literal beaten path.  And mostly downhill.  Did I mention the bike/hike met at the top of a very steep hill?  Well, at least we ended up back near the boys cabin area, so we were able to easily get ready on time for the flag-lowering.  Well, as much as my cabin was able to be on time anyway.  I learned quickly that I needed to organize their bathroom and changing time better.  Not that I did said organization in a timely fashion mind you, just that I learned it needed to be done.

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In any event, this post is getting kind of long, so… more to come.

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PS- A couple sand fort pics! Note: Click on any of the pics for larger versions.

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Sunday morning.  Most of my things were packed the night before, so I thought I would make it on time without a problem.  Big mistake.  The few things left still occupied enough time to make me about 20 minutes late.  There were no worries of course about missing the bus as leaders were scheduled to be there before dropoff time, so instead I got there in the midst of things.  Good thing I was only assigned to help load gear onto the bus.  At about 9AM everyone was checked in and we were off on our four-hour bus ride to Michigan.  The kids watched videos all the way there, but I later learned that our friends from Iowa only got to watch one video- on the way home.  In case you missed it, they are from Iowa and therefore had a trip time over double ours.  That means a lot of time remained for social activities, to put it mildly.  Anyway, we arrived at about 1PM (time zone change, you know) and were welcomed by big banners held by a cheering staff.  After unloading and moving into our cabins- I had a group of six plus a junior leader- we headed to the swim front for swimming tests and a fort-building competition.  Note the non-mention of lunch.  The kids brought their own lunches, and I even remembered my own this year (it was last year or the year before that I had left it sitting on the freezer at home).  This year I was a representative for the army team, moving out of the air force from the last two military themes prior two and four years ago.

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Starting a new paragraph just because I can, the fort contest began while various cabins two-by-two (or one by one in the case of a few very large girl cabins) took their swim tests.  The sand forts (remember- this is a swim front so there was a beach) generally had moats around them because digging in the sand was probably the easiest thing for the kids, but there were buckets for making buildings like garages for tanks and whatnot.  No air strip this year, though I suppose they could have done a helipad had one of us had thought of it.  The Iowa team, the marines once again, was not present for much of this but they did arrive in time to take 2nd place.  Army ended up 3rd, the highest we would ever get this week outside of the upfront games.  As for the swim tests, just about every cabin has its non-swimmer.  Mine had three, half the kids.  Well, it doesn’t mean quite as much for this age group as water activities are limited anyway.

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Since this along with cabin check-in and welcome/rules took up most of the afternoon, we can move on to after dinner.  Throughout the week post-dinner would mean the daily game competition, but for Sunday we just moved on to the teaching time.  It was here the theme for the week, the armor of God in Ephesians 6, was introduced.  Each day would focus on a different part of the armor but not until Monday.  the format was typical of a weekend service, but longer.  Game activity time (the competition game in the case of this week, gym or crafts in the case of weekends) followed by worship, teaching, and small groups.  Mornings would replace the field game with an up front game- unfortunately I missed most of these as I took this time to put in my contact lenses while the Nico, my junior leader, stayed with the kids.  This first small group time was a great way to really start to know the kids, most of whom I already knew through small group time over the weekends.  This year they tried to keep small groups from the weekend when possible- a matter simplified by there being three service times plus Iowa to make the four teams, each team then being divided into 4th/5th grades and boys/girls. four cabins per team.  Since I stuck with my 4th-graders from last year, my cabin was all 5th grade.

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Finally, there was free time on the courts where kids could play tetherball, nuke-em (played on a volleyball court where any number can play catch with the ball- dropping or missing causes an “explosion” so someone is out), four-square, trampoline basketball, regular basketball, or just hang around and talk or play in the sand.  They also had the opportunity to buy treats at the canteen.  I was disappointed to see that they doubled the price on pop this year, though I think they also lowered ice cream a bit though I didn’t buy any.  They told me that the higher price on drinks balances with the loss they take on ice cream, and keeping most things at $1 just makes managing the accounts that much easier.  I can’t argue with that, but I did make sure to stick with the one 20-oz offering all week- Dr. Pepper.  Everything else was in cans.  Of course, being right before bed, many kids chose Mt. Dew…  Speaking of bed, it was a little difficult getting my six to sleep that night. I could blame the Dew, but it was really mostly the excitement of being there.  Unfortunately Steve, the man in charge and two cabins away, had to visit our cabin not once but twice that evening.  Oops…

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more to come.

Okay, it has been a little over a week since my last post and it’s time to post, and now that I have deleted the spam comments that have shown up in the last week I can begin.  I see that some of you have been posting machines over the last few days, so hopefully mine will be seen among all your furious activity.   Let’s start with a quiz- which of last weeks videos were actually of my church choir and not just songs picked from the web by someone else?  C’mon- the post mentions one directly, and you might be able to logically deduce another one even if you don’t watch/haven’t watched them.  The answers are in the order of the videos in the previous post.  Good luck!  Answers will be forthcoming.

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So on to the post topic (and all said- “finally!” ), last night we had the second first of my small group events for the 4th-graders at my church.  Why the ordinal confusion at the beginning of this paragraph?  Well, last Saturday was the first scheduled event, for the Saturday night boys but one of the leaders backed out due to work so we are rescheduling it.  Last night was for the second-Sunday-service boys.  Or as it turned out, boy.  That’s right- out of over a dozen 4th-grade boys that service only one showed up.  So it was two leaders and one boy.  The chosen event was indoor mini-golf on a glow-in-the-dark course.  Being really nice out, and with outdoor courses starting to open, it was quite dead for a Friday night- no one in front of us though people started to come in behind us.  So since it was just the three of us, we kind of spoiled the one boy.  His mom gave him extra money for food or whatnot, but told him not to spend it on the video and redemption games, so what did Brian and I do?  Spent a few dollars on tokens for him of course!

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About the title of this post, even though last Saturday was canceled, I still can gather a statistic for that day as the one at church who was going to notify the parents of the cancellation failed to do so for some reason, so as far as the parents and kids knew it was still on.  The result?  Only the two confirmed students would have been there (only one showed up only to be disappointed since I called the other one personally as I had their number).  Lesson learned- if the parents don’t RSVP, the kids most definitely will not be there.

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So what was the deal?  I know warmer weather kept people away who would have otherwise dropped in, but these were planned events.  Do boys not like mini-golf?  Was it too expensive?  Do all of them have full plates outside of church to prevent participation in any event?  Well, the last can’t be true as there were plenty of kids at the official movie night last year and at the winter retreat.  I hope it wasn’t me!    Okay, not likely.   I really want the next one to be successful.  To be safe, I think we will not make it mini-golf.  Plus, hopefully something cheaper than the $8.50 this one cost.  Maybe we could have an all-ministry event again like a picnic and games (maybe hiking) at the forest preserve- something to perhaps bring up to the leadership.

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Edit: I asked the kids tonight about it and they pretty much agreed that mini-golf would have been fun, but the outdoor kind not indoors.  So, we will likely try this again for the middle of May.  Of course, this was the kids talking.  I didn’t get a chance to question the parents so who knows if cost or transportation was a consideration?  In any event, now to locate a local, fun outdoor course…

Whew. Okay, I have now gone through my junior high yearbooks and will soon have a post or two on that topic. Several memories, some forgotten mysteries, and general strangeness. More on that to come. I still have four high school band yearbooks (yes, the band had its own yearbook) and my one surviving yearbrickbook from my freshman year, but I won’t wait on those books- they will be a post or two all by themselves.

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So what have I been up to?  More of the same, really.  A couple days a week are dedicated to just looking at and fixing photos online, usually adjusting the color when they are too blue or brightening dim or dark photos.  I also report photo problems I cannot fix like photos taken at bad angles or ones so dark (or bright) that they can’t be properly fixed.  The other days I am still out in the field taking pictures at my own stores (soon to be given away so I can be free to fly out at any time) or helping another photographer who has been inundated as of late.  Just Tuesday, she did over 50 cars with the assistance of the co-owner.  She wants to give up some of the stores, but the owners like her too much apparently- for good reason as she is a very good photographer.

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Besides that I have been rehearsing for Easter choir.  I finally got the music I need to practice at home.  For some reason they thought it would be a great idea to distribute the private link to the music over facebook instead of just emailing it to everyone, so when I realized an email was not forthcoming, I had to finally ask someone in the choir for the music.  No, not everyone uses facebook and I have no intentions of ever signing up, especially after hearing about what’s happening with Myspace and a company called Infochimps right now.

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As for now, it’s a weekend of rest.  Two days off from work, no choir until next week, and no 4th/5th grade ministry.  I do enjoy what I do most of the time (even if fixing photos is a bit tedious), but it’s nice to have a rest now and then.

Okay, long commercial break over. We are on Saturday now I believe:

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7AM:  Lights turned on outside in the hallway, I wake up for the last time with a little headache but much less exhausted since going to bed.  I was exhausted because for three out of the four days prior I was up before 6AM looking for subbing jobs.  I found them, but the toll it took was severe.  So another sub-8 hour night, but I figured I would survive.  So everyone got up and I let some kids head to the bathroom to change out of their night clothes (they were too modest to change in front of others even if we were all guys- just wait until middle school boys, when you’ll be changing in the locker room in front of even more people).  Myself, I just wore my day clothes to bed- I had showered and put on some fresh clothes just before coming to the retreat so I would be able to do this.  20 minutes later, we were in line for breakfast.  The end of the line.  Oh, well.  Eggs, sausage, french toast sticks, fruit, and OJ.  Well, I think they were sausages- didn’t taste much like breakfast sausage.

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8AM: Eyes are really bugging me.  The clothes weren’t the only things I left on overnight.  The contacts I have are extended wear, so I figured at least once I could wear them overnight.  I had successfully worn them during naps before so I figured I could get away with overnight just once.  My eyes disagreed.  I put drops in when I woke up and several times since, but no go.  Eventually I just gave up and went back to my room to take them out and put on my glasses.  Unfortunately the damage had been done and my eyes would be bugging me for most of the day.  So, time for session 2 now.  Each session started with a video that was just pure entertainment.  I came back at the end of this video to sit with my guys (the high school leader in my room was keeping watch while I changed into my glasses).  Up front game again- this time it involved two from each team, a boy and a girl, one from my own cabin (you can figure out which one…).  The boys had to wear shaving cream on their faces and the girls threw cheese puffs on them.  Hilarious.  At the end of the time the one with the most cheese puffs stuck to them would win.  In the end I think one other team had more than us, but their boy made the mistake of moving before they could be counted, losing half a dozen puffs.  We won.  Come to think about it, I think we won Friday night too.  Worship followed with another four songs like last night.

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9AM:  Worship continued, and then Dr. Brian came on the scene and taught from Jonah 3, when the story started over with a better response from Jonah and this time and the Ninevites took the warning God gave them through Jonah seriously.  According to the Bible, they all repented of their wicked ways and came to God, and He spared them.  This has a fairly obvious (I hope) correlation to coming to Christ.  We even ended the time with a prayer giving the kids an opportunity to repent themselves and accept Jesus.  One of my guys raised his hand.  Unfortunately for me I had to let my high school leader- did I mention he was my high school leader at camp just two summers ago?- take the pleasure in talking to him about it during small group time since we decided to split the group for today’s small group times so we would each take five, and the boy who just accepted Christ was one of his five.  Since my cabin was being used for piano lessons, we had to use the room across from us.  We could have had both groups in there, but Eric decided to take his group elsewhere.  We talked about listening to God and accepting Christ for the next half hour.  My church being what it is, by fourth grade it seems that 90% say they have already accepted Jesus at some point, so I decided to lead the discussion in who Jesus is to them to let them see if they truly understand what it means to accept Him.

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10AM:  At this time we were supposed to start cleaning up the cabin.  Of course with piano lessons we had to wait so I let them exchange phone numbers with each other instead before we finally had to sneak in and grab our coats for game time downstairs.  The game time was split in two this time with two teams playing each other in a game outside and in the gym.  We were outside first.  Has anyone ever played a game where a balloon is tied to your ankle and you have to try to pop everyone else’s balloon before someone pops yours?  This game was similar.  A popsicle (still in its plastic!) was taped to the kids’ arms and they had to try to rip them off of the other team.  Once a child’s popsicle was lost, he or she was out.  Last one standing won.  Well, at the end of the time the team with the most standing won, which was the other team.  Oh well, can’t win ‘em all.  No, the kids couldn’t eat the popsicles during the game but they could at the end.

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11AM: The teams switched.  The second game was ice block relay.  Only, one of the ice blocks broke so it became scooter relay instead, at least for the boys.  I think next year they need to create extra blocks,  several extras.  Yes, this was the indoor game.  One camper sitting on the block of ice, another camper had to push the other to the other end of the gym where they would switch places and come back.  With one block broken, the boys were on scooters (the square variety that you sit on, not the sort that is long with a handlebar) the entire time while the girls got to play the game with the ice blocks.  At this time I felt like I was coming down with something.  I sat down most of the time against they gym wall.  At the end of this time we had won three games out of four, but since they had won the popsicle game it looked like they won overall.  We went back to our cabins to take off our coats and head down for lunch.  We weren’t last this time.

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12 noon:  I have to say I was very disappointed in this lunch.  It was chicken nuggets and mac & cheese.  Only, there was nothing to dip the nuggets in and the other dish was more macaroni than cheese.  In fact, I couldn’t taste any cheese at all.  The economy is affecting everyone, and it certainly took a tool on the food here.  One leader commented that he had eaten more junk over the last three meals than he had over the last six months.  Hmm.  Dessert was- not for me.  I am one who doesn’t like yogurt unless it’s the frozen variety and this is what they served.  Well, the lemonade was good.  At the end of this meal I finally had to pull the pastor aside and inform him that I was running a fever and my eyes were still bugging me.  Since I wasn’t feeling nauseous he suggested I just stay and rest during the next session which followed lunch and see if I improved.  After a short lunch, session 3 began.  The game this time had something to do with singing familiar tunes, but I don’t know exactly, nor who won.  I was in the back of the room with my eyes shut trying to rest.  The game leader I mentioned from Friday who stayed in our room because it was the one his boy was in kind of took over for me.

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1PM: Session 3 continued.  Worship, then the message by Dr. Steve on Jonah chapter 4 which I didn’t hear, and then small groups.  We had our small group time in our cabin (piano lessons were over) while Eric took his group back where they were earlier.  Again, I didn’t lead but sat while my stand-in took over.  In the end he had everyone take turns praying, which I was willing to do at least, but he chimed in immediately after the last boy.  No big deal.  We got ready for the final game.

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2PM:  Outside first again, the game this time was shooting popsicle sticks onto the church roof with really big slingshots.  You read that right.  They would have to pass a popsicle stick from camper to camper with their arms only and then the last one would run with the popsicle to the slingshot, set it in place, pull it back, and hope the popsicle made it to the upper roof for the greater point bonus.  Then (s)he would run to the end of the line and start passing a popsicle all over again.  Once all had the opportunity to shoot the popsicles, the game was over.  Our team finished first if I recall correctly for both the boys and the girls (who were in separate lines), but I don’t know who won for sure, only suspect from what place we finally came in for the entire day.  The second game was inside the gym again, where we played human foosball.  If you don’t remember this game from the other times I’ve written about it, it’s a game where the students are in four lines, hands held together, trying to kick really big balls into the other team’s goal.  The number of balls, and even the goals, changed over the course of the game.  The other team toasted us, but that was only because of one leader they had at the end of the offensive line who kicked in a good 60+% of their goals.  We had a leader at the end of our offensive line too, but he was smaller (a high-school freshman vs a leader in his 20s) and didn’t score nearly as much.  About this time I was on the upswing, feeling better overall.

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3PM: Time for the group picture.  Donning our coats once again, we headed back outside for the final time.  The children’s pastor, Steve, stood on the roof with someone else whose name escapes me and took a few pictures with his, I believe, video camera.  Meaning in the retreat video there may be more than just a couple of still pictures of this event.  Afterward, they both grabbed all the popsicles from the slingshot game and tossed them onto the ground.  A few of the more competitive kids grabbed the and… threw them back up!  It was wild out there for a bit.  After the popsicles were gone from the roof, they started throwing snowballs down at us.  This was more acceptable to be thrown back as snow doesn’t make as good a tasty treat as popsicles, so more joined in returning fire.  Eventually this all ended and we headed back in to clean our cabin and bring everything down to the gym.  After all, they would need the classrooms for church at 5:00.  I made sure everything was picked up, and even had to look for the owner of a pair of socks.  I found out when I got home that of course I left my own pair of socks from the night before (one article of clothing I did change).  Hopefully whoever found them wasn’t too disgusted as I had worn them for only a few hours.

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4PM: All packs brought down and the room cleaned up, we started free time.  This time wasn’t really very free, but the kids were free to be in one of four places for the next hour and a half.  In the gym they could play nuke ‘em, another game returning from summer camp played on a volleyball court.  They could watch a movie in another room- they showed Up!, a movie I recently watched in Blu-ray.  In a third room they could play board games or, eventually, watch some of Wall-E.  In the last room they could do crafts or play other games.  I floated around this entire time, keeping track as best I could of my cabin.  Most of my kids spent their time in the gym, so I did as well.

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5PM: Free time continued until 5:30, afterwhich we had dinner.  Dinner was better than lunch and consisted primarily of spaghetti.  Not much to say here really.

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6PM: Dinner wrapped up and we moved into the worship/lesson area and watched videos until church ended and the parents started coming in.  Once everyone was there, the final up front game commenced.  A father-son team was called up from the leaders who were there the entire time with their sons and they played the frozen t-shirt game, where wet t-shirts were folded up and frozen.  The dads had to try to get them apart and on their sons.  Our team won again, giving us at least three of the four up front games.  After this, we sang one worship song, Steve talked about the retreat to the parents, and jokingly as an afterthought the winner was announced.  Since we came in third place, I suspect we won none of the big games.  Remember, while I was able to see who won some of the games, I did not know who won Friday night nor who won the popsicle slingshot game.

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7PM: Parents were permitted to take their kids home and the gym rapidly emptied of parents, kids and their packs.  I got to go home and enjoy my fever which, while I was feeling better Saturday afternoon, still persisted through the weekend and made a return Tuesday, keeping me home from work.

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Well, that’s it.  I hope you enjoyed the read.  I just spent the last hour and a half writing this second part, so please excuse me for not going back and proofreading it.