A Fun Week!

The past week was a lot of fun -especially for Maya and Kurtis.

For me, it was a challenge to get up early every day from Monday through Friday, get myself ready, the kids dressed and out the door to arrive at church by 9:30 a.m.

Why?

Well, so Maya and Kurtis could attend Vacation Bible School at our church! And they did very much enjoy the time spent there from 9:30 a.m. until noon.

For the most part, I enjoyed it too although my presence there during that time period was to manage something I haven't done for a long time now -get a light lunch prepared to give to the kids attending the program ready to be served by 11:30 a.m.

I've worked the VBS program in the past but not as being the person in charge in the kitchen so I was more than a bit nervous about this undertaking. However, the ladies who had designed the lunch program and the menus had done a very good job of planning the menus so that each day, the items to be prepared were quite simple plus, I did have several other women from our parish who showed up each day to help serve the meals too and for that -for their help -I am very, very thankful and grateful to them!

The first day though looked like this program was not going to amount to much as the attendance the first day consisted of my two grandkids, the three grandsons of another lady from our church and the instructor's little two-year-old son! Yeah, we started out with only 6 children attending but the next day, we doubled that number and the rest of the week we fluctuated between 11 or 12 children there then.

Each day, as I said, I had a different menu to follow and each menu was such that the actual preparation wasn't anything complicated. Monday, we served the kids hot dogs, fresh veggies and Ranch dip, with the veggies consisting of broccoli and cauliflower florets, carrot sticks and celery sticks and for dessert, they got rice krispie squares. Tuesday, it was ham and cheese sandwiches with the veggies and brownies. Wednesday, I cooked up two large batches of macaroni and cheese -one was made from "scratch" and the other, using the box mixes as some kids (my granddaughter included in this number) don't like homemade mac'n'cheese. (Yeah, Miss Maya recently decided she no longer wants the homemade mac'n'cheese I've been serving her and Kurtis since they each began to eat table foods and now, out of the blue, she no longer wants that but will only eat it if it is made from a box mix. Go figure that one out, huh?

Thursday's meal was tacos -and again, the same accompaniments with brownies or rice krispy squares for dessert. But Friday's meal was probably the most popular one as the lady with the three grandsons attending the program purchased 4 big pizzas -two with pepperoni and two that were just plain cheese pizzas and she also got 4 dozen cupcakes from the bakery at a local store for their dessert.

Friday was also a special day for the kids too as they got a big treat that the weather was quite cooperative and therefore they could wear their swimsuits and play on the front lawn with a hose, a big beach-ball type apparatus that you hooked the hose up to it and it sprayed water in various directions plus, they also got to play with water-filled balloons too -tossing them at each other and every getting soaked.

Here's a couple videos I managed to get of some of the activities at Vacation Bible School this year.

First off -the opening exercise that the teacher (Danielle) let the class to sing and dance and get all fired up to learn the teachings of this program -titled Operation Overboard.



And then there were the fun-filled water activities -simplistic, yes, but those kids really had a great time with them all the same!



The little boy in the green trunks is my grandson, Kurtis -and trust me, he had an absolute blast getting sprayed by that big old beach ball sprayer contraptions!

While the younger kids seemed to enjoy the water balloons mainly as something to throw onto the sidewalk and watch them break, the older kids -especially the teens who were there to help with the classes -were the ones who really had a blast chasing each other all around and trying to hit one another with those very full balloons!



And, now -after having survived managing the kitchen duties for Vacation Bible School and even getting a lot of compliments too (some came from the kids, no less) if I end up being in charge of the kitchen again next year, I won't be near as nervous about being able to handle that bit of stress!

It's really a great program and gives the kids a little bit of instruction in our faith as well as a chance to do little craft-type items that they can then bring home at the end of the week.

And, I'm really thankful that even though the attendance is not very large these days -unlike when I was a kid and all the protestant churches in our township joined forces and we held Bible School then for two weeks in the high school building and generally had at least 100 kids in attendance there then -that this program is still being presented for the children of our church.

Definitely worth the effort!!!