The End of Summer

One afternoon this week, Josiah had a sixth grade boys get together at church.  He is entering the student ministry which is grades 6-12.  This was a small group get-together so the junior high pastor could meet the new kids coming in.  They had about 10-11 boys there and they played games outside and chatted a little.  [And as a side note, I cannot believe Josiah is entering 6th!]  On the drive home, Josiah was telling us what all he had done.  At the beginning they asked the boys to say their name, favorite sport, favorite movie, and favorite drink.  When it got to Josiah's turn he said, "Josiah, competitive drawing, Lego Ninjago, sparkling grape juice."  He said he couldn't think of a sport he liked, so he made one up.  Later on, a lady from church came outside to ask the boys if they had any questions about KSM (student ministry).  None of the boys were saying anything.  Josiah said he didn't want to be rude with no one asking a question, so he asked, "Do you like Dude Perfect?"  This awakened all the boys and the conversation quickly devolved into Dude Perfect videos.  When it came time for games, they played wiffle ball and kick ball.  Josiah volunteered to be team captain because he knew he wasn't good at sports so he tried to get the kids who were good at sports on his team.  It worked.  They won at wiffle ball.  Smart kid.  He said he had a great time and that he couldn't wait to do the student ministry.  Why?  Because on Wednesday nights they have pizza and Sunday mornings they have donuts and sometimes pancakes.  Our skinny-minny loves his food.  (We don't know when we'll go back to church, but at least he's looking forward to it.)

While Josiah was at church, Henry, Caroline, and I went to run a few errands and they got a little playground time.  It has been months since they were on a playground so they were really happy.  They asked me to take lots of pictures.  

While we were driving to church, totally out of the blue Caroline announced "Somebody quit."  What?  "Somebody quit at Taco Bell."  How do you know that?  "They have a 'Now Hiring' sign."  Observant one she is.  

This week the kids have been squeezing out every last bit of summer they possibly could.  They have all been waking up in the five o'clock hour so they can do media.  It's only a summer thing that they can watch things right when they wake up (on weekday mornings).  I clearly remember sleeping in during the summer months when I was a kid.  If I woke up at 5:30 a.m., I'd be excited that I could sleep for three more hours.  They have played with the neighbor kids a lot.  They have watched lots of Dude Perfect and then practiced bottle flipping on each other.  

Henry bottle flipping on Josiah

We spent a lot of time one evening trying to capture Benson's graceful, effortless jumping over our pile of tree branches.  The kids kept running the path they wanted him to follow, but Benson would usually bump into them instead of jumping behind them.  We finally got a semblance of it by throwing a stick.  He loves his sticks.  It was hard to capture, but the dog can jump.  

Our asthma cat neighbors from last week were moving the last bits out of their house this weekend.  At one point they put up a small sign saying "garage sale."  Josiah took one look and saw a giant dollhouse.  He told me he was going to go over there and ask if he could buy it for $1.  I gave him a bit more money than that, but he still got it for $1 because, as they told him, "you saved our cat."  He lugged the whole thing home for Caroline and presented it to her in her room.  It's a really nice Fisher Price doll house.  It's an older model, so it's better built.  Definitely worth more than a dollar.  After Josiah dropped it off, he asked if he could go back over to see if he could find something for Henry.  He ended up coming back with an electronic robot that dances and raps.  Another dollar.  We haven't gotten it to rap per se, but we were only able to change out six of the seven batteries it required.  Meanwhile, Todd said he was going to go over there and give the neighbors money to stop selling things to our kid. :)

A lot of time this week was spent on readying the school room for our school start tomorrow.  We changed the table placement, so they are all in a row facing the white board.  This was at the request of Caroline and they're all excited to try out the new seating plan.  We'll see how long that excitement lasts.  ;)  

We're also going to spend our week paying attention to the two hurricanes in the Gulf.  I think the weathermen said that's never happened before.  No doubt it chose to happen in 2020.