Every year, our church seminary at the high school chooses a day and serves lunch to the entire student body. With 3500 students and even more faculty, this is no small task. I’m not sure how many they actually cooked, but I know they ordered 3000 hamburgers and 2000 hot dogs. That is a lot of grill space between 2 lunch periods.

Steve and I were asked to help serve food and I was more than happy to oblige because I have a special place in my heart for not only Hallie’s friends – but teenagers in general. And let me tell you – this event did not disappoint.

I know teenagers get a bad reputation – they’re lazy, they don’t wear clothes that fit, they’re selfish, they sleep past noon, they’re disrespectful…the list could go on and on. That has not been my experience at all – in fact quite the opposite and this lunch confirmed just how good they are. I was impressed with every kid who walked through our line saying please and thank you. They were laughing and talking with each other.

Teenagers are awesome. Moody perhaps, but they deserve more credit than we give them and they are going to change the world for good.

Post a Comment

This kid loves his Devin Booker jersey. If it was up to him, he would wear it every day. But like any reasonable parent, we’ve told him he has to wash it once in a while. His next question of course was, “How many times can you wear a jersey before you wash it?” Which I didn’t have a great answer for because sometimes he wears it to school and sometimes he just puts it on when he’s watching a game – so it kind of depends.

Yesterday I noticed he put on his jersey again after just having worn the day before without washing it. I knew it was going to be a battle because it was game day and he loves to wear it on game days. With games on both Friday and Saturday, I let it slide and told him he would need to put it in his dirty clothes after.

This afternoon, he came into my bedroom and casually asked again how many days he could wear the jersey before needing to wash it. I thought I was pretty clear yesterday but evidently not clear enough. There is a game tomorrow so he made sure to put it in the wash tonight!

Post a Comment

More pictures to sum up our spring break at the beach. Good times had by all – except our friend’s daughter (Hallie’s age) who was sick the entire time and in bed most of the week. 🙂

The only picture we have of all the kids!

Post a Comment

We spent last week at the beach and admittedly, I was not totally looking forward to the trip. The weather forecast was dismal and the beach is infinitely more fun when the weather cooperates. But I’m happy to report regardless of the not-so-fantastic weather, we made the most of it and had a great time.

We had a few cold days with brief periods of the sun shining. We also had a good amount of wind – which was a bummer. But then our friend pulled out his fun kites and suddenly the wind didn’t seem like such a downer. I’m embarrassed how sore I was after spending some time letting the kite pull me around.

We knew the water was going to be cold so we made sure we had plenty of non-water beach activities and they kept everyone busy.

The older kids/adults enjoyed bottle bash and spike ball.

One of my favorite beach games is bocce ball – it doesn’t really require a skill like bottle bash or spikeball so all ages enjoy it. I’m particularly good at it which is I why I enjoy it so much. 🙂

The kids spent more time digging with shovels than they did any of the games we brought. They dug for hours – no joke. Hunter had blisters all over his hands and we kept telling him to stop but he was creating quite the little cove complete with steps out and a nice comfortable seating area.

At night the tide came in and destroyed their masterpieces so the next day they just started digging again. They got their workout for sure.

Although the kids got in the water a few times, I’m pretty sure the boogie boards got more use on the sand hill than they did in the waves. They made up so many games playing on this hill. This hill is also the reason why I’m still washing sand out of Cannon’s hair.

The skim boards were also a big hit because it didn’t really require getting in the cold water.

The frisbees also got a lot of use as well as the football and soccer ball.

I quickly realized the kids were going to have fun regardless of the less-than-ideal weather. I was bundled up in a coat for the majority of the time, but they didn’t seem to mind it much. It helped that we went with good friends and I’m not sure we’ve ever been together and not had great time. They were fun beach buddies for the week.

Post a Comment

“Describe your perfect date.”
“April 25th — because it’s not too hot, not too cold. All you need is a light jacket!”
-Miss Congeniality

Yesterday I left the house to run some errands. I typically run cold, but I was outside in a short sleeve shirt and I was 100% comfortable. It was 67 degrees, overcast and absolutely no breeze. For me, it was the perfect temperature and I had such a content feeling.

For some reason this thought made me have a flash back to our Milwaukee days. We endured such long and cold winters and then the first nice spring day we were outside basking in the beautiful weather. It was probably 50 degrees – and it probably snowed two days later. But I remember having that same content feeling of being comfortable.

What was fascinating to me was how something as simple as the weather could trigger so many feelings and memories.

I just wished we stayed in the comfortable weather stage a little longer. I’m going from my winter coat one day to shorts the next, either cold or hot. Our “spring” weather is never a long enough season.

Post a Comment