Our Beautiful Blessings!: Random Stuff From August 2025

Here are the random things from August.

While we were at Youth Summer Camp, Justine went to Silverwood with his family. He bought Ella a new bear...they named him Cuddles.

On Friday, August 8th, we went to Hobby Lobby so Ella could buy some more beads. While she was looking at all the beads these two were goofing around.

Since Jack got all those Disney Cars for his birthday he and Zeke really wanted to make Willie's Butte from the movie Cars. They made this all on their own. They are SO creative!

On Sunday, August 10th, we had a youth day at Wild Waves. Since Ella and Jack both worked there they were able to save up enough free passes for everyone to go. They used a total of 12 free passes. We did have a couple other people come with us, but they had their own season passes so it worked out perfectly!

This was right after Justine got his haircut. I thought it looked great and he said that it must be terrible because if parents like your haircut that means it's no good.

The day we were there it was so crazy busy! I should have known with it being a Sunday, but it was the only day that worked for us. For some reason the wave pool kept getting shutdown for 45 mins at a time. I never did get a good explanation as to why, but if we had paid for tickets I would not have been happy.

We of course came right after church....we ate pizza from Costco for lunch and then were on our way. I had to park almost all the way in the back of the parking lot and the only place we could find to set up our stuff was on the ground to the right of the wave pool. It was nuts! It was also SOOOO hot that day!

The youth all split up into groups and went their own way. I went with Bobby and his kids. We did a few rides on the dry side and then Abby and I came back over to the wet side to just hang out. The youth would stop by and check in every once in a while. Abby and I did go on a couple of the tube slides together. It was crazy how you'd randomly see people you knew even with it being so busy.

My plan at first was for us to eat dinner at the park, but the lines were so long and the food was so expensive we decided to change that up a bit and take the youth to DQ instead.

Once it got closer to closing time the youth started coming back to get their stuff and then changing out of their wet clothes.

My favorite thing from DQ is a Peanut Buster Parfait, but they're too big and I can never eat the whole thing. This time around I ordered a small hot fudge sundae and asked for peanuts and it was a smaller version of a PBP! So yummy!

Since the passes were free the kids didn't really need to pay anything, but I don't like the idea of people getting something for free because then they don't have any skin in the game and it's much easier to decide not to come and then the free ticket ends up going to waste. So we had each of the kids chip in $10 with the thought that I'd pay for everyone to have ice cream at the park. When it was time for me to leave church one of the other youth leaders slipped me a $50 bill for "incidentals". Most of the kids paid, but some of them forgot to bring money.

When we got into DQ I told the kids they should try to share. For instance they have the 6 piece chicken strip basket it would be easy to split that and each person would get 3 chicken strips and some fries. Some of the kids got ice cream treats and some didn't. I just had them come up one at a time and tell the cashier what they wanted. The guy told me the total when we were almost done and it was over $100. I didn't even know how much cash I had on hand, but I just knew it would work out. The last couple people came up and ordered and the total came to $139. I started counting out all the money I had and it came to $130. Craig had told me he would cover whatever was left over so he only had to cover $9!!!

The kids all got what they wanted and were super happy!

A couple of the youth got picked up directly from DQ, but we took the rest of them back to the church. We were a little bit later than we thought we'd be, but the parents were totally cool with it. It helps that quite a few of the youth are now driving as well.

On Wednesday, August 13th, I was playing around with the white board and decided to turn it into an announcement board since we had so many fun things coming up. It was fun to make!

Justine threatening to erase all my hard work! Stinker!

Ella really wanted to have a day at Wild Waves with just her and Justine. Thankfully Ella had earned enough free passes for her to take both Justine and I on Wednesday, August 20th. I parked myself in front of the wave pool for a day of relaxation and reading.

They hung out with me for a bit until the park actually opened and then they changed into their swim clothes and headed out to have fun. They would come back over every now and again and check in and we did ate lunch together. We were able to stay until 4:30ish and then had to leave so we could head to Saltwater State Park for the Youth Beach Night.