Last year I had such a fun time taking the youth to the Puyallup Fair that I decided to take them again this year. We met at the church at 9:30am on Saturday, September 20th and took the church van down to Puyallup. This time we had more kids that were able to come so that made it even more fun. One thing that was a bummer was that Michael wasn't feeling well that day so he ended up staying home to rest since we had plans later that night and he didn't want to have to cancel them.
First stop was the Starbucks across the street from the Gold Gate.
The student all had their tickets and I had an educator ticket. A couple of the students even had extra student tickets. We asked a group if they needed tickets and they didn't. There really weren't a lot of people coming through the gate at the same time we were so we just left all the tickets sitting on this statue thing for people to grab if they needed them.
The first place we headed was the free archery place. I didn't take as many pictures this time around. Some of us did archery and then we went over and play chess. A couple people were still playing chess so Lina, Amy and I sat with a guy at another booth and learned how to play Bridge. It was a lot of fun!
This whole area had been under construction last year so the Sasquatch had been off to the side. This time around he was in this courtyard area right when you walked in.
125 years of the Puyallup Fair....still not gonna call it The Washington State Fair.
We did all sorts of stuff during the day. We spent a ton of time in the Showplex wandering around enjoying the samples and finding things to buy. Ella and Justine bought Jibbitz for their Crocs. Jack bought a 3D printed monkey for him and Zeke. Lina and Amy bought this container of fun cute mini trinkets. I bought dip mixes and a ring.
We did go and check out the piglets...they're so cute!
We were trying to find other small animals like bunnies or guinea pigs, but I don't think they were at the fair that day. It was the second to the last day the fair was going on. We did see this plastic cow and it didn't have a sign on it saying you couldn't get on it so Ella climbed up for a picture. Jack tried to get on it after Ella, but it wasn't anchored to the ground so it almost tipped over. Jack inadvertently went cow tipping! Thankfully it didn't actually tip all the way over.
For lunch we all got our own things at different times. I got my normal order which is a gyro...yummy!
I told the kids that it's pretty much a rip off to pay for tickets to go on the rides, but a couple of them had free ride tickets so they were able to go on a few rides. The lines were crazy nutso though so that limited the rides they were able to go on. They definitely had fun though!
As it got closer to the time we needed to leave we decided to get all the desserts we wanted. Lina had some leftover food tickets that she gave me so I got my Dole Whip for free which was super cool.
Ella and Justine got a crepe and a Dole Whip.
We headed out around 3:30pm since Michael and I had plans. I got the kids back to the church and then Jack and Ella took Justine home. While I hurried and drove the church van back to Pastor's house and then drove home. I had just enough time to change clothes and get freshened up for the next fun adventure.
Michael's birthday gift to me was a sunset dinner cruise on Lake Union!
It was such a gorgeous night spent with a gorgeous guy!
Michael paid for us to have a table at the window.
He ordered a charcuterie tray to be brought out once we got there. It was so yummy....I love cheese! They also gave us each a glass of champagne.
The boat pulled away from the dock at 7pm. The sky was so pretty with the city in the background.
Our table was on the first floor but once we started moving we walked upstairs and went out on the upper deck to get some pictures.
Lake Union is such a busy lake....there was all sorts of activity on the water. Sailboats, kayaks, paddleboards, party boats...we even saw one of those hot tub boats!
I wore my jean jacket and it was enough to keep me warm while we were outside. We really couldn't have asked for a nicer night.
I forgot to take pictures of our main dishes. Michael ordered one chicken entree and one beef that way I could choose which one I wanted. I actually ate a little of both meals. Poor Michael still wasn't feeling the greatest so his appetite wasn't what it normally was. He ended up going to Urgent Care the next day and got some antibiotics that thankfully they helped him get better in a few days.
We each got a piece of cheesecake with our dinner, but Michael also ordered something special since it was my birthday.
Chocolate covered strawberries! They were so so yummy!
During our boat ride we cruised past the boat house community where the Sleepless in Seattle boat is. We also went into Portage Bay and through the Montlake Cut over into Lake Washington. By that point it was pretty dark out, but fun to see all the lights shining from the houses and buildings. It was also nice just getting to sit and chat with my hubby.
It such a fun day spending time at the fair with the youth and then getting to go on a date night with Michael doing something that we wouldn't normally do. Great memories for sure!
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.
We live in such a gorgeous state!
Families were encouraged to come out and we did have a few parents come and bring the younger siblings.
We prayed for the food, ate dinner and played some fun games.
When the sun started going down Ella and Justine wanted to try to get some cool pictures.
I love this one!
It's harder than it looks to get it just right, but they still turned out cute.
Ahhhh!
We finished off our Beach Night by sitting down on the rocks and singing a couple worship songs. It was a really fun night!
Love this guy even though I don't like his sunglasses. :)
On Sunday, August 31st, after church Justine gave Ella a gift. He bought her a Faith shirt that matched the one he already had.
I decided for fun write down all the matching clothes they have.
The next day we woke up pumped! It was the last full day of camp. We were early to chapel so we got the front row.
So I just had to take a group picture!
These kids are Cray-Z!
They played Church Clap that morning and it was fun getting to dance up front. There was even one girl that said she couldn't learn the dance and I said...."Wait a second if I can learn it so you can you!" Then I showed her how the dance went and she got it!
Prior to coming down for chapel us girls set out to keep our cleanest cabin GOAT trophy. A bunch of the girls had the same blankets that you can smooth out and write words on them so we used those as props. We spelled out Amazing Unicorn using two of the blankets.
Then on Mikaela's bed which was right as you walked in the door we wrote our camp theme. I added the flames at the end.
We also set up a shrine to our GOAT trophy!
Ella was feeling SO much better; she did not in fact want Daddy to come pick her up. We ended up running into Nurse Anne and I had to get her picture with Ella. She was so happy she was feeling better and able to enjoy the rest of camp.
Another way that our teams were able to get points was by completing daily challenges that were specific to our team....each team got a different challenge. Our first daily challenge on Tuesday was we had to speak like the turtle Crush from Finding Nemo all through dinner. That challenge was so funny and some youth even decided to speak in an Australian accent for 24 hours! The second challenge was anytime Chloe, she was one of the leader, walked past us we had to do a cat walk behind her. Us girls did really well at this challenge but the guys got away with not really having to do it because whenever they saw Chloe they hurried up and went somewhere else so she didn't walk past them.
On Thursday our final individual team challenge was we had to show up at the Color Wars challenge acting like elderly people. I wish I had someone film this....it was so fun! First thing we did was went out into the field to find sticks to use at canes, some people wore glasses, a couple guys put a shirt inside their shirt to make it looks like they had a grandpa belly and then us girls used our bandanas and tied them around our head like grandmas do when they don't want to get their hair wet. We committed to this challenged. Us girls started acting like grandmas from the moment we walked out of our room. We were walking leaning over our sticks and saying things like, "What time is?", "Where are these young whipper snappers going?" "Have you seen my teeth?". The best one was when Ella was leaning over holding her back and saying, "Oh my back" and then she actually tweaked her back so she said, "Ohhh...my back!" As you can imagine we drew a lot of attention to ourselves. It was so hilarious and so much fun!
Stephen was in the Unicorn for our last Color Wars challenge. A few of the youth use their canes to make flags for our team.
If you've ever wondered if we have a fun, goofy Pastor...look no further!
More selfies!
Our Color Wars challenge that day was called Walking Soccer. Once they announced that I knew we were going to do well since we had least 7 people from our youth group that have played soccer.
The way they set it up was a bracket system so two teams played and the one that lost was out, but the winner moved on to play again later with another winning team. While we were waiting our turn to play we had to entertain ourselves.
Daniel and Mikaela are brother and sister...they were having fun using these plastic baseball bats as swords. I love this picture of the Unicorn. Stephen is just standing there in a Unicorn costume and it's like it's the more normal thing in the world.
Waiting our turn! The Chipmunk mascot was the referee of the game. He had to have his head out of the costume though so he could fully see.
It looked hilarious!
Here's our team on the field!
Each team was only on the field for 3 minutes of play time, but it was taking so long because of penalties and such that would stop the clock. After the 3 minutes they moved to where it was sudden death with just the goalies and one player from each side. Our team chose Jeremiah to be the one-on-one player. The hardest part of this whole thing was the walking part. From the sidelines we just kept screaming, "WALK!" Jack was our goalie and he did a great job blocking a shot that could have cost us the game....oh and the goalies were inside these inflatable balls. The player from the other team ended up stepping on Jeremiah's heels over and over so he got a penalty and that led to Jeremiah getting the ball and scoring the point we needed to win. It was pretty epic!
I got it all on video! It was so fun seeing our team rush out to congratulated Jeremiah. In the end the games had taken so long they end up not having the winning teams play each other they all just got points for their team.
To celebrate we tried to created a pyramid with the girls. This was as good as it got...it's a lot harder than you think it would be. Especially for the poor people on that bottom row!
During free time on this last full, I really encouraged the kids to work on their Scripture memorization. There had been a few of us that had been slowly working on it throughout camp, but I found out that morning that if you had 100% participation....even if people only memorized one verse, but everyone on your team memorized at least one verse you'd get extra points. I made it my goal to make sure everyone memorized one verse. Most of the students went above and beyond and memorized way more than that. I think we had 5 people memorize all the verses that were assigned...that included me and Pastor. I loved watching them work so hard to put God's Word in their heart!
Our Kitchen Duty for this day was to help clean up from dinner so that meant we got to be the first in line to eat. We loved that!
In order to get points for your team for Scripture memorization you had to say your verses to either one of the referees which were Pastor Tim or Pastor Rob or to the one fairy which was Sue.
Pastor Tim and Pastor Rob hung out a lot down at the picnic tables so the youth could have access to them. They sat at the tables together for probably hours. Pastor Rob is such a sweet, caring guy. I wish his church was closer so ours so our youth groups could get together! Since Pastor Tim & Pastor Rob were known as the referees if someone memorized a Scripture perfectly they would yell, "Touchdown!", if they got it almost right they would yell, "Field Goal!".
Daniel hadn't memorized any verses and he didn't think he would be able to, but then he memorized one and realized it wasn't as difficult as he thought it was. Then he went into a level of focus I've never seen and he memorized every single verse in just one day. He was a beast! Here he is literally right before Chapel opens for the evening, which was the cut off time to get your verses memorized, saying verses to Sue. I was so proud of him and his dedication!
I didn't want us to miss out on points so I took it upon myself to make sure the verse cards were delivered to Sue.
We were also told that we needed to bring all our bead necklaces to Chapel that night. These were used throughout the week. Everyone got one the first night and you were able to challenge people to a game of rock-paper-scissors. If you won they had to give you their beads. You could also barter and say....how about we play for 2 beads instead of one. Jazzy was the queen of the beads! In the end we had just under 50 bead necklaces!
The last night Chapel was on fire! Worship was so good, preaching was awesome and then they called us leaders up to pray for the kids to receive the whatever they wanted to receive at camp. Oh man I stood up there and felt like a complete fraud! I haven't ever received the gifts of the Holy Spirit specifically tongues...even though I felt in my spirit that God wanted me to.
Let me back up a bit and explain...growing up in the late nineties I was exposed to the revivals that were going on in our area. Actually my Christian School was right at the heart of it. I saw and experienced a lot. Some good and some bad. The revival started off as a great thing, but didn't necessarily end as a great thing. I also think that us youth were not counseled enough and so that resulted in behavior that wasn't actually genuine, it was faked. So I had walls up in regards to tongues or prophesy....really tall walls...like concrete walls!
The church Michael and I went to when we first got married was a Spirit filled church. People spoke in tongues and prophesied, but whenever anyone would do that I would just sit down and start praying asking God to close my ears if this wasn't from Him or let me hear if it was from Him. As for me receiving the gifts of the Spirit I was completely shut off to that. In fact at RCC years ago I had a lady that sat in front of me turn around and tell me that Father wanted me to receive the gift of tongues and if I wanted to she could pray for me right then and it would happen. That's when I said, "No, thank you!" and walked away.
Fast forward to this year and I've been feeling the Holy Spirit work in me and slowly but surely soften those concrete walls that I've built up. Once I found out about the name of the camp being Blaze I knew that God was asking me to take a step of faith and trust Him. I was just so scared....scared because of what happened in the past and not wanting this to be in any way, shape, or form from me.
I ended up praying for Jack and then I walked away from the front because I saw Nurse Anne in the back. I knew from hearing her talk about it with some students the other day that I could open up to her and she'd hear me out. It was absolutely a divine placement me being in her room right when she was talking about the gifts of the Spirit and then her coming into Chapel at that moment. I walked straight towards her and I told her my story and that I really wanted to receive whatever God wanted for me I was just so scared. She completely calmed my fears and told me it was going to be so easy. She said I just had to be open to it and then He was going to do the rest.
It honestly felt like I was having to step off a cliff with no safety rope. She said that she was going to start praying over me and then it was going to happen. She was so calm about it! She started praying and then I started just saying "Jesus, Jesus" over and over again and then it happened. My mouth was moving and I was speaking in a language I've never spoke before and it wasn't me. I started crying and then I started laughing and then I started crying again. It really was the easy! It was the most amazing thing I've felt in my life! The Holy Spirit had given me the gift of tongues. At first I was really nervous to say anything about it because of my years of apprehension, but later as chapel was moving to a close I felt like I just needed to rip the Band-Aid off and so I told a few people. Pastor Tim was so excited for me. A couple other students from our church also received the gift of tongues that night as well. It was truly a night I'll never forget and I'm so thankful that I followed the Holy Spirit. I listened, obeyed and trusted Him fully!
The last day at morning chapel we watched one final video of all the activities we did on Thursday. We also found out that us girls won for cleanest room again. It was actually such a close race that they got another trophy of sorts for Pastor Rob's cabin so we shared 1st place with them. We ended up getting to keep the GOAT trophy and take it home!
The main thing we needed to do that day was pack up, clean our rooms / cabins and the common areas we were assigned to. We brought our luggage down and then packed it into the van and the U-Haul. I wasn't going to the back to the church; I was just taking the Storer kids and my kids with me so we made sure that I only had luggage for the kids that were riding with me. Once that was all done we still had time to play around and do some stunting!
Thankfully no one was injured during the stunting!
After all the cabins, room and common spaces inside and outside were inspected and approved it was time to wrap up camp. The very last event was held outside at the amphitheater. All throughout camp during chapel they would ask questions and if you raised your hand and got it correct you would get a gift card. Once I was tasked with passing out gift cards and Pastor Noma just told me to give everyone in the middle 4th row a gift card and that was where I was sitting so I got one too. At this last event, Jack got a gift card for reciting the theme verse Act 1:8.
This was when we also found out which team won in regards to points. We had been working so hard all week memorizing Scripture and I really felt that was going to the be the deciding factor. On Thursday the green team had been memorizing a bunch so I was sure we were going to have some competition. On Thursday morning, Pastor Noma had let everyone know where the teams stood in regards to ranking and we were in the lead then, but not by a huge margin at all I think it was only by 800 points. That sounds like lot, but if you memorize just one verse you got 500 points. I knew we still needed to work hard if we wanted to take first place.
Come Friday morning we all felt pretty good about our standing, but at the same time we were prepared to be excited for another team as well. I also was talking with the kids about being humble and not overly celebratory, but honestly when it came down to it we were 99.9% sure that we got first place!
As for not celebrating...yeah we totally did!
The standing were...
1st - Yellow Team 135,000 points
2nd - Green Team (Pastor Rob's) 116,000 points
3rd - Red Team 78,000 points.
Pastor Rob actually came up to Pastor Tim at the end and said if he ever had to lose to someone he was okay with it since he was losing to him. We love Pastor Rob!
Everyone from our team ended up winning a $10 Chick-Fil-A gift card and a 1st place medal. It was a really awesome cherry on top to the end of a fantastic week at camp.
