The Sunday 8

Whew! What a week!

1. First up: screen-free week. It was ok! It definitely got harder as the week went on. Soccer camp was exhausting and I really wanted to plop Levi in front of the TV so I could take a nap. Plus Lena was sick, and usually I abandon all screen time limits when a kid is sick and just let them veg. But for the most part it went ok. We stayed busy a lot and found things to do. On Monday, Levi got up at 7 and I got up with him. We went and got donuts, listened to an audiobook, and played with Legos. That night was the first night of soccer camp and we didn't get home 'til after 10. I thought for sure he'd be exhausted and sleep in, so I was dismayed when he bounded into my room before Justin even got up for work. When I complained about him getting up so early, Levi said, "It's not early! It's 6:11!" 🤦 But he was content to lay in bed with me and listen to his audiobook for another hour so I got to sleep a little more at least. He slept in later as the week went on and we continued to stay out late at soccer camp every night. This morning, he didn't get up until 9:20!! I think that's the latest he's slept in his whole life! 

I gave up coffee for a few weeks in an attempt to help my belly. It didn't really help, and I needed the caffeine this week. Haha.

2. The biggest life-saver for a week with no screens was audiobooks. Levi needs to be constantly entertained, and if he can't turn on the TV, he's usually at least somewhat mollified by listening to a book. He listened to three this week (all from the series Two Dogs in a Trench Coat), and a bunch of podcast episodes. We also did a lot of puzzles, played with the straw connectors, games like War and Connect 4, he rode his bike a lot, we tried flying kites (it was a fail), and we spent a lot of time at the pool. On Thursday, I took the kids to Once Upon to shop the 90% clearance sale. Lena is a classic second-child in that she never gets new clothes - she only gets hand-me-downs. But that's begun to grate on her, and for 90% off, I decided to let her pick out whatever she wanted from the store. She was thrilled to get a bunch of "new" stuff. Levi picked out a few clothes too (all ugly and mostly too big), but he had $10 burning a hole in his pocket that he quickly spent on toys: a couple remote controlled cars, and a blow gun that kept him busy for a few hours that day. And on Friday evening, Justin took the kids out for a boat ride for a few hours, while I read in peace on the couch!

This is Lena's attempt to fly a kite. Lol. As you can tell, the kite did not do much flying.

Reading at the park while Levi drives his remote controlled car in the parking lot.

3. I stayed busy a lot of the week doing Soccer Camp stuff, but it was hard for me to go screen-free too. I cheated a little bit, in using facebook for Soccer Camp, and I tried to play Euchre on my phone once before Levi busted me. But for the most part, I was good and didn't use my phone/computer unless it was for a specific purpose - no mindless scrolling allowed. I read two books: Carnegie's Maid by Marie Benedict, and The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave. They were both clean (no sex, some swearing) and I enjoyed them. I'm excited to watch the miniseries based on The Last Thing He Told Me because it stars Jennifer Garner, but it's only available on Apple TV+ so I might have to sign up for a free trial or something. There were a lot of moments that I hated the screen-free mandate I imposed. By Friday, I almost broke down and let them do it about 47 times. But overall I think it was good for us. It taught us that we can survive without our screens. And it's made me consider setting more stringent screen time rules for the future. But I'm not going to lie. By the time Saturday morning rolled around I was thrilled to hand Levi my phone and go back to sleep!

4. On Tuesday, we embarked on another Cousin Fun Day at Hager Park. I remember going to this park as a kid, and it isn't nearly as big as I recall! Haha. Funny how that works. Neither Lena nor I were feeling very good, and Levi was quite underwhelmed. It's about a 35 minute drive from our house and when we pulled in, Levi's first reaction was, "We drove all this way for a playground?!" Lol. But we had fun with the cousins, and Levi enjoyed it more than he expected to.

5. And now, on to Soccer Camp! In case I haven't made this clear, Soccer Camp is our church's version of VBS. We use soccer as a tool to invite our community to learn about the gospel . . . and this year, the community showed up! By Monday, we had 234 kids registered! 😲 They didn't all show up, of course. The most we had on any day this week was 192 I think. But that's still a lot of kids!! Thankfully we had over 100 volunteers to help wrangle them all!! 

The first day was chaos as usual. No matter how much we plan, or how well we think we're prepared, it's always madness trying to get everyone checked in, shirted up, and put where they need to go on Monday night. Our dumb name tags didn't print like they were supposed to, even though we tested them ahead of time, so we had to scramble to fix that. But after the initial 30 minutes of insanity, we settled into a good rhythm and had a great week! 

Sadly, Lena came down with some respiratory ailment on Sunday night. I kept hoping she'd sleep it off and be ready to go on Monday night, but she had a low-grade fever and terrible chest congestion that resulted in wheezing and coughing if she ran or exerted herself at all. She was so disappointed because this is her last year of Soccer Camp. She'll be too old next year! 😭 She spent Monday through Wednesday as my literal shadow, staying within six inches of me as I scurried all over the church/soccer fields. (I offered to bring her to my parents', but she didn't want to leave my side.)

By Thursday, she finally felt well enough to participate, though, and joined her team for the whole night. She loved it, and I really wish she'd give real soccer a try, but she is horrified at the prospect of playing games with spectators. 

The drama of the week came on Wednesday, when it absolutely downpoured allll night. We deliberated over whether or not to cancel, but Soccer Camp is already only a 4-night event, so we decided to press on. I didn't think many kids would show up, and worried it'd just be the volunteers kids, but I was surprised that over 170 kids came despite the rain! The sweet, wonderful coaches showed up with their rain gear and stood outside doing soccer drills with their teams in the pouring rain. 

But THEN someone spotted lightning, and we had to haul all 200 kids, plus 100 volunteers into the church. There was some concern about 300 people tracking mud all over the church carpet, so we made each team take off their shoes and put them in trash bags. We still had over an hour until camp was done, so we implemented our as-yet-untried storm plan for the first time. It was a bit of a disaster. Lol. I sent out a mass email/facebook blast informing parents that we were safe in the church and playing games, but they were welcome to come pick their kids up early if they wanted to. I think we underestimated how many parents would show up and how quickly they'd arrive. We didn't have the kids in their pre-determined storm-plan locations yet, and the shoes were all in trash bags by the front door. So when parents began arriving almost immediately, we were scrambling to help them find not only their children, but also their children's shoes. Lol. It majorly stressed me out, and I learned that I have a crippling fear of making people upset. I was so worried that the parents would be mad about our disorganization that I ended up standing in a side hallway under the pretense of pointing parents in the direction of their child's classroom, but really just hiding. Lol. I'm super helpful like that. Honestly, after that first fifteen minutes of madness, it was ok. We got the kids where they were supposed to go, so it was easy to tell parents which room their kid was in, and we eventually got all the shoes in the right classrooms. My anxiety was just triggered for a bit there. 

6. Thursday night was the final night of soccer camp, and it was a beautiful partly-cloudy 75 degree day. Throughout the week, the kids were learning verses and showing sportsmanship to earn points for their team, and on the last day, the two teams with the highest scores per age group got to pie their coach in the face. Justin was one of the lucky coaches this year!

It really was a good week, even though it was exhausting. Soccer will never be my favorite sport, and I'll always miss the days of traditional VBS, but Soccer Camp is an amazing ministry and I'm glad to be a part of it. 

This is how the directors feel after surviving the week!

There's a ton of work that goes into planning and executing a camp of this size, and this group rocks it. I feel like I play such a small part in the big picture, and the rest of these people do SO much.

We brought our neighbor girl, Kylee every night.

On Monday and Tuesday, Justin stayed after camp to play pickup with the other volunteers. I felt like I'd been hit by a truck each night (I was definitely fighting off whatever Lena had - thank you, immune system!), but he was out there playing until 10:00 pm after working all day, scarfing down dinner, then coaching a group of 10 third graders all night! I don't know how he does it. He even scored a couple goals each night! 

7. Justin's dad has been working at Grace Adventure's Youth Camp, which is connected to the campground we stay at on the rare occasion we go camping. He invited us to come up and hang out yesterday, and it was just what we needed after a long week. My kids have reached the glorious age where they can play unassisted and without a ton of supervision. So they bopped back and forth between the pool, the playground, the inflatables, and riding their bikes while I sat on a deck chair and read half of a book. It was wonderful!

The readers: Lena, Persephone, Lucy, Donna 

Driving his remote-controlled car around the pool

Playing basketball with Jordan and Karla's dog, Arya

I'm re-reading Francine Rivers' The Mark of the Lion series for the first time in years. I remember almost nothing about it, so it's like reading it for the first time. So good. So relevant. 

Grandpa always treats us to ice cream.

8. But wait, there's more! Two funny Lena stories I want to record . . .

One night this week, we had a rotisserie chicken for dinner. Lena was watching as I pulled the meat off the bone and she remarked, "I can't believe a chicken had to die for you to eat dinner." I replied, "You do know chickens have to die for you to eat chicken nuggets, right?" and she was astonished! Lol. 

Another day, we were driving and had to stop for a funeral procession. When she asked what that was I explained that the front car, the hearse, was carrying a dead body and everyone else was following it to the graveyard to watch the coffin be lowered into the ground. She was absolutely horrified that anyone would ever do that. I assured her that she doesn't have to do that with me when I die, and she said, "Good. I wouldn't even if you wanted me to." Lol. So I guess I won't depend on her to carry out any of my funeral wishes that she doesn't like!! 😂