The Saturday 7

Whoa. I have two weeks to catch up on. Buckle up.

1. Lena is loving her new gymnastics class. It's just the right level of challenge for her, but not so much that it's discouraging. After Girls on the Run last spring she realized how much she loved running and was excited to find out that she could join the Cross Country team at school this fall. But we just started getting info about Cross Country, and she was overwhelmed by the idea of practicing every single day. Haha. So I guess she's just going to do gymnastics for now. 

2. We had another Cousin Fun Day last week - this time at the Children's Museum. More than two years ago, we bought discounted tickets during some promo or another, but they were still requiring masks and we were all busy and we just never went. Well, the tickets never expire, so we decided to try it this summer. I hadn't been there in years and was worried that my kids were too old to enjoy it, but it was actually really fun! 

I think our group picture skills are getting worse as the summer goes on. Lol.

Having fun with the Inside Out 2 exhibit. We had just seen the movie, so it was especially fun.

Breaking plastic animals out of ice molds.

Levi and Nash loved the Lego table. We have thousands of Legos at home, but Levi never plays with them. 🤦

Afterward was pool time, of course!

3. The only other thing we checked off our bucket list last week was "jigsaw puzzle." I did 98% of it myself, but this is a whole family bucket list, so it still counts. 😁 

4. Truly, the past two weeks have been dominated by Soccer Camp. I'm on the planning team, and my responsibilities include marketing, content creation, online registration, concessions, and snack. A lot of that is stuff I've been working on for months, but the snack supplies couldn't be bought until last week. I spent forever scouring ads, comparing prices online, and fine-tuning my lists. Thanks to the generosity of our church family, we had a lot of snacks donated, plus we were given some money to spend. Meijer and Wal-Mart also donated gift cards, so I had that to work with as well. Honestly, the hardest part was finding reasonably priced fruit. We didn't want to simply load kids up on cheap sugary snacks. We wanted to offer them some healthy options as well, so we had fruit available every day. But fruit ain't cheap these days! After it was all said and done, we ended up spending about $50 from our budget on snacks for 225 kids over 4 days! Bargain hunting for the win! 

5. The kids have been really into fishing and kayaking lately. While I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off preparing for soccer camp, Justin took them out a few times and even took pictures!

6. And then finally all our hard work came to fruition. Monday was our first night of Soccer Camp and it was a smoking 85 degrees. The first night is always madness, but I think this was our best one so far. We didn't have any major hiccups and things went fairly smoothly. I went to bed that night absolutely aching from head to toe because I'm not used to being on my feet so much or walking so much. The next day dawned with a new adventure for me: subbing in the church office. Our faithful secretary left on a mission's trip with our youth group, and I was called to bat. I filled in many years ago before we were even in this building, but a lot has changed since then, so I was quite nervous. Fortunately, I didn't have to deal with anything major, didn't get prank called, and only hung up on one person when trying to transfer a call. Lol. Success! I had taken the whole week off at Once Upon because I knew I'd be exhausted from Soccer Camp. So I was a little hesitant to accept when Jessie asked me to work that week, but it actually ended up being a good thing. The office is quiet and calm. I was able to get so much done for Soccer Camp - all the printing and cutting and making of graphics and slides. 

If I had been at home, I still would've been trying to do all those things while dealing with my kids and housework and dinner. Instead, I sent my kids to Niki's and didn't bother with dinner or housework. 😂

I worked at the office from 10-4, and didn't even go home afterward. I just stayed at church until Soccer Camp. On Sunday night, I had loaded my van with extra shoes and clothes. I brought myself lunch and dinner every day. I even kept Levi's cleats/shin guards/jersey with me so that Justin wouldn't have to remember everything when he picked the kids up and brought them to church. 

Our whole family actually was a part of Soccer Camp this year. Justin coached a 4th/5th grade boys' team, Levi participated as a camper, Lucy worked in the nursery, and Lena was my right-hand-man. She's actually extremely helpful, and I appreciated having her around. 

7. It was a great week. Aside from that one hot day, we had absolutely beautiful weather, there were very few issues that had to be ironed out, and we had a great turn out. This was our 4th year and it feels like we've finally gotten into a good groove and really figured out how to operate efficiently. I love being a part of it, but I'm glad to have a break for a few months before we start planning the next one! Haha.

After the first night, Levi learned why it's important to wear shin guards. 

This picture cracks me up, because it looks like they're all running away from Trevor: our children's ministries pastor. Hahaha.

The whole group. Over 200 campers and 128 volunteers!

So thankful for this fantastic team who had just as many, if not more, responsibilities as I did to run an event of this magnitude. They're an excellent group of godly, motivated people and I'm honored to work with them. 

8. Bonus point! Our reward for surviving soccer camp was also an excuse to cross something else off our bucket list: Yo-fro at the Pump House. 

Maybe one of these days, Lucy will want to do things with us again . . .