Longest Week Ever!

We just got done with the longest week ever! Our church hosted it's annual Mega Sports Camp (our version of Vacation Bible School). It's a camp with highly trained (sometimes professional) athletes who coach the kids. This year we offered:

Football
Basketball
Baseball/Softball
Soccer
Volleyball
Golf
Karate
Paintball (yes, you read that right)
Dance
Arts & Crafts
Video Game/Board Game Room

Each child got to do two sports a piece, and there were two sessions. So they had to pick one thing for the first session, and one thing for the second session. For instance, the older kids did football in the first session, and the younger kids did football the second one. The camp took place Monday through Thursday from 6pm-9pm. Game Day was scheduled for Friday 6pm-8pm and was basically an open house for parents to attend. There were a bunch of booths set up, and a snack stand. Mike and I both volunteered for the camp, and the kids stayed in the nursery. Thankfully there were volunteers set up to make and serve dinner for the 200 volunteers.

Sunday (yesterday) was our outdoor service, which I was one of the planners for.

Here's a play-by-play summary for the past week.

Sunday (not yesterday, but the week before)
Church in the morning, then I had a meeting right afterwards at Ande's house to plan yesterday's service. We were planning a Beach Party theme, complete with kiddie pools (some for water, some for sand), a larger pool for outdoor baptism, and various events for kids and families.

Monday - Day 1 of Mega Sports Camp
The word of the day is Chaos. No, not even controlled chaos...just chaos. Envision 200 volunteers and 400 children, ages 4 - 12 years. It was everyone's first day of doing our jobs, so the fun was only beginning! I helped out in the Registration area for the fist part, then got sucked into the nursery later on. Mike was a teacher for 11-12 year old boys. He was responsible for carting them around from one event to another, and for teaching them their lesson.
The nursery was INSANE. The nursery was only for volunteers' children, ages 0-3. Unfortunately, all the kids were in the same room on the first night. There were at least 38 kids in there...12 or so of which were under a year old. I think they only had 7 helpers in the beginning. They were begging people to help, so how could I refuse? After all, they had two of my kids hostage. There was next to no organization in there. No one knew when the babies ate last, if they were nursed or bottlefed, if they needed babyfood, etc. There was lots of digging through diaper bags and a lot of stress for everyone involved. Unlike church, the parents weren't available for the most part, so we were on our own. It was like a church service that lasted for four hours!!!
Lesson of the day: Don't take Tylenol on an empty stomach. It does funny things to you.

Tuesday - Day 2 MSC = Controlled Chaos
Some of the previous day's wrinkles were smoothed out a bit. Everyone learned a lot from Monday! Registration wasn't as busy, and the nursery got more volunteers (not me, ha ha). I made some forms for the nursery kids after Monday's ordeal. The forms asked the parents to say when the babies ate last, what they'll eat and when, how the babies like to sleep, etc. The toddler's one went more into detail about potty training issues, food allergies, snack issues, etc. That seemed to help a lot, and they also moved the babies into another room. It was so much better!!!
I got promoted to bathroom detail. Yippeeee. (Not really). A lot of the coaches and their helpers spent the majority of Monday's lessons shuffling kids back and forth to the bathrooms. So, they threw a couple of us into that role. I picked 4 sports, and walked from one area to another calling out for potty breaks. I felt like the biggest dork, and only helped 4 kids. I also walked about 5 miles to help those 4 kids, but I'm sure they were very grateful just the same. I also got feedback from some coaches that, 10 minutes after I went to the next sport, they'd have 5 more kids ask to go potty. Grrrrrr!!! I knew there had to be a better way to do this.

Wednesday - Day 3 of MSC = I am SO DONE With Four-Year-Old Girls!
Potty break queen returns in a slightly altered form. Based on my inefficiency from the night before, a few of us decided to just pick one sport and stick with it. I picked dance because they had 50 girls in it at times. The first session was for the 8-12 year olds, and that went smoothly. We got a short break for dinner while the kids were in class. On the way back from dinner, a volunteer named Stephanie told me of her Larry, Moe, and Curly ordeal. She had three 4-year-old girls on her watch. One girl took two fingers and poked the second one in the eyes. The same girl turned around and took the third girl down to the ground. Stephanie broke it up and sent the aggressor to time out. She then had three 4-year-olds crying...two because of their injuries, and one because she got in trouble. The three were sent off in a little tragedy train to the nurse for observation and forced apologies.

I laughed at Stephanie's ordeal. Bad choice.

During the second session, I was taking six 4-year-olds to the bathroom. One of the smaller girls started crying hysterically while we were gone. She was "accidentally" hit in the mouth by her friend. Accident my butt! I didn't see it happen though, so I couldn't jump down her right then. I just made her apologize, and we all headed back to dance class.

Three minutes later, I'm sitting in the front row seat. All the girls are on the stage. I look at the aggressor, and she's crying. What??? I knew that the littler one was sick of being violated and finally got her back. On the inside I was cheering, but on the outside I knew I had to stop it. By the time I got on stage, both of them were crying. I asked them what happened, and it involved some pinching, hitting, and punching. All "accidents" of course! I sent both to time out and the tears only got worse. The littler one is snarfling and sniffling, trying to catch her breath, and the older one is showing me this TINY pink mark on her arm from where she was pinched. The littler one keeps asking for mama, then the older one starts asking for grandma.

I took both of them to the nurse (as the littler one was hit in the mouth). The nurse confirmed what I assumed....a serious case of ego bruising. I found out that the mom and grandma were both making food for the volunteers, so another volunteer escorted them to the food area. :)

On a positive note, there were 35 kids who decided to accept Christ during Wednesday's assembly. One of the kids was our neighbor's 12 year old boy. He was in Mike's class and has been through a lot this past year. (Parents divorced a few months ago). It was really sweet for Mike to see that happen, and it made all the pinching and pushing worth it.

Thursday - Day 4 MSC = LAST DAY!!!
Things were running pretty darned smoothly on Thursday. Everyone knew where they were going, and the nursery workers were excited that this was the last night of butt-wiping for them.
Mike had to break up a scuffle between two of his 12 year olds. Is it something in the air? Fortunately my four-year-olds were well behaved. The littler one was still super mopey, but mom was there, so it was not my problem.

Friday - Game Day Postponed
Freakish pop-up storm blew threw here in the afternoon. Game Day was scheduled to be an outdoor event, so it was postponed until Sunday...the same Sunday that we were planning our beach party service for. It threw us a curveball, but what can you do?
I did a Wal-Mart run at 9:30pm. We were out of most food items and it couldn't be put off any longer. There's nothing like touring the aisles of a grocery store kidless. Woohooo!

Saturday
Nothing outstanding about Saturday. I hit some Garage Sales in the morning (without children) and didn't find anything spectacular. I found some shirts for me for 10 cents a piece though. I thought the chick was nuts because they were stylish and new looking. She just had a baby, but wasn't able to wear them anymore, so I scored!
I really don't remember what else happened on Saturday. Oh well.

Sunday - Outdoor Service & I am Burnt Out!
The alarm went off at 4:30 am Sunday morning. I had to be at the church (Blackman High School) by 5 am. We were busy setting up pools, decor, shade awnings, and Mega Sports Camp stuff. The forecast predicted 95 degrees and humid. For once, the weather people got it right. It was SO HOT!!!! Not a tree in sight.
The service and Game Day was just outside the cafeteria at Blackman High School. We set up some tables inside the cafeteria for some of the people who wanted to escape the heat.
I wore a lot of sunscreen, but still managed to get a slight burn. The planners of the two events all wore walkie talkies with earpieces, so we looked super important even when we weren't. :) I guess it just made it look like we knew what was going on.
They baptized about 20 people yesterday in the pool. Most of them were kids from Mega Sports Camp, but there were a few adults in there as well. I'm glad I got mine done last month because the water was REALLY cold. Heh heh.
We were done cleaning up by around 2:00pm. The clean up reminded me of Bonnaroo, or Woodstock. Mud everywhere in the grassy areas. I had mud puddle remnants from the knees down. Ande sprayed my legs down with a hose. It felt great, but it made me have to pee that much more. She thought that was pretty funny.

Last night was Papa John's night to make dinner. I had intentions to cook, but decided to pick up the phone instead. I don't even feel bad.

Around 4:30 we had another pop-up thunderstorm. Lots of straighline winds, where the rain falls sideways and in bands. It looks like someone is squeezing the trigger of a hand-held water bottle...just in a large version.
It was at 4:30 that we realized that our Blazer's window won't roll up! It is permanently stuck in the down position. Mike was trying to cover it with a plastic trash bag while I was moving our junk in the garage to make room for the truck. The trash bag trick backfired because of the winds. I swear it reminds me of hurricane footage I've seen. Anyway, we finally got the truck in the garage, but a lot of the garage's contents were wet as the wind was blowing into the garage during the storm.

That truck is going to find itself at the bottom of a very steep cliff someday.