Youth Advisers

I can't say we greeted the request to serve as Youth Advisers this year with great enthusiasm. After all, Friday nights have evolved into our Family Nights and we were reluctant to give those up. But what we commit to doing, we generally attempt to do well. So these days we're trying to pick up the pace to youth speed.

We've gotten off to a bit of a slow start, but last Thursday was our first social with them. Other than the fact that we felt a bit out of place at first -when we arrived randomly dressed up while the idea was to dress up in green for St Patricks Day- I believe the evening was a success. There was a lot of laughter, if that is any gauge.
Here are the finalists for Best Costume...


1st & 2nd place prize went to the fellas on the left respectively, 3rd place to the guy 2nd from the right -as voted by the youth.

R & I were assigned to be in charge of games. I was short on prep time, but God came through in an amazing way- I found a awesome website with extensive ideas for games & skits. (Can't wait to have more socials because I've got more great ideas up my sleeve.)

This time we did a Signature Hunt (collecting signatures of people for various things like having visited a particular state, having a birthday this month, etc.)... Chewing Gum & Gloves relay (teams racing to unwrap gum wearing gloves)... a skit with 2 people who get a bandanna and a banana confused... Musical Clothing (a variation of Hot Potato- whoever is left holding the bag when the music stops has to take out an item and wear it. Believe me, I bought the geekiest stuff I could find at Goodwill, rolled each and put a rubber band around it so they couldn't tell what they were getting! Since they were already dressed oddly, the effect wasn't quite as dramatic, but made for a lot of laughs all the same.) Below are the winners of the "Best" Dressed prizes.



We hope this was just the first of many fun times with the youth group!

Winter Break Highlights

In random order, highlights of our Winter Break vacation in Sarasota...

...yet another trip when our intentions to pack at a sane pace went awry and we ended up racing around to get out the door. R. was in a dangerous situation- making a delivery up an ice-covered hill, that delayed his homecoming significantly and added to the stress. But we made it to the airport in time.

...flying! A tense moment in Charlotte when JS forgot where he put his boarding pass. And then some nervousness as the older plane made strange clunking, screeching noises. The 2nd plane on our return trip was very nice and we had a friendly crew that helped pass time during the turbulent flight and brought us down with an extra smooth landing.

...our rental car was a Chrysler 300, which the boys liked just fine.

...taking in tourist-y things. Big Cat Habitat had a very interesting show with dogs, bears, tigers, chimps, a buffalo and other animals.

Myakka State Park offers airboat rides to see the wildlife. We were fortunate to hit an exceptionally good day- saw around 35 alligators. Bought some alligator jerky just for the cultural experience of it.

...experiencing some of the nicest weather FL has had all year. We reveled in it -couldn't soak up enough sun! Everyone was telling us it's going to be cold in FL. Even when it was in the 50s & 60s, that's considerably warmer than at home, so we thought it was gorgeous weather.

...eating Mom Miller's good cooking. We ate so many grapefruits and drank numerous pitchers of fresh-squeezed lemonade & orange juice. Cinnamon rolls, custard pie, chocolate chip cookies... she spoiled us all right.

...cheap entertainment. The children spent so much time playing with blocks (seeing how high of a single stack they could make- the record was 30) and a worn out bicycle tire (rolling it around). There are also squirrels that will come quite close to get peanuts if you hold still enough.

We did some thrift store shopping; didn't spend much so it qualifies for cheap entertainment, too.

...simple pleasures. Like hanging laundry outside. Like smelling fresh cut grass and burgers grilling. Like walking on powdery white sand. Like finding some nice shells and a whole sand dollar. Like sleeping with the window open because the house is so warm.

...a date night. Went to SweetBerries for custard with intentions of sitting on the beach to eat it. It was so chilly -even with hoodies on that we aborted the plan and sat in the car instead. Kinda funny to watch other couples arrive and do the same thing- return to their vehicle within minutes. (Tried the Caribbean Kick & Black MacBerry for those of you familiar with SweetBerries.)

...playing table games in the evening, sometimes with various neighbors. "Grandpa" couldn't resist sharing endless tips with us during Golf games, but his advice to take risks usually didn't pan out for us like it does for him. But the ladies soundly beat the men in the Dominos! We like the location of Dad Miller's house and they have some fun neighbors.

...a tea party with "Grandma". And a short visit with a friend. Thanks, R.S., for taking time in your busy schedule.

...Thank God for humor! #1 R. & A. were on a walk and saw legs sticking out the back of a little car. They were commenting the probability of it being fake/a prank, when the owner of the legs sat up. She was trying to remove window tint from the back window of her car. Every time they saw the car after that, they had to laugh at the memory of those legs. #2 the older gentlemen seated behind me on our return flight didn't realize when he reached up to place his carry-on in the overhead bins his ample, hairy stomach was protruding beneath his shirt right in my face. That was "more information than I needed" if you know what I mean. JS & I had to stifle our giggles. #3 one night I was dreaming that I was concerned because I forgot to tell our house-sitters to mow the lawn if the grass gets too high by the end of the week. :) Not likely when the grass is buried under a foot of snow. #4 R. overheard a man complaining about the weather. He claimed he had paid for warm weather. We "chewed" that one all week!

...time to relax. R. did quite well at leaving business behind and relaxing with us. I finished reading the book I took along and crocheted so much the one day that I had my fill.

...not-so-good aspects of the trip were: no fishing weather- a big disappointment to the boys, and some crocheting I did that had to be torn out- 16" of wasted work due to [yarn] tension issues.

...we are grateful for our pet & house-sitters who looked after things while we were gone, then left the house cleaner than they found it. They are also to thank for making sure the heat was on when we returned (previously it never failed that our gas was off & the house cold when we returned from FL) and for leaving the lights on for us. A welcome sight at midnight!

...we are blessed to have a credit card with a system for earning points which enabled us to fly our whole family for free, as well as get a free rental car. Well, not quite free. We still had to pay for our checked luggage and insurance on the car.

We had a wonderful vacation. It feels like God isn't answering our prayer to remove the thorn in our flesh, but He is smiling on us and assuring us of His love. We accept this as a gift from Him.