Youth Group All-Nighter

Our church hosted a youth group all nighter on Friday.  I wasn't able to stay the whole time, but did hang out for the first 5 hours.  We had a big team game competition that included chair races, wasabi pea/seaweed eating relay, spaghetti/marshmallow tower building, lego spaceship construction, and tug of war.

After that, we took a field trip to Perkins for some pie!

We played a color sorting sniper type game before it was my time to go.

They were just getting set up for an epic Nerf war as I was heading out.  They had a great night and we met a ton of new students.

Super Bowl and Valentine's Day

We had a small spread for the super bowl this year.  My parents joined us for the first half, but I didn't get any pictures of them.  I made wings, deviled eggs, and pickle roll ups.  My parents brought shrimp cocktail, and we had a little snack plater.  I made some cake mix brownies with M & Ms for each team.

Valentine's Day came up quick after that.  We went with slinkys for the kids to share at school this year.  I added a little label for them to sign.

My brother was out of town and the boys were staying with my parents for the week, so we visited them on Monday night.  This was the only free night we had this week.

The kids came home Tuesday with quite a haul from their Friendship Day parties.

We continued our fondue tradition by inviting over a new friend, Kristi, from church.  We had so much fun I forgot to take a picture.  All we had was one Esme took and this one of me after rescuing a meatball from the bottom on the oven.  I knew for sure Kristi and I were meant to meet after see sent me this mash up!

Hope you had a great day celebrating love.

Axe Throwing Outing

Our church staff and board had it annual retreat weekend recently.  We went to Mermaid Event Center for the social portion.  We ate, played pool and darts, then got to try axe throwing.

I've been wanting to try this ever since it became a more common thing a few years ago.  There was definitely an art to it that I was not able to grasp very well.

I finally got one to stick to the board, but it was not worth any points.  I took a picture just in case I didn't hit it again.

I did manage to get one more to stick and it was a bullseye!  We also had a "killshot" battle where we tried hitting the small blue dots.  I had pretty great aim, but didn't get any to stick.  Tom was the big winner!

Despite my failure, I would love to try it again.

Her Best Friend's Birthday

Esme's best friend, Najee, had a birthday party on Saturday.  This was out first time returning to Brookview Backyard since before Covid.

His mom was kind enough to let Parker tag along as well.  He has so much fun playing!

We packed the kids in for pizza, presents, and cake in between play sessions.

Fostering friendships outside of school is so fun to watch!

Happy Birthday Najee!

Girls Weekend in Oregon: Part 3

Our final day was mostly travel again.  I had packed our bags the night before.  We grabbed some breakfast for Esme again before making a quick stop to say goodbye to Dani, Logan, and Owen.  Our flight departed just before Noon, but I knew our 80 miles drive back to the airport would be on snow covered mountain roads so I gave us extra time.  It only took about 20 minutes longer than the GPS originally said.

Esme did a great job entertaining herself on the drive so I could focus on the roads.  Returning the car was just as easy as pick up.  We just parked and dropped the keys off before heading to security.  No one was in line which was nice because I didn't feel rushed.

We had a much shorter layover in Seattle which I was looking forward to, but was also well aware of in case we needed to rush between gates.

We made our connection with no issues.  I packed a couple PBJs again for Esme since we wouldn't have time to grab lunch.  Both flights went great.  The only hiccup was sitting on the tarmac for about 20 minutes after landing in Minneapolis.  Luckily, we were able to get out to the ground transportation area pretty quickly and our shuttle arrived shortly after getting there.

First girls trip was a raging success.  I am already thinking about where we might go next.