SeaWorld

I got an email a few weeks ago about a buy one get one free special SeaWorld was running on their fun passes.  For the special price, a pair of people could get together and purchase a fun pass for about $35 a person.  This was a great deal, and we shared the deal with our church youth group.  Many of the kids chose to participate, so we had big plans for SeaWorld trips this summer.

The only caveat to the deal was that you had to redeem your passes by the third weekend in May.  Hmm...we were almost there, so Mother's Day Weekend it was!

I decided that I would play fast and loose with my sensibilities, and I left my camera at home.  The following post is full of photos from my iPhone, and I am not sorry.  It was nice to just be in the moment with everyone, and not have to worry about my big camera all day.

Our first stop of the day was at the dolphin tank--Bradley's favorite spot in the park.


Apparently it was his lucky day because we had only been there for a few minutes when this happened.



Day. Year. Life Made.  But seriously, this is his screen saver at work.  I kid you not.








We let the girls run through the Bay of Play to cool off a bit.



Group pic!



The Azul show is probably my favorite show at SeaWorld.  We have also taken Emmy to it every year since she was born.  Cool Stuff.



After a few rides in the kid area, it was almost time to go home.





Some of us were going home in style.



One quick character meet and greet before we headed out the door.



The only problem with the car ride home is trying to decide how you will fill all of the glorious silence.



Can't wait for more fun trips this summer!

LEGIT Youth Service

Our youth group at church, LEGIT, put on a youth service recently.  The kids practiced songs, they filmed skits, and they in general worked hard to make this night a success.

Here is a photo of the group singing.



Pastor Brandon Fender of San Antonio's Generation X came and spoke a powerful message called "Silent No More."



After the preaching was over, we had pizza, nachos, and fun in the youth building.





I am perpetually amazed at the fire and spirit in some of our youth.  They are really becoming a close-knit unit...they are pretty fun too. :)

*I am working on some videos from the service, so I will update this post with a link when I get them finished.

One Sweet Fundraiser...and a Long Night

We recently began helping out with our youth group at church again. We came up with the idea of making giant heart shaped cookies to sell for Valentine's Day. If each youth group member sold five, they would have enough money to pay for the camp that they want to attend in August. The group's goal was to sell 100 cookies. This may not seem like such a big deal, but the reality is that our church no longer has a kitchen or a facility appropriate for an undertaking like this. We decided that we would meet up at different adults' homes and break the kids into small groups to do all of the work.

This process was broken into three parts:
1. Dough Making & Heart Shaping
2. Heart Baking
3. Cookie Icing and Decorating

The biggest and most arduous of these tasks was the dough making and heart shaping. We started on the Friday night a week before the cookies would need to be made and iced. We met up at Nicole's house to begin our adventure. There was a great group of girls that came that night to help. They stirred dough until their arms felt like they would fall off. We did manage to stay focused by having a few mini dance parties and eating some pizza.





We made enough dough for 40 cookies. We thought this was a great start, but we didn't take into account that all of those cookies would need to be rolled out that night as well.





The kids all started drifting off either to sleep or went home around midnight, and that is when the real work began. Nicole and I stayed up until 5:00 AM rolling, shaping, and cutting out all those hearts. By the end of it, we weren't sure why were helping out at all anymore. There may have been some temporary bitterness involved.





By Sunday afternoon, we were feeling up to more baking, so we split the kids up and did some more. This time, we made sure to get the kids to handle the process from start to finish.











The next weekend, we met up on Saturday morning to bake and ice the cookies. I had a small group, but they were really hard workers. I even convinced a few adults to come over and volunteer their time as well.


At the end of the experience, we were dead tired, but we made over $1400 in profit. That's a success in my book any day.