SX17 Gwinnett - DAY 1

So here we are at Madison's first Summer Xtreme for Gwinnett's campus.  It's a smaller venue with a smaller amount of kids.  I think the number this year was around 168, so it's still a good-sized crowd. The room we were in was packed with excited kids, enjoying the worship, the games, the skit Daddy put together, the incredible "Titanium Heroes" movie that Josh has been working on, and of course the first message of the series, brought by host Pastor Cameron.  It was a great service!

Afterwards, the kids enjoyed some Chick-Fil-A sandwiches in their rooms, and were soon off to a new destination, the West Gwinnett Aquatic Center.

This place had a great pool with fun stuff to do.  The staff there was nice, but the district supervisor there was pretty dumb, to put it mildly.  During a twenty-five minute drill where all the kids had to be out of the water, he was telling kids not to "touch his water."  It was an imaginary drill where they were attending to an imaginary victim on the slide.  In order to do this during hours, all the people were driven out of the water.  Which simulates if this event were to really happen.  That said, everything that happens after the imaginary victim has the imaginary accident is taking place in an empty pool.  Which is something you can easily simulate ...say... after hours?  Essentially, this was more to get everyone practicing their keeping a large amount of frustrated people out of the pool because they all know it's a drill.  Whatever you do, don't touch his water!

Other than that, the day was great fun for the kids.  Madison liked the lazy river they had there quite a bit, as did many other kids.  There was a water slide there, and plenty of other things for smaller kids.  Madison of course had fun splashing everyone.  Here she is with her group above, and here below are some of her splash victims:

The sun was blazing hot, and the pool temperature was just right for everyone.  The weather was perfect, with no thunder or threat of rain at all, unlike what would happen later on this week.  So things were lined up perfectly for everyone to have a good time.  Even Daddy got to jump in for a bit, splashing and hanging out with Madison and friends.  All the volunteers did, in fact.  Here's Madison hanging on to Mary Shannon as they go around the lazy river:

It was a lot of fun.  The kids got back, and the pick-up process began.  It is much smaller than Gainesville's, so it was much easier.  Once the kids are gone though, the work was far from over.  There was actually a church service to run tonight, one that Daddy had prepared for yesterday.  We did a worship service at KidPak, followed by small groups.  Daddy and others talked about being made into a new creation, using the superhero Cyborg as a reference.  It was a great night, but it was also the end of a really, really long day.  You can tell the staff was barely standing after all was said and done!  

Madison did not go to church tonight (she went earlier today, of course).  The best course of action for her was to get some sleep, getting well-rested for another day's adventures.  But looking back, it was a good start to the third of these Gwinnett Summer Xtremes.  Things are going well, although there are hiccups here or there.  Overall, it's all about the kids and what they see and experience.  And what they are experiencing now is... well, xtreme!