Mysterious Mysteries

Immediately after each series, the moment that series is over, the destruction begins.  It's a mostly styrofoam sort of thing, so it comes down quickly.  But the older volunteers descend on our set like colony insects and just completely devastate the poor hapless set.  In a half  hour, it looks like you see above.  This was a sweet moment here, where Madison and Violet, Chris' daughter, were sweeping up  a bit of the styrofoam on stage.  They were just wanting to do what they could, and this was it, and it was helpful.  But it was also sweet - we didn't ask them to do anything.  They just wanted to.

We had our last service of Superflix today, although it wasn't a movie service.  It was our traditional annual Back-to-School Prayer service, where we lined up all the kids and they went upstairs to be prayed for by Pastor Franklin and our staff.  It's a big number of kids, and it takes a bit of time, so that's largely all we do in this service.  There are special handouts that Daddy makes, and some nice items like KidPak pencils for the school year, ones that have a scripture on them, Joshua 1:9.

When service was done, we were back home, and thought briefly about going for a swim.  But the crack of lightning stopped that thinking.  The rain came today, and it came a lot, and it came heavy.  It was somewhat unexpected, although there was rain in the forecast.  Basically, we have been in a pattern of dry weather, so this return to form is a surprise.  It rained all night, really soaking the area.

We did some video games, and just before bed we returned to our Verne Fest with a trip to "Mysterious Island."  This movie was from 1961, and apparently bares little resemblance to the book Jules Verne wrote.  Which is kind of funny, because that's all Daddy thinks of when he thinks of Mysterious Island:  giant creatures roaming around.  Tomorrow night, we'll watch the newer version, which is somewhat of a sequel to the "Journey to the Center of the Earth" movie we watched the other night.  The Verne Fest will continue for a bit, with "Around the World in 80 Days" coming soon, followed by "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" as well.  Madison doesn't remember this last one that well.  We know this because she didn't recognize the submarine in the movie tonight, and didn't know Captain Nemo was there.  What?  How could you not recognize that iconic submarine?  She will from this point on though.  She'll especially recognize that submarine later on when we go snorkeling:  his submarine is now said to be resting at Castaway Cay now.  She'll see it herself.

We started a new book tonight.  Daddy was wanting to read a Nancy Drew book to Madison, and so he consulted with a Nancy Drew expert at church, who recommended "The Hidden Staircase."  We read two chapter of that this evening before bed, and already there is peril, mystery and danger!  It should be a good read.