"Gotcha Day" - a Decade Later

Ten years ago, it all changed for us.  It was ten years ago today that we met Madison for the first time,  a seemingly small thing and yet so monumentally huge in our lives.  It was the end of a battle, and the beginning of a happily ever after.  It was a very long wait, and yet here we are ten years later.

Obviously it was a day we looked back on all kinds of photographs, and told all kinds of memories.  To help with that, Daddy has been reading the journal we kept when we went to China.  What an adventure it all was!  We shared a lot of our photos on social media, sharing them with our friends who also went to China that year, and the memories and stories were amplified.  It was a wonderful, wonderful day ten years ago, with so many emotions tied to it.  All of them were good!

Today was another day of the Forward Conference, of course, and another day of busy work for the church.  It is all good, and of course once this is all over with, things calm down significantly for the remainder of July.

Daddy is going to speak at KidPak tomorrow, and it will be the last of the "Incredible Heroes" messages, one on baby Jack-Jack.  Ironic, given the baby news of the day for Daddy:  tomorrow is the ten-year mark of the actual official adoption.  We'll be talking about "Incredible Potential," and it will be very special.

Tonight we were able to watch a movie with Madison - she's been so into the "X-Men" lately.  We've been reading the old comics that Daddy has been bringing up.  One by one, we're reading them, although we've got a LONG ways to go on those:  currently, we're at the point where Omega Red has returned, along with Sabretooth, giving the Blue Team a hard time.  Tonight we watched "X-Men:  Apocalypse," which was a better movie than it was given credit for.  This might be because Daddy was so familiar with all these comic book stories and characters, so you'll have to give me some forgiveness there.  We hit the mute button on a couple lines, because we knew they were coming.  It seems these later X-Men and Wolverine movies (that are PG-13) are required by Fox to have one obligatory "queen mother of all curse words" in them.  It is so forced, and so not cool.  It doesn't fit, it doesn't make anyone laugh, and it's just frankly stupid.  I remember a lot of movies from the nineties had this trend.  You wanted to have a movie PG-13, and the movie could only have one usage of this word in there somewhere, and so it was like a little bomb the producers placed in there, right in the midst of an otherwise decent movie.  And you're left scratching your head, because it is so out of place and so unnecessary.  Anyway, slight rant over.  We hit the mute button, because Daddy knows where these are, and we're good.

Speaking of unnecessary language, we don't watch the Deadpool movies at all of course.  But Daddy does have a lot of those comics from the nineties.  For giggles, we looked up their value today, and that was a pleasant surprise.  This was back when that comic wasn't so vulgar, so we might get around to reading those together.

ANYWAY, it's what Madison was wanting to watch tonight.  We finished up with the X-Men movies, because she's been asking about each one, wanting to know each character and so forth.  She's really wanting to know when Gambit will appear in a movie, as she leans towards his character right now in the comic.  Who doesn't, though?  He's one of daddy's favorites too.  We don't talk about that Gambit in the Wolverine movie, because we generally don't talk about that movie.  Yikes.

It's been a good day today.  It's been a busy one, but it's been pretty nice.  Daddy finished his message tonight for tomorrow, and I guess we'll end with that.  I repeat something from a few years ago, but it does seem to fit a bit, and it's a good point.  I think it will be an incredible message!

KidPak Adventures: Incredible Heroes

“Jack-Jack”

CUE TRACK 1:  THE INCREDIBLES

CUE SLIDE:  INCREDIBLE HEROES

HOST:  “Hello everyone and welcome back to this, the very last day of our series Incredible Heroes.”

HOST:  “Before going on much longer, I wanted to share just a little something with you about today.  It’s a big deal for my family, because ten years ago yesterday, we met our daughter for the first time.”

CUE SLIDE:  “GOTCHA DAY”

HOST:  “Yesterday was the first day we met our daughter Madison.  I can’t even begin to describe to you the emotions of that day. Mommy is there in that picture, and she had been going through chemotherapy and radiation, all to fight stage three cancer.  It was close to being stage four, it was that bad.  And while that was going on, adoptions in China were slowing down, and we were told we had a three year waiting period.  And yet it all timed out.  Mommy recovered and healed just enough that we could make this trip to China. You’re seeing it there in this picture. We won, because God was with us every step of the journey.  The next day – and that’s ten years ago today – is what made it official.”

CUE SLIDE:  “BUBBLES”

HOST:  “Ten years ago today we signed papers and pledged pledges, and made it official. Ten years ago, we adopted Madison into our family, and I don’t know where to start when trying to describe these past ten years – other than this:  it’s been a happily ever after.”

CUE SLIDE:  “INCREDIBLE HEROES”

HOST:  “There is so much potential in a little child like that.  Think of it:  all the great heroes of the Bible started out as little children just like that.  And there’s still so much potential – not just in her, but in you.  Let’s look at that bottom line, one more time.”

CUE SLIDE:  “You’ve got incredible potential.”

HOST:  “You’ve got incredible potential.  And there’s another baby right there, one that’s certainly full of potential.  I mean, he’s already got so many super powers. He can teleport, shoot lasers out of his eyes, turn into a human torch, float through the air, and turn into a humungo baby!  He could become the greatest hero ever.”

CUE SLIDE:  “INCREDIBLE HEROES”

HOST:  “But so can you!  Okay, sure, you don’t have lasers coming out of your eyes.  But if you focus on the right things, you can become an incredible hero.  Look at this picture of Jack Jack here.”

CUE SLIDE:  “JACK-JACK GLOWING EYES”

HOST:  “He’s about to zap someone or something with his eyes!  But look closer – look how intent he is at looking at something. He’s got vision for sure, and that’s your first point right there.  Let’s take a look.”

CUE SLIDE:  “YOU NEED VISION”

HOST:  “You need vision.  We’re all spending all our time focusing on something, and sometimes it’s something fun like video games or the latest superhero movie. But if we want to stay on the right path, we have to focus on the right things.  What are the right things?  So glad you asked!  Let’s take a look at what Paul tells us to focus on.”

CUE SLIDE:  “PHILIPPIANS 4:8”

HOST:  “Finally, my brothers and sisters, always think about what is true. Think about what is noble, right and pure. Think about what is lovely and worthy of respect. If anything is excellent or worthy of praise, think about those kinds of things.”

CUE SLIDE:  INCREDIBLE HEROES

HOST:  “In today’s world, it’s easy to become distracted.  The other day, my daughter was showing me this amazing Minecraft mansion she was building, and I was like, ‘okay, sure.’  And then I looked at it, and I’m like, ‘What?  That thing is huge!  How long did this take you?’ She’s been working on it for a long time now, block by block, staying focused on it.  And that’s how anything in life is.  If you want it bad enough, you have to stay focused, and not distracted.  And that’s why Paul was telling us to focus on the big picture.  Because we’re all building something great for God.  Incredibly great!”

HOST:  “So I started thinking about Jack-Jack some more, and I thought of another one of his powers:  he can turn into this crazy monster thing.  When Syndrome starts threatening Jack-Jack’s family, all of the sudden, he turns into this.”

CUE SLIDE:  “ANGRY JACK-JACK”

HOST:  “Relax. I know this is how you feel inside when people start messing with your family.  It’s how I start feeling too.”

CUE SLIDE:  INCREDIBLE HEROES

HOST:  “We get passionate about things, don’t we?  We get all crazy about something sometimes.  If I were to ask some of you about this game Fortnite, you’d spend forever telling me about your adventures.  Or if you were to ask me and Pastor Lance to get into a discussion about who is better, Avengers or Dark Knight, it usually takes a while.  We’re really into certain things, aren’t we?”

HOST:  “Well, that’s what we need as well.  It’s your second point.”

CUE SLIDE:  “YOU NEED PASSION”

HOST:  “You need passion.  There’s another scripture that Paul gave us that perfectly describes what I’m talking about.  Here it is.”

CUE SLIDE:  COLOSSIANS 3:23

HOST:  “Work at everything you do with all your heart. Work as if you were working for the Lord, not for human masters.” Colossians 3:23 NIRV

CUE SLIDE: INCREDIBLE HEROES

HOST:  “Ultimately, we areworking for the Lord. Sure, your teacher asked you to do something, and your teacher is the one giving the grade.  But God is watching too.  And your Bible tells us if you want to succeed, you’ve got to do your best with what you have.  And if you can be trusted with a little, God will bless you with more and more.  No matter what you’re doing, do it with passion. Like a game of Fortnite or an argument about Avengers vs. Dark Knight!”

HOST:  “There’s a lot of different super powers Jack-Jack has, especially in this last movie, but there’s one more I wanted to show you.  How many remember when he did this?”

CUE SLIDE:  FLAMING JACK-JACK

HOST:  “He’s on fire!  Literally! He shoots flames, and don’t worry, he seems to be having the time of his life there.”

CUE SLIDE:  INCREDIBLE HEROES

HOST:  “But yes, you have a fire within you as well.  It’s the Holy Spirit, if you’ll invite Him in.  He’s the most important thing you need if you want to do great things. Let’s look at our third and final point.”

CUE SLIDE:  “YOU NEED GOD”

HOST:  “You need God.  I want to share one last scripture with you, this time from the words of Jesus himself.”

CUE SLIDE:  “JOHN 15:5”

HOST:  ““I am the vine. You are the branches. If you remain joined to me, and I to you, you will bear a lot of fruit. You can’t do anything without me.’ This is the part I really want you to focus on, right here.”

CUE SLIDE:  YOU CAN DO NOTHING WITHOUT ME

HOST:  “You can do nothing without me.  Let’s remind ourselves of this, out loud.  Say this with me, ‘You can do nothing without Jesus.’”

Let audience respond.

CUE SLIDE:  INCREDIBLE HEROES

HOST:  “I’m going to close with this one story, and it’s all true.  The Fourth of July is coming up, and I thought I’d repeat a patriotic story I’ve always loved sharing.  You see in the sixties, our nation was focused on getting to the moon first.  This was an incredible achievement, something no one ever thought possible.  A man walking on the moon?  It was in 1969 that the Apollo 11 did just that.  We somehow got this small craft to the moon, and two guys stepped out onto the surface, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Lightyear.”

CUE SLIDE:  “BUZZ LIGHTYEAR”

HOST: “Okay, it wasn’t Buzz Lightyear.  But did you know the character Buzz Lightyear was named after the astronaut Buzz Aldrin?”

CUE SLIDE:  “BUZZ ALDRIN ON THE MOON”

HOST:  “There he is on the surface of the moon, the American flag proudly standing behind him. After years of research, tests, brave astronauts, sacrifice, passion, vision, and all of it… we finally made it to the moon on July 20, 1969.  America did it first!  But did you want to know what Buzz Aldrin read out loud, before they even stepped out onto the moon?”

HOST:  “Put that scripture up again, please.”

CUE SLIDE: JOHN 15:5 

HOST:  “It’s that same scripture:  ‘I am the vine. You are the branches. If you remain joined to me, and I to you, you will bear a lot of fruit. You can’t do anything without me.’”

CUE SLIDE: INCREDIBLE HEROES

HOST:  “You can have all the vision and passion you want, but without Jesus in the mix, you have nothing.  And that’s what we pray here at KidPak, because we do our very best and we work very hard.  But we know it, and you know it:  without Jesus, we are nothing.  Without Jesus, our country is nothing.  Without Jesus, our church is nothing.  Without Jesus, our lives are nothing.”

HOST:  “As we close, perhaps you feel that nothing yourself.  The reason is because you need Jesus in your life.  And if that’s the case, right after service I’d like to invite you to talk to one of your teachers or pastors about it. Because trust me, I know what it’s like to feel like nothing.  But I also know what it’s like to have Jesus in my life, and I know you can too.  Because with Him at your side, nothing is impossible, from going to the moon to defeating cancer and going halfway around the world to adopt a little girl. Whatever dream has been dropped into your spirit, it’s all possible, because with Jesus, you have incredible potential.”

HOST:  “Let us pray.”

Galactic Gel Candles

So Daddy was doing work again, as our Forward Conference continues.

It's a big deal, with thousands of teens all gathered under one roof with one purpose of connecting with God, and that can never be a bad thing.  Fortunately, the rental car works just fine in getting down there and back.  Also, Daddy was finishing up the booklet for the next series, getting that to the printer, although the rough draft never came back today - hopefully that's tomorrow.  In the meantime, Madison was making GALACTIC GEL CANDLES!

More fun with polymers!  Madison was mixing these colorful ingredients together, and adding some space-themed plastics as well.  They light up on the inside with a small LED light, and you can decorate them as you choose.  Madison made five, and plans on handing some out this Sunday to her friends.  She learned how to make ribbon curls, and wrapped them up to give out later.

We've been working on our puzzle together, which is always a fun summer project.  We need a bigger table than our card table though, as this is a big puzzle.  It has a lot more pieces, but Madison's attraction to it was in that it was a picture of a large sea turtle.  Here we go though, putting it all together one piece at a time.

Madison is also continuing her paint-by-numbers, and should be done with that within a week or so.  It's a complicated sort of thing, carefully putting down paints in certain areas, but the end product should be nice.  We'll share that here, of course.  She was doing other artwork as well, some of those scratch art images that have turned out rather well too.  She's doing her piano, keeping up with that - and there was also a trip to the library for the next book in the series of unfortunate events:  "The Ersatz Elevator."  The unfortunate events continue!

So it was a typical summer day today, one without rain I might add.  Yesterday's storms were rough from the get-go, so a day without rain was quite a surprise.  But it never got too terribly hot.  It was pleasant all day long, in fact.    In just a few days, the conference will be over, and we'll be able to enjoy these days a little bit more.  June is quite a busy, busy month!

Forwarding

This might be one of the most amazing shots of the Forward Conference, which opened up today at the Gwinnett Arena.  Daddy spent a lot of time there today, roaming the backstage areas in places one does not usually get to go to.  But this weekend, Free Chapel sort of owns the facility, and there was a bit of work to do, preparations for another huge conference.  This one went really well, and although there is work to be done, our part of the ministry is merely helping where we can - rather than wearing the burden of all of it on our shoulders.  For example, we don't have to worry about sound or lighting as much.  We just help out, somewhat like a lot of the volunteers here, and yes, there's an army of volunteers.  It's going to be a great weekend, and probably next year Madison will be there as well.

We started quite literally at the crack of dawn this morning.  There was a severe storm in the area, large, heavy, slow moving storms pushed downward from Tennessee, each one with massive cracks of lightning that made you jump.  It was impossible to sleep in this morning, as the weather was quite ominous.  It took a while for these storms to pass, but pass they did by early afternoon.

Daddy was in in the rental car today, and it did well in the rain, so there was no worries there.  At home for a little bit, we read from our journal - can you believe it was ten years ago today that we were on the Great Wall of China?  For a time, Daddy was literally writing messages at Forward, downstairs, writing for the upcoming series.  It was great meeting with all the volunteers and talking and just connecting - everyone's excited about the week.

Madison was painting today, and working on her massive Minecraft project, and a little piano too.  It's a quiet week for her, despite the rumble of thunder all morning and into the afternoon.  That's okay, because sometimes these camps and conferences take up a lot of energy.  It's good to have this week off before we get going again.

Temple of Heaven

Each day lately, we've been reading from our journal of 2008.  This was ten years ago today, and we're reading each day of our adventures in China.  Ten years ago today we were at the Beijing Zoo, seeing a surplus of pandas, and then the Summer Palace, and then later on that day, the Temple of Heaven.  Madison is more into the reading this year, and it's been a good habit to be together, recalling the journey of a lifetime where we first met our little girl.  Gotcha Day is approaching, and that marks ten years.  It seems like we waited so long, and now it's already been a decade after that.

We had KidPak tonight, and Daddy needed to come up with something, so he went to Madison and the two of us wrote out a skit to go with this weekend's message, the one about Syndrome.  It turned out well, and worked out good in service tonight.  Madison was in the audience when we did it, and the kids were all laughing throughout.  More importantly, it was a message about hanging out with the right people, and making the right friends.  It was a shorter service, but it went very well.

It's been raining a lot lately, and the lake has been more than full for quite some time.  The grass is lush and it seems fairly predictable that there will be a rainstorm each evening coming through.  They haven't been so violent, but they've been filled with heavy rain, along with a quiet rumble here or there.

We're nearly done with our next book, "The Austere Academy," finishing up another two chapters tonight.  We should be done tomorrow night, I think, and therefore Daddy reserved the next book in the series at the library, where we'll be heading off to sometime soon, I'm sure.

In the meantime, Madison has been working on her painting some today, as well as doing some piano.  She's also building an epic Minecraft home on and off.  It's a much more relaxed week, certainly compared to the last few.  That's okay.  We love sleeping in, and it's been good for us to get some rest back.

Daddy wrote another message today, and is almost done with the messages for "Superflix" in July.  Madison has been helpful there, pointing out places where there could be some Biblical point.  She's excited about one movie we'll probably watch tomorrow, "Wonder," and has all kinds of notes for me already!

A Slower Pace

Last week while inside at the Gwinnett Campus, another car messed up the front of our parked car.  Fortunately, it wasn't a hit-and-run, and there's insurance to take care of things.  This brings us to today, when Daddy dropped the car off at a body shop, and picked up a rental they offered:  a Nissan Maxima.  It's actually a fun little car, and front has a lot of little lights and buttons, reminding me of Michael Knight's famous words in the Knight Rider pilot:  "It looks like Darth Vader's bathroom."

Or something like that.  I was pretty young at the time, and the line struck me as funny.  Anyway, today was a day to write for our next series, so we watched the movie "Cars 3," and in that we found some great points to talk about at KidPak, so much so that we'll probably be doing this message on a Sunday in July.  The entire church does a "At the Movies" series in the main sanctuary, so we're following suit with a movie series ourselves, this time one that does not have a superhero theme, but rather the theme of simply "movies."  We're doing "Wonder," "Cars 3," "Trolls," and "The Greatest Showman."

So tonight we were watching "Cars 3," and I forgot just how much I liked this movie.  I'm pretty close to saying I like it better than the first "Cars" movie, just based on its theme and pacing.  Anyway, that'll be fun to talk about in July.

Daddy wrote the message outline today, amongst other things.  Madison was busy today too:  doing a bit more on her painting-by-numbers creation.  She and Mommy were mixing their own paints, and it's a slow and tedious process to color in each area, but she's going slow and steady to a finish line that we'll hopefully reach within a week or so.

We went to the pool tonight, which was a little busy, but it's still refreshing.  It was later tonight, so the sunlight wasn't as direct upon us, which is good.  It was still warm, and the water felt great too.  Madison loves splashing Daddy.  We were playing catch and "Marco Polo" for a short while, and then heading back home for dinner.

Madison did some piano today, although not in any specific direction.  There is the goal of playing "A Million Dreams" by the end of the summer, but there's no specific deadline approaching, or grocery list of things to do.  Speaking of which, we did do some grocery shopping today, the three of us.  Quite a bit of groceries, too!  It's been a while since we went out to shopping, so we were a bit behind.  Fortunately, most of it fit in the rental car's trunk!  It was quite a bit.

So the pacing is slowing down a bit from the last week, although there's still plenty of writing to do at the moment.  But it's all balanced out, and we're enjoying the summer.  Throw in some restful days like today, and I think we'll be just fine...

Back to School Dinosaurs

Daddy woke up early this morning to go to an auto body shop - one of the incidents from last week that isn't written here was a car accident.  Its isn't much to write about:  someone dropping their child off at the church accidentally hit our car.  She came into the church after that, and after a time found out who's car it was and we set things up for today.  So Daddy got an estimate on the repairs, and after that went to get an oil change and tires rotated, the usual stuff.  We're about to take another trip south, so it's good to get that part out of the way.  The funny thing is that I was back by 9:00 am, and everyone was still asleep in the house!

While there waiting, Daddy even completely finished one of his messages for Superflix II, a message based on the movie "Trolls."  It should be pretty fun!

Today's temperatures were astoundingly hot.  You could sense that much inside, where it was safer from the elements - but this really reminds us of how blessed we were with the weather during Summer Xtreme.  There is such a thing as being too hot to be outside, just as there is a problem with being out there during a rainstorm.  Fortunately, neither interfered with us, and we're grateful for that.

We were a little more productive with this day, as indicated above.  We went out to Mal-Mart, and took care of a little bit of grocery shopping, but also got all of Madison's back-to-school list taken care of already.  Yes, it's still June.  But August is now when school starts, and back-to-school advertising actually starts in ...July?  What's up with that?  Still, we took care of it in June, because things get busy just prior to school starting, and it's during those weeks that we have Madison in art camp.

While we were in Wal-Mart, we heard the rumble of thunder while deep inside the store.  You know it has to be loud to hear anything outside inside the store.  The weird thing is that when we went inside the store, not that long before, it didn't look like rain or anything out there.  Sure, there were clouds, but you know the look of an approaching storm.  Especially one that is as fierce as this one turned out to be.  We looked out the exit of the Wal-Mart, and realized the best play was to do some more shopping and wait it out.  So that's what we did:  Madison got a few more clothing options for the upcoming vacation, as well as something to wear for school.  We got a few movies for the upcoming "Superflix II" series, just some movies to check out.  Meanwhile, the cracks of thunder were intense outside.  It was amazing hearing such a violent storm outside, while everyone was just casually shopping inside.

Before the storm came, we went to the movies and saw "Jurassic World:  Fallen Kingdom" together.  This was Madison's first Jurassic movie in the theater, and since Daddy previewed it on Friday, it was determined to be okay to see here.  Although Madison has seen 3 out of 4 of the previous movies, it's still good to check and see if they're safe ahead of time, given that you're pretty certain a few people in this movie are going to be dinosaur food.  And in fact, a few people were.

This movie has mixed reviews, but we liked it.  In fact, the front row of college kids (and Daddy) on Friday really liked it too.  For one, it was daring for the writers to actually leave the islands of Isla Nublar and Isla Sorna.  It could be argued that this was done in "The Lost World," but that end part was just silly.  With this movie, we see a bit more of what Ian Malcolm was warning about when he said, "Genetic power has been unleashed.  You cannot put it back into the box."  In essence, we see a good part of the story not on one of those islands.  Meaning:  the dinosaurs aren't isolated on an island anymore.  It was a fun movie, and not terribly gory as it could have been.  In fact, many of the fatal dinosaur attacks are done after the camera pans away, or as the camera is focusing on something else in the foreground.  It's fairly obvious from the beginning who is going to be dinosaur food, which is to say, everyone gets what is coming to them, for the most part.  There is one interesting conversation going on about Maisie, one where we all suspect she's either part raptor, or perhaps her DNA is a part of the velociraptor Blue's genetic make-up.  These are the conversations Mommy, Madison and Daddy had when we were coming home.  Daddy loved the scene at the end with the dinosaur sneaking into the bedroom, as it was so reminiscent of an early Steven Spielberg movie.

Anyway, dinosaurs still rule the earth in a way.  Madison was very excited to see the movie, and really enjoyed it.  I get the critical reaction to it, but a lot of people are still enjoying the movie anyway, and it certainly brings up a lot of questions to be answered in the next movie.

We got home later today and had our pizza.  The pizza kitchen was open!  Mommy makes the same kind of pizza for Madison over and over again, and it's the only one that Madison really likes.  She scarfs it down though - we had to get on to her about eating speeds, as she tends to devour things rapidly.  Maybe she was inspired by the dinosaur movie.  Mommy and Daddy shared a gluten-free pizza together, and the three of us had a nice moment there.  Daddy was pretty tired though, perhaps because of the cumulative effect of Summer Xtreme?  Not sure.

Regardless, we read a little  more from the "X-Men" comics (we started issue #3, where the gold team has to go rescue the blue team from Asteroid M).  We also watched one of the movies we got at Wal-Mart.  Yes, I know it sounds like that's all we do is watch movies, but we were doing homework for this new series, and the movie "Sherlock Gnomes" had just come out on Blu-Ray.  And as much as I wanted to be able to use this movie, I was unable to see much in it to preach off of.  There is a message about focusing on each other versus focusing on all the work you need to do.  It's a sort of Mary/Martha thing, about focusing on what is really important.  But that was about it, and even as I type this out here, I'm trying to make it work into a message, and perhaps it just isn't meant to be.  It was a decent movie, but like with the last three sequels we've seen lately - it's not as good as the original.

We read from "The Austere Academy" again tonight, and said our prayers.  It was a nice day together.  The temperature outside is cooler after the storms - that's one good thing.  I'm not sure how much it rained at our house, actually.  It seems the rougher parts of the storm avoided this neighborhood - again.  But we did get rain, and it did cool down, and in the end all was well - we have much to be thankful for in our prayers.

Syndrome

It was another incredible morning at KidPak, as we continued our series dedicated to "The Incredibles" with a morning themed around the latest character, Syndrome!

This was a fun one!  We've done services around Mr. Incredible, Elastigirl, Dash, Violet and Frozone.  And now here's one about Buddy Pine, otherwise known as Syndrome.  The message was entitled, "Who's Your Buddy?"  It was about looking up to the right people, and remembering we're all only human!

Afterwards, we were back home to collapse, as the wear-and-tear of the Summer Xtreme weeks has really taken a toll on us.  All three of us were ready for an afternoon nap, really.

But Daddy decided to do some writing for July's movie messages, which involved a bit of research, meaning we watched the movie "Trolls."  Daddy was even able to write out the entire message, and that makes two down, and three to go.

Later on, Madison and Daddy went to the world of "Portals 2," and I have to say that Madison is a very bright girl.  She was solving a few of the problems before Daddy could - it's a very interesting game to think through!  And of course, all the while, there's GLaDOS taunting us with hilarious commentary.  It was fun though.

Another thing we were doing was starting on some of Daddy's old X-Men comics from some time ago.

If we're reading through all of Daddy's X-Men comics, this might take a while.  Madison did enjoy it though - we read through about two of them, and now there's a cliffhanger until tomorrow's reading.  We'll pick up again tomorrow and the next day and the next... these are great books!

Anyway, it was a restful sort of day.  We read from "The Austere Academy," and said our prayers late tonight before going to bed.  We're thankful for a great last two weeks, and also thankful for getting to sleep in tomorrow.  We have a couple days to take a breather before it all starts up again, but until then, we'll be taking it easy.  Good night!

Xtreme X-Men

Okay, so now it's over.  No ice cream today.  We're done with Summer Xtreme, and it all went really well for the most part.  Gainesville definitely went a lot better, and there were a few more "grows" than "glows" with Gwinnett.  But overall it was a great year, and if you ask Madison, everything lived up to the word "Xtreme!"

Today was a well-earned rest, a day for resting in our pajamas, and a day for... wait, Daddy still has to write messages for the next series.  True story.  We have some movie messages coming up, so Daddy had to do some quick writing there.  In fact, we'll leave with a sneak peek at a message dedicated to "The Greatest Showman" here, one of the movie messages that we'll do in July.

Daddy finished that one up on a day where we didn't do a whole lot outside.  We did a lot of cleaning up inside, and Daddy wrote the message below.  Madison was playing piano a little and doing some drawing.  She also read a little from a few of the books we picked up from the library lately.  But that's about it:  this was a nice, calm day that ended with a look at the first X-Men movie that came out in 2000.  We hadn't seen that in years, and Madison had never seen it before.  But she really enjoyed it, as did we.  I can remember this movie starting off the Marvel movies - if you think about it, this was the first Marvel movie to really connect with people (outside of the "Blade" movies, which sort of were a particular group of people).  But "X-Men" was such a surprise, because we were all thinking there was no way they could do it right, and weren't we all pleasantly surprised?  And soon after that, there was "Spider-Man" and soon after that superhero movies were back in again, because CGI was able to do things with heroes that we could only dream of before.  Before, we could only do Christopher Reeve as "Superman" and Michael Keaton as "Batman," and that was about it.  The Marvel movies were lame, as were other DC movies as well.  We loved Batman and Superman, but there could never be a Marvel movie - those were just not possible to do right.  Right?  Obviously it was great to be pleasantly surprised.  One thing that we loved most of all about the "X-Men" movie was that they seemed to care about the characters.  And that's been a big win for most of the Marvel movies that have come out since then, obviously excluding "X-Men 3" and this latest "Fantastic Four" movie.

Anyway, clearly, Madison is into the X-Men lately.  We read some X-Men comics today, and Madison was really wanting to watch these movies.  It could be because Hugh Jackman from "The Greatest Showman" is Wolverine.  But it's also because of the love of characters - these have always been some of Daddy's favorites.

And best of all, what was great about today is that we did it all without getting out of our pajamas!  Okay, here's a peek at the message for "The Greatest Showman" as we exit...

     Someday you’ll look back as PT Barnum did, and see your younger self, and look on in astonishment. Perhaps you’ll wonder, how did you even get this far? The answer is simple, of course, because God has been with us every step of the way.
In the movie, “The Greatest Showman,” we look back. We see the life of PT Barnum, we sing the songs, and of course we learn the lessons that he did – some of them learned the hard way. As we look back at this amazing musical journey, we’ll focus on three simple ideas, lessons that can take you from feeling like a stranger in the dark to something glorious.
     Firstly, if you had a wishing machine, what would you wish for? Happiness? Ballet shoes? To marry Santa Clause? Consider this: Everything you ever want, and everything you ever need... is here right in front of you. Our Heavenly Father is the greatest show of love and power on earth. Our Bibles tell us to seek Him first, and then everything else will be added to you. Simply put, all the shine of a thousand spotlights will never be enough without God in your life.
     Second, look at yourself as our Heavenly Father does. You are who you’re meant to be, and God sees a general. They won’t laugh at you - they’ll salute! Don’t believe that lie that you need to hide your face, afraid to step outside. God wants to use you to bring His message of joy to the
spotlight. You’re not a freak show. You are warriors, reaching for the sun. Look out, ‘cause here you come!
     Finally, don’t lose focus. PT Barnum did just that, always looking for something greater. When we forget who we are and lose focus on what matters most, we chase the wrong things. Like the Prodigal Son in the Bible, and even PT Barnum, make a vow that from now on, you will come back home to Him. Let a promise in you start, like an anthem in your heart: “From now on!”
     “The Greatest Showman” starts and ends with the same song, and in it the same message: “It’s everything you ever want. It’s everything you ever need. And it’s here right in front of you.” What is it? The love and power of God, who’s ready to burst through the barricades and bring you life, and life more abundantly. In other words, He is the greatest show!

SX18 - GWINNETT DAY THREE

The last day of Summer Xtreme 2018 started with a return trip to the movies!  Getting up a little later this morning, we made the final trek down to the Suwannee campus for one final day of Summer Xtreme this year.  Right away, we were on the buses and driving down to Sugarloaf Mills to their theater there, and ready for a return viewing of "Incredibles 2."

Here's Madison and some of her group in the theater, which is substantially larger than the one in Gainesville, one where all of the Summer Xtreme kids were able to fit into one auditorium together.  Meanwhile, Daddy and a few others snuck out and watched "Jurassic World:  Fallen Kingdom," which had an earlier start time - we got out just in time to escort the kids back to the church!

We got back, and there were sandwiches and meals for the kids, and because the schedule was pretty tight, we were in the main auditorium for another church service.  One last time, we had worship, Squad Battles, a message from Pastor Lance about the unlimited power and love of God, and of course, our final part of the "Heroes" video.

It was very well received, and in fact will be shown a few more times before the end of the month.  The message of Pastor Lance had a quote that Daddy typed out, and has been speaking out this series.  I've always wanted a "quote," something that I could call my own.  Many of the best quotes are already taken!  But this one is good enough to call my own, and of course it was God-inspired.

"The only thing that rivals God's unlimited power is His unlimited love for each of us."

- David Cypher

We prayed for one another, and concluded the services nicely - just in time to run outside and have another water day!

There were inflatables galore, and lots of squirt guns and dunk tanks and buckets of water.  It was tremendous fun, as is every water day we do at Summer Xtreme.  It was a little shorter, but it was a whole lot fun for everyone.  

One of the greatest parts of all is the weather - we were supposed to have some rough storms come through about this time.  They did come, but they only came immediately after the car line was done picking up all the kids at the end.  So, instead of dealing with rough weather, we had sunny skies and lots of laughs.  The forecasters missed the exact timing of this, and we were quite happy about that!

You can see Madison in the middle of it all here, in the middle of Summer Xtreme 2018.  This is the day that concluded it all, two weeks of destinations, services and lots of fun. She had such a great time, and despite the occasional frustrations with bus drivers losing their keys or odd behavior by supervisors at the public pools, everything went super smooth.  This has been the most relaxed two weeks that Daddy has ever had for Summer Xtreme, whereas it is usually quite a stressful occasion with so much to do and so forth.  We certainly do carry the weight and responsibility of making sure nearly eight hundred kids are taken care of, and we do our very best to make this live up to the name "Xtreme."  But at the same time, it was easier to do that this year, and therefore, we got more rest than we usually do.  This might be credited to more effective planning, or perhaps a greater volunteer presence.  But we give all glory to God.  It has been a remarkable, wonderful, xtreme past two weeks!

SX18 - GWINNETT DAY TWO

This morning we were up early again, and off to Gwinnett's Free Chapel campus, which is about a 45-minute drive.  Not too far away, really.  Not compared to Spartanburg, of course!  But we got on the highway and joined the Atlanta direction traffic, and were soon off to another Summer Xtreme kind of day!

It started with worship in the morning - Madison is seen here during praise and worship portion of our morning, which is a big deal for us and the kids.  In fact, it is the most important part of Summer Xtreme, truly. 

Although not as big as our Gainesville campus skits, we had our Incredible Heroes story finish up today with four out of six of the original characters.  It went well - the characters are a lot of fun!  And the Squad Battles are just as intense on stage, crazy, messy games where all the kids are cheering for their squad to win.  You can see Madison and a few of the other Super Squad members at the bottom right here.

After an incredible message from Pastor Halston, and pizza for lunch, everyone was off to Rockin' Jump, which of course is where we took the Gainesville kids last week.  It was loads of fun!

This would be Madison's favorite day of the week.  You can see her jumping - or at least falling down on her bottom - with her friends here, all on the same trampoline.  

She returned to the obstacle courses as well, and this time she did a few rounds of dodge ball on the trampolines, which can get a little rough some time.  She was courageous though, and she actually survived one entire round without getting pegged.  She had a great time!  At the end of it all, the entire group posed for one massive group shot from above.

Eagle eyes can spot Madison along the black railing in the upper level, her arms resting on the raining towards the middle.  Gwinnett's group was pretty big this year, the biggest yet!

This has been a special Summer Xtreme for Madison, because her friend Emma Brook here, as well as another friend Joy (both from the birthday party) could not come to the Gainesville Summer Xtreme.  They were able to come to this one, however, and as it isn't too far away, they were able to make it each day.  Daddy made sure they were put in the same group together:

They've been having a great week.  It's a shorter one, but each day is filled with adventure and fun!

At the end of this day, we were once again getting everyone back to their cars, and once again making that long drive home.  Mary Shannon lives in our neighborhood, so the three of us have been carpooling together down to Gwinnett.  It was a little more quiet today on the way home, and that's probably because everyone's been a bit tired.  Understandably!  There has been so much going on, and we're loving it all - but at the same time, it'll be good to get some rest soon, even Madison.  She's having an incredible week though, and wouldn't miss it!

SX18 - GWINNETT DAY ONE

So here we go, back to Summer Xtreme again, this time at a new campus at Gwinnett's Free Chapel in Suwannee.  We have well over two hundred kids for this go-round, so it was smaller than last week's, where we had something like 550 kids.   Still, it's pretty intense, and just look above at the auditorium where we were hosting - we had the main sanctuary, versus the larger rooms upstairs.  We had outgrown that, and I think we're going to keep growing in fact.

Our services are pretty identical to last week, with an entirely new audience - although there were a few like Madison who came last week as well.  It's still fun to play the games, see the videos and hear the messages.  Oh, and there's the "Heroes" video as well!

There's Lord Titan, our villain, about to show our Heroes a thing or two.  Hopefully they'll be able to overcome all adversity and save the day by the end of the week.  In fact, the ending is a little different from last week, as Josh is still editing his masterpiece.

The kids were loving it though, and the whole service as well.  You can see Madison, already wearing her Summer Xtreme hat and Summer Xtreme glasses from last week.  She had a great day.  Once service was over, we were back in the rooms eating Chick-Fil-A, and getting ready to go to the pool!

Here's Madison and her friends at West Gwinnett Aquatic Center, otherwise known as "the worst public pool to take your summer camp of kids to."  The people that run this place - just like last year - are just amazingly odd.  Let me give you my favorite example, and then we'll move on.  Before we could let 180 kids into the area, one guy is responsible for making sure that all 180 kids have either a swimsuit on, or they have one in a bag.  I have no idea why.  Apparently, you can't go into a pool area without a bathing suit?  I get not going into a pool unless you're wearing a bathing suit.  That makes sense, if only because you want people to wear bathing suits in pools.  And that's what the copious amount of whistle-blowing lifeguards are for, isn't it?  But this guy here stops everyone, and makes them line up in one group at a time, as if it is some sort of military inspection.  Madison was in a hot bus waiting all this time - it was over a half-hour later that all the kids finally got into the pool.  And that was just one restriction.  So, to recap, West Gwinnett Aquatic Center is not the best place.  In fact, I'd probably not want to ever go there again - just because of certain employees.  Last year, we had a less-than-stellar experience at this place.  So if you're considering going to West Gwinnett Aquatic Center, my recommendation is simply to consider again.  Or, at least consider some place else.

When we were in there, the kids had a great time.  Madison, considerably more brave this year, went on the water slide with her friends, and without any problems at all.  She had a great time!

This opens the door to other water slides in the future at more elaborate water parks, which could be lots of fun!  But while here, Madison was indoors at the diving board some, splashing everyone at one point - Daddy was in the pool with Pastor Lance and Chris and lots of kids, and we were in this one area that became this all-out splash war.  Nobody could see anything at all, because about twenty of us were all in this small area splashing away - I'm surprised we didn't get a whistle at that!  It was hilarious, really.  Madison loves splashing people, and that was pretty epic.  It all started out with us hiding by a wall and ambushing some of the others, and then it got crazy!

There's a lazy river there, and that was nice to sort of float along with, and the weather was so great today.  Rain all week, and even forecast for tomorrow.  But today, there was no threat at all.  It was timed perfectly, and to God be the glory for that.  The kids all had a great time!

We finished at the pool - you can see Madison above with a bunch of the others just before heading out.  We got back a little later due to the fact that we wanted the kids to stay longer in the pool because it took them so long to get into the pool.  

So the car line was a complete mess.  But that's okay, because the kids had a great time, a great start to their Gwinnett Summer Xtreme.

Of course, that wasn't it for the day - we had KidPak tonight at our Gainesville campus.  The staff was so tired, but we had a plan to show them last year's "Heroes" video in its entirety.  Which we did, while the rest of us worked hard on the next day at Summer Xtreme, tomorrow.  There's still plenty to do there.  Madison enjoyed service, and we got things done - and then we were all heading home, exhausted and happy at a great first day!

Gwinnett Next

It was a pretty good work day, as we were getting ready for Summer Xtreme in Gwinnett now.  We were loading trucks and unloading trucks, and dealing with some pretty intense heat.  But with intense heat came a huge and violent deluge of rain that suddenly cooled things off.  The rain persisted a little longer than usual, but nobody was complaining about it, as the temperature was dropping so much that things became a bit more bearable.

We were making name tags today, and Madison was doing some coloring while Daddy was creating and printing handouts, printing scripts and getting video imagery ready for round two of Summer Xtreme.  We've matched up Madison with her friends in the Supers tribe - these are friends that couldn't come last week, but are here this week.  It'll be fun for her - she's ready to have a good time once more, although admittedly, Summer Xtreme in Gwinnett isn't as ginormous as the one in Gainesville.  Still, it's immensely fun and will be hopefully easier on the Gainesville staff.  We'll see on that end, as only time will tell.  For the time being, all is well, and everyone is looking forward to a great time.

We got Madison home early enough for a good night's rest, and did some more work towards writing and getting audio tracks and visuals nailed down.  It should be a great week, and once this one is over with, we'll have a pretty large load off our shoulders.

This is camp #3 for Madison for those of you keeping score.  We're pretty blessed to be able to have Madison in both of the Summer Xtreme camps, and she's very much into both of them. She has her little cape on, and her handmade signs that boast of her group's winning talents and energy.  She's excited about it, and having a wonderful summer already!

SX Break

This morning... we slept in.  Well, most of us anyway.  Daddy is still up early, despite his best intentions not to do that.

This morning we had a chiropractic appointment, which was fun for Madison, who giggles and laughs throughout the whole thing.  She has the greatest time, and it really is a good experience, and probably a needed experience after the last few weeks we've had.  Afterwards, we were back home - Daddy was outside cutting around the edges a bit, which was really needed.  The temperature is not really needed though - it was very hot today, and fortunately it doesn't take long to do the edges around the driveway and front curb.

Once inside, we ate a small meal, and tried out one of Madison's new games she got for her birthday, "Portals 2."  It's actually an older game, but she's able to figure it out now, and the two of us were doing some co-op exploration and fun.

This wasn't for long though:  we had an early date with Ye-Ye and Nana for a Father's Day dinner at 4:00 pm this afternoon, this one at Texas Roadhouse.  It was nice to stop and take a breather, although we're still a bit exhausted from last week.   Nothing like yesterday though - we were really tired then. But it was a nice, relaxing dinner, and of course the food is always good.  Madison sat between Nana and Ye-Ye because she wanted to, and that was really sweet!  The five of us had a good meal and good conversation.  We had a gift for Ye-Ye, a gift card for Home Depot as he's been there quite a bit lately, plus some bacon brittle, which we're not quite sure about.  But it has bacon in it, so it can't be that bad, right?

Anyway, it's been a quiet day, the calm before another lesser storm known as Gwinnett Summer Xtreme.  We'll be all over that soon enough.  But until then, we were off to the library while we had a chance, looking around for a while and getting the next book about the unfortunate Beaudelaire children.  We begin reading about an austere academy tonight.  Daddy also picked up some graphic novels of X-Men comics from 1990, which should bring back a whole lot of memories.

Speaking of which, we watched "X2:  X-Men United" tonight, based on a request from Madison.  This may be Daddy's favorite X-Men movie of all, at least so far.  Madison enjoyed it too, along with some popcorn of course.  That's a must.  It won't be long before Daddy will be pulling out the comics from the X-Men that we have.  I have hundreds.  It was a near obsession in the 90's, and I have so many X-titles.  Those will be fun turning back to - good times!

Tonight before bed, we read from our devotional and started the Austere Academy as well.  We said our prayers, and it wasn't too much later that all of us were asleep.  We're still worn out from the weekend, and it'll be good to sleep in tomorrow, one more time...

Stormtroopers for Father's Day

This morning we were at church again, and this time talking about Mr. Incredible - along with a message dedicated to his adventures in the movie, "The Incredibles."  This series has explored Dash, Violet, Elastigirl, Frozone, and now Mr. Incredible.  The next two weeks should be fun, as we talk about Syndrome and finally Jack-Jack.  I'm actually very proud of this series, as usually we try to find something low key or "done before," so that we can make more time to do our Summer Xtreme.  But Daddy always tries to make these "lesser" months the best they can be, and I believe that's been the case this series.  "Incredible Heroes" is a series I'm pretty proud of in the end.  Madison enjoyed the services this morning, following along with her book, and getting it stamped.  She'll collect another Wal-Mart gift card after this, inching closer to her destination of saving up for an iPad.

Another thing she's saved up for was a Father's Day gift for Daddy.  Here's what she got:

It's a book entirely devoted to Stormtroopers.  It's about the history, the armor design, the guest appearances, the commercials, the toys, the actors, the movies, the cartoons... the everything.  It's all about stormtroopers, and it's a big book.  It's pretty cool - she was quite happy to see Daddy unwrap it.

We had a nice meal together this afternoon, a "summer" meal with salads and a veggie burger with cheese, and corn on the cob, and sweet tea too.  Perfect for a summer day like today!  Mommy is the best!

Madison has been doing her artwork at the table, and we're happy to see her using her colored pencils.  She's also been working on her piano lately, pounding out "A Million Dreams" some more, getting closer to getting that one right.

Before bedtime, we watched one of her birthday presents, "LEGO Star Wars:  The Freemaker Adventures."  We had time for about three episodes of this animated adventure, and it's really clever - all three of us enjoyed this quite a bit, with a few laugh-out-loud jokes and a pretty decent story.  This was one of Madison's birthday presents, season one of this series.  So as you might suspect, we'll be watching this for the next week or so.  Or less... we covered three episodes alone tonight!

Bedtime came a little later, but we were all tired and ready to turn in.  Summer Xtreme is exhausting, even though it was a couple days ago.  We're still catching up.  Anyway, we read from our Incredibles-themed devotional, said our prayers, made zerberts and accused one another of smelling funny:  the typical nightly ritual!

Then it was time for bed, another good night's rest!

SX18: Ice Cream

We slept in today, somewhat.  Daddy was up writing thank-you letters to volunteers and so forth, but eventually everyone was up in the house, and soon enough we were off right away to a yearly tradition:

The Summer Xtreme Ice Cream trip.  We go to a specific ice cream place, easily our favorite in Gainesville, and we just sit back and talk about the week, and relax a bit.  There's nothing to memorize, edit, print, hang up, coordinate, design, or do here.  We just try unique ice cream flavors and enjoy each other's company, and then pose for the annual post-Summer Xtreme ice cream picture.  This year's roster is a little different, as some of the others were understandably exhausted.  It was nice to hang out for a while together, and soon after, we were all off and heading in different directions.  For us, it was going to get some birthday presents for a friend of Madison's tonight - her name is Sylvia.  Madison was invited to a party tonight for one of her ballet friends, and so we got some gifts (and a few others for Father's Day), and then wrapped them and pretty much drove back to their house for the party.

Meanwhile, Mommy and Daddy did some work for the church, and did some grocery shopping too.  A storm was approaching, but it never did connect with us in Gainesville.  It sounded as if Flowery Branch was getting clobbered though.  Through it all, we saw a brilliant rainbow.

This was the rainbow a few moments later - we were nearby the chapel, so we drove over there and took this picture.  The rainbow faded a little, mainly because it was after 8:00 already by this point.  It was an evening rainbow, and when you could see it clearer, you could see a much larger spectrum than what you usually see.  This was an intense rainbow!

The party was fun - no pictures, but Madison had a "spa" experience with something covering her face, nail polish, and things like that.  It was at someone's house, and it was just a great time to cut loose and have some fun.  Madison said as much afterwards, "That was really fun!"

We got home, and it was late.  And we're still tired.  We said our prayers, read from our devotional, and here Daddy is now, finishing up on this blog entry.  No doubt, he'll be going right to bed immediately after this... Summer Xtreme takes a few days to get over!