Water Balloons over Fear

This morning, Madison and Daddy went to the church again, after a few days of staying home, somewhat confined and doing school work.  I think "getting out of the house" was a desire of Madison's, strong enough for her to set up the alarm and get up early.  Our objective at the church was to film a game segment for the upcoming online weekend at KidPak.  One of Madison's objectives was to take photographs for her online photography class.  All these photos below were taken by Madison on her phone.

Here's a portrait of Mariah, getting ready for the water balloon game we were doing this morning.  It was a little chilly outside, but at least the sun was shining.

This is a neat photo Madison took of Bailey and Joey, or at least their reflections in the concrete.  You can see how Joey is right in the middle of a puddle jump that will get everyone a bit wet!  But that's what happened this  morning, particularly with Joey, as you'll soon see.

Here's Joey with a plastic container for the top of his head.  Both he and Bailey would have these buckets on their heads, the idea was for Mariah and Calvin to toss water balloons a certain distance, and whoever had the most water in their container at the end would be the winning team.

Just before the game, we filled up water balloons and put them in larger containers, so that teammates could grab the water balloons quickly.  Mariah and Bailey look ready to go!

So does Isaac.  He's got one of the cameras, and Daddy has the other.  Madison even filmed a bit of the preparation and the actual game itself.

Here's a shot of Josh, already a bit wet from an errant water balloon strike.  Before the game even began, there were a few of those tossed around.  And a few puddle jumps from Joey.

Speaking of which, here he is with his plastic container, and his Summer Xtreme shirt from last year.

Calvin has his Summer Xtreme shirt on as well, and he looks ready to toss some water balloons!  Once the countdown started, both Calvin and Mariah were launching balloons across the concrete towards their targets, those plastic containers on the heads of their teammates.

We'll wait until Sunday to show the winner, when we air our next online KidPak service.  We even used this segment to tell the Bible story of the day, one where the disciples were caught in the midst of a storm on the lake, and of course Jesus brought calm to the waters.

To help illustrate that, we had the contestants playing the part of the apostles, and at one point were launching water balloons at them.  And Joey bravely played the part of Peter, actually trying to walk on water.

It didn't go over so well!  For laughs, he fell right into the pool on this chilly morning, and again, he did it for the kids.  But he was pretty anxious to get out of that water afterwards.  

It should be pretty funny for the kids to see!  We hung around at the church, talking, editing, and also waiting on some palms to arrive for our Palm Sunday service.  No, we're not having a big Palm Sunday service in person - we ordered these months ago, and sadly, there won't be anyone at the church to hand them out to.  We'll just have to think of a use for 1,500 palms until then.  

There's a lot of restructuring going on right now.  There was a devastating blow today, as school was cancelled in April as well.  That was brutal news for Madison.  She's still working hard on the computer, and doing her best with school work.  We're having an online conference with one of her teachers tomorrow morning.

The pollen count is super high again, right in the midst of all these viruses that affect the lungs.  So it may be a beautiful day outside, but you still have to be careful how long you spend out there.  Pollen in the south is bad enough as it is.  You almost need to wear a mask just for the pollen!

Anyway, today was the usual kind day after the adventure at the church, with a lot of things to do at home.  Daddy has been reading "Frozen" books from the library that don't have to be returned for a long time.  There's been an extension on these books, given the current news.  The library is closed, temporarily, and we don't have to return the books until some time in April.  Daddy was reading on the front porch a bit, until the pollen drove him inside.  

We did some brainstorming for future series today, some of which have been written in the past and never used.  Others we've done before, but the thinking is, "What if we have to keep on doing online series another month?" Currently we have three weekends left of our "Faith Over Fear" series.  

We had no taekwondo or piano tonight, but Madison did help Daddy finish our "Lady and the Tramp" puzzle.

I like this one.  We love "Lady and the Tramp," of course, but this one was a nice composition, with lots of little surprising details you don't notice until all the puzzle pieces are put in place.  I think that's Sleeping Beauty's dress in a shop window.  And there's the heart being drawn in the ground at the feet of Lady and the Tramp.  Seeing Trusty there on the sidewalk brought a smile to my face.  Anyway, it's a nice image.  Maybe someday we'll have one of these as a painting itself, hanging on the wall.

Tonight we also watched a few things, some episodes of "Kickin' It," season four.  It's started out rather oddly, a completely different thing all of the sudden, and minus one character.  But it's had some laughs as well.  We loved the characters on this show when we first saw it years ago, but hadn't gotten around to seeing the last two years of it until it showed up on Disney Plus.

Afterwards, it was time for bed and prayers and reading.  None of that routine has changed.  We still do hide-and-seek, and we still read from the devotional and from "Thrawn" as well.  Madison is such a big Star Wars fan.  You'll have to see the bed now, with the covers she got for Christmas, plus the new BB-8 and Porg pillowcases.  

We said our prayers tonight, with special prayers towards our leaders, who are needing to make possibly some of the toughest decisions our governments have ever had to make in a few decades.  Faith over fear.