Greetings from Mission Control

We had quite a day here today, of course starting with KidPak where we did week #1 of the new series, "Unleashed."  Of course, this was based on the messages and games of last year's Summer Xtreme, and we even used some older KidPak videos tied to the message.  One of those videos was for a made-up service we call "Splash-o-gram."  Basically, during the hot weather, the commercial we made up advertises a service where you can call someone up, and they'll go to a person in order to dump a bucket of water on them.  Over the course of the commercial, about six people get doused.  And with the punchline of our video today, Pastor Lance gets Nerdo back using this service.  The funny thing came when our neighbor said their daughter got a Splash-o-gram.  Inspired by our service this morning, they filmed her getting hit with a bucket of water too!  It was funny - and cute!

The big event of today though was our Summer Xtreme filming.  Late this afternoon, we met at the media control center, which has a bit of stadium seating, computer desks and large monitors.  You can see here in this group photo that we changed it into a Mission Control room for a space mission!

What a remarkable group of people!  All of these are friends, all but one are volunteers, and all of them here to film for roughly four hours or so.  We had three scripts to film, and it took a while to map out where the camera would be for each bit, but we were able to map it out, and the actors did a fantastic job with their lines.

It was like KidPak all over again, like the skits we used to do together - just in front of a camera in front of an audience.  Everyone was all dressed up, and we had a few props to work with, and on top of that there were the lanyards too.  Each Summer Xtreme, I've made lanyards for all the staff and volunteers, and always wound up making a lot of these.  I've done it for years, so it's sort of become a tradition.  Anyway, it was great that these characters needed lanyards because I made our official Summer Xtreme 2020 lanyards for the Mission Control employees.

Here they are celebrating the success of the mission.  That sort of gives the script away a little, but you know I'm not going to have them fail, right?  Anyway, it was a successful filming.  It took a while.  We engaged in another tradition:  ordering Pizza Hut.  Although it didn't arrive as ordered, it was still nice to have something to eat together.

At the end of it all, we cleaned up the place rather well, and said our goodbyes.  We took that group shot you see at the top, which turned out so well.  You can see one of my favorite actors ever in that group shot.

Madison did well tonight.  Her character's name is Mei-Mei, which is another tradition of sorts.  I'm good with changing your name to something different next time, Madison.  Also, you did very well with your lines.  She fits right in with the rest of the cast!

Afterwards, we got home, and we were so wiped out we just went to bed.  We read and prayed, but that was about it.  We were asleep very soon after we got home!  But it was a great day, and a great time with a great group of people at Mission Control!