The Trip That Almost Wasn't

I have happy memories of summer and Youth Group.  That was something my church did well.  Actually, youth events in general were done very well.  I had many “non-Christian” friends join me for the events and grow to love my church family and stick around for more than the “events”.

That is something I hope I can get our current youth to understand.  The “Events” are totally there to have fun with each other – but so much more than that is the opportunity to get those friends who hate church or would never go to church to come to an event and get to know your “church friends”.  I had plenty of friends who would NEVER go to church, but they gladly came to an event where we had a 2 hour long food fight, or a day at Raging Waters, or a day at Six Flags…after all – those are “normal people” things to them.

So in my attempt to share some of my amazing experience with our group of Youth I scheduled a trip to Raging Waters.  Doing so with the assumption that most of the events we had so far had around 20 kids each – I figured having at least 15 for Raging Waters should be easy… Apparently I was wrong.

So on Monday I took the day off of work to spend a day with the Youth at Raging Waters.  We had 3 show up (YIKES!), but it was a very determined 3.  So after 2 hours of those 3 calling everyone they know we had a group of 15 (including leaders and my kids) – we loaded up the van and off we went. 

I think it was a great day personally.  It seemed everyone that went had fun, a few of them even asked if we could do it again.  But really what I want to tell you about is my kids (like the normal braggy mother I am).

Elijah: he wasn’t having it.  The water was cold and therefore Satan.  He went down one small kid slide and that was it for him.  I managed to get him knee deep in some water to splash around a little, but that was about it.  He did go on one big slide with Justin (in a raft) and latched onto Justin with all his might and would NOT let go.  He did NOT have fun on it and made that very clear.  He did say he had fun overall.

Jordan: Braver than she should be.  Her heart is in it, but she has her limitations.  She wanted to ride all the big stuff with the “adults”, but she wasn’t tall enough for some, and others were just too deep of water at the end and she can’t swim yet.  Poor kid.  She tried a few of the sort of big ones and did pretty good and is excited for next time when she is “bigger”.

Taylor: SHE WAS A CHAMP.  If you know this daughter of mine you know that words like “brave” and “restrained” are not usually associated with her.  But she was eager to try everything.  As a mom of a this “new swimmer” (she’s only been doing it without water wings for a few weeks) I was a nervous wreck watching her fly down the speed slides.  But she kept it under control.  She got out and dog paddled her way to safety.  When she went on one slide where the current was too strong for her to actually get out she paddled her way as close the life guard as she could and the nice lady jumped in and let her grab a floating to be pulled to “safety”…she didn’t even cry about it! WHOSE KID IS THIS?

And my last brag of the blog.  I made it all day WITHOUT A SUNBURN!  That is unheard of.  This pale red-head burns walking to the car.  Go me!