Holy Harry Potter

Last week, Naomi and Danielle banded together with the other youth at church during the annual summer youth mission week. It was again a local mission "trip" like last summer, but with more in-person activities, and Danielle was now old enough to participate all week. They worked hard during the day, and then did fun events in the evenings for 6 days of Holy Harry Potter! 

Danielle and her friend, Emma, were sorted into Ravenclaw. Naomi was sorted into Huffle Puff.

The rainy morning did not stop their first job to clean out the damaged furniture from the youth room (pipes burst at the church during Snowmagedon, and ruined a LOT of everything) -- nothing like lugging couches and chairs to the dumpster in the rain!

Not everything always went as planned during the week, but they made the best of it and rolled with the heat, the mosquitos and the drive to the senior center that didn't really need them after all. And after baking and packaging up treats for members, only one person was home to receive their snack packs. It's not always about the destination, but also about the journey.

Reflecting on the week, the cool mini golf course and swim party ranked at the top of Danielle favorite fun time -- they managed to build a 5-person piggyback ride in the pool. Her favorite work session was painting the inside of a member's house -- she like rolling and brushing! The toughest part was doing yard work in the blazing hot sun!

Naomi chimed in that her favorite part was the final battle of color wars -- she enjoyed getting colored and coloring everyone else! Her favorite work part was also the indoor house painting because it was inside in the air-conditioning! Her most challenging moment included a rough time cleaning up the backyard of a member's house, and then finding out all the work was in vain because there was no place to put the items! But she survived and learned just how strong she is!

Both kids did great keeping up with their schedule and having a great attitude about it all! They enjoyed hanging with other kids and doing a little good in the process.

And Jeff and I enjoyed having 6 days of date night and eating out.

A win for everyone!