What I Did on My Summer Vacation

Remember those 200 word essays when we got back from summer vacation?

Other kids had to struggle to come up with 200 words for “stayed in my room and played video games.” I, on the other hand, had to restrain myself from making it a 1,000 word essay on my thoughts concerning all the books I had read during the summer.

Having no TV in the house when I was a kid made it easier for me to do more interesting things in the summer. No temptation!

This mini-summer vacation has been nice. It’s nice to roll around in bed and get up when I feel like it. And (shock and awe) I’ve hardly even watched any TV.

Fine. Don’t believe me. But it’s true.

Wednesday!

Wednesday night was SO cute. I helped out at Kids 4 Truth (poor Brett was home sick with the flu-like thingamajig I gave him…accidentally).

Our little mostly-girl group made me laugh so hard! I was the substitute leader for our group, since several families were out of town this past week.

This also meant I was the Bathroom Leader. I was very impressed with how fast the girls were finishing their business and washing their hands. When I was a little girl, we used to make that time s-t-r-e-t-c-h so we could mess around in the bathroom. (Hmm, don’t you feel sorry for MY AWANA leaders?)

Anyway, the little girl chorus said they were all done, and it was time to rush back into the big room. One little girl took my hand and led me out the door.

“We have to hurry,” she reminded me. “So we can beat the boys!”

Oh, so that’s what that was all about.

I hated to be the one to tell her, but I decided to be honest.

“Sweetheart,” I said. “The boys will always be done faster in the bathroom than the girls. It’s just the way it is.”

The girls nodded seriously, as the oldest girl in the group spoke up sagely, “That’s true. It’s because we’re prettier than the boys.”

I almost bit my lip to keep from laughing. “Well, we still want to use our time wisely,” I advised as our little group hurried back to the big room.

Mr. Jeremy was talking about the importance of reviewing the previous week’s lesson. He talked about how essential it was to remember the lessons we learn in Kids 4 Truth for our spiritual growth.

Then, he asked the kids for some other reasons why we should review the lessons and sometimes play review games.

A ripple of excitement went through the kid crowd. Review games are very popular.

As we waited silently for the kids to give more reasons to review, one little girl cheerfully and loudly interjected, “To beat the boys!”

The whole crowd laughed.

I guess she figured that if we couldn’t beat the boys in the coming-back-first-from-the-bathroom “game” then at least we had a shot in the review games.

After that, I sat in amazement as Mr. Jeremy led the kids in a review game where each correct answer led the kids to a video game world on the big view screen. Each child who answered correctly was able to go to a cyber bank to get cyber money and then a cyber sweet shop where they could “buy” cyber goodies.

It was sort of like being in the audience for Price’s Right. The kids couldn’t go over their money limit, or they would lose all their cyber goodies. The excitement was contagious as the kids shouted the correct answers and then “Buy!” and “Stop!” as the game went on.

Mostly, I sat back in wonder that Mr. Jeremy was doing a review game where he was giving absolutely nothing away and the kids were grinning like they’d won the lottery!

Hat’s off. The man is a genius. Where was he when I was buying gallon candy bags for my gig as Junior Church teacher back in high school?

Either way, it was fun to participate, even as a leader. And a great way to kick-off my mini-summer vacation.

Because, as we all know, I love to shop!