All week long Josh and the boys have been going to Kids’ Games at church. Today Camille and I got to go watch the closing ceremonies.
The 170 kids have been divided into color (red, yellow, blue, green) and age groups: Josh was the leader of the Red Omegas (kids age 9-14) and the boys were in the Yellow Alphas (Caleb) and the Yellow Omegas. That’s why they were wearing matching yellow Muscat t-shirts in our moving pictures. We had to run out and get yellow shirts the first night of camp so they could dress in their team colors. Speaking of colors, it’s pretty easy to spot the two kids in the above picture who are related to me — just look for the hair and skin that is lighter than everyone else’s.
For the closing ceremonies the kids sang the praise songs they’ve been singing all week (you’ll see in the video below that they really know how to throw themselves into singing) and showed off the skills they’ve been learning. In the mornings they had singing, Bible lessons, games and lunch. Then in the afternoon, each kid attended two different classes (art, photography, chess, guitar, etc). We saw musical numbers from the choirs, skits from the drama classes, a choreographed dance from the dance group, and examples from the photography and drawing classes were displayed around the room.
I thought Caleb was in choir class and was looking forward to seeing him sing, but it turned out that he only went to choir for one day and then switched to art class and table tennis. He displayed an origami bird.
But I did get to see him perform after all, since when the choir class went on stage he got up there with them and sang his heart out and did the motions along with the rest of the group. That is so typical of him.
Calvin and Carter both took guitar lessons. Their groups didn’t perform, but I’ve been hearing them strum out tunes all week. They’d probably need a month long camp to be tolerable to an audience. Calvin’s other class was table tennis, led by Josh. He had 30 kids in each group (2 groups), but only 1 table. They constructed an additional table using packing tape, some metal and a few napkins (I think I saw that on an episode of MacGyver one time) and the rest of the kids played makeshift games using the lines on the floor. The kids loved having Josh as their group leader. His kids all screamed loudly when they called his name, they asked to take pictures with him afterward, and they all wanted to meet his baby girl.
My girl is back to not sleeping again (not that it was ever great, but it was acceptable) . It’s either her teeth, her reflux, her gut, or possibly all three. She’s been up till midnight, awake at 6:45 and waking many times in-between. And she’s napping for less than an hour a day combined so it’s not like she’s making up for her lack of sleep. Ever.
I wore her and rocked her to the music and she relaxed like this, eyes open almost the entire time.
Carter was so excited about his drawing class because his teacher taught them techniques for drawing people all week: faces, arms and hands, bodies, etc. When I arrived he came running up to point out that one of his drawings was on display. He clearly gets his artistic talent from me.
*YouTube must have been having issues last night. I reloaded it today and all is well.
This is a quick clip from one of the songs during worship time. If you look closely, you’ll be able to spot all three boys. I like this video because it shows off each of their personalities: Calvin hanging with his friends, Caleb bouncing around not caring about anyone else, and Carter chilling in the back. They’re already all asking if they can go again next year. Who knows where we’ll be then . . .