Sand between the toes is a great way to end the day

The past two days have been busy but great! Yesterday I went to session to meet the kids for the first time. We have 9 kids total this week and only 2 of them are girls. With such a small number of kids we are very limited in games we can play because dodge ball with 5 on 4 just isn't realistic. So, we teamed up with Mid-Kids to play games in the gym this week and it's been a lot of fun so far. This group is also a big challenging because we have quite a range of maturity from a few young ones who listen well and like everything to a couple older ones that are very vocal about what they do and don't like. We also have a little boy who was adopted from Russia and English is his second language. He does great speaking and reading but I find a real barrier with comprehension. I have to explain games to him several times and play it out with him before he gets it. Even then though, he claims he doesn't understand despite playing it correctly and uses that as an excuse to not want to play. While he is a handful, I really love him and he's attached to me. One of my little boys is just so precious. He is adorable, has trouble saying his Rs which is really cute, and is so well behaved (I found out he's from a large homeschool family...ya-yeah!). I also have a soft spot for one of my girls. She has 7 other sisters and one brother and is on the verge of becoming a Miley Cyrus look-alike. She came in one session with more eye make-up on than I have ever worn...she's 10! I think her sisters did her up. She was really shy to begin with but has started opening up. I'm really hoping for a chance to hang out with her outside of class in the rec center or something.

Between sessions yesterday I planned to do some reading but took a 2 hour nap instead and woke up with a bad headache which grew worse through session and my rec shift. By the time I was done for the night at 11:30, I felt so awful. I'm wondering if it was a migraine because my head just hurt so bad and I felt like throwing up. I took a tylenol and went to bed thinking that since I was so tired, I would fall right asleep, but no. It took forever! Thankfully it went away by the time I woke up this morning.

Today's sessions were good. Between the older boy and the adopted boy I was constantly telling one to stop doing something. I really still like them though. I feel like I have to be the strict teacher too much rather than just goof off and love them.

I spent the afternoon with Olivia and Jill. We have Soccer Mom Soccer coming up for Moonshadows on Wednesday and we went to Fred Meyer to buy items for it. Basically some staff will play soccer and other will be their soccer mom (or dad or grandpa or aunt, etc). So we bought white t-shirts to decorate, juice boxes, fruit-by-the-foot, granola bars, and oranges. We plan to apply Snoopy band-aids, hand sanitizer, and sunscreen whenever necessary. :) We will dress up like soccer moms and fight to defend our "kids" against other players and parents. When we got back we used sharpies to decorate the shirts for all our "kids" saying "I <3 My Mommy" and then ours will say "Proud Soccer Mom of ...." and we also have a grandpa so his says "#1 Grandpa" and signatures of all the "kids". :) The sharpie smell got REALLY strong but it was so much fun and I can't wait for Wednesday night!

Tonight in session we tried a relay race where the two teams raced around the running track to put on costumes and then once both teams were finished they each acted out a Bible story. They were so cute and hilarious! It was way more of a success than I thought it would be and the kids loved it. I had Bible study afterwards. Then I spent the rest of the night in the rec center with my friends. I won a game of foosball, got mustard on my face (revenge for having my friend "smell" whip cream and smearing it on his face) and then we tried to balance 3 golf balls on top of each other but could only get 2. Oh, and then we went down to touch the beach! I love the feeling of sand between my toes.

Off to bed now. One more day of work until a day of rest!