Blueberry picking and jamming

Blueberry picking went SO much easier than raspberries had been.

And the jam is AMAZING.

Random shots from Kingdom Bound

I got to be a “chaperone” for the youth group’s trip to Kingdom Bound.”

Stewart’s pizza.

Soccer during music sets.

The park as the sun set.

I got to hear Nick Vujicic speak.  He was amazing.

It was a fun day.  Extremely hot and crowded, but a lot of fun.

Ocean Commotion

For the last 11 or so years, I’ve had kids attend the VBS at Pittsford Community Church.  For a long while I only had attendants, but since 2012 I’ve had kids serving in the ministry.  This was my second year serving, Marie’s first, Stewart’s 5th and Nigel’s 3rd.

The theme was Noah’s flood and God’s saving grace for us today.  The sea theme was SO amazingly applied to the building.  Over 200 kids attended.  It was fantastic. 

I was a leader for Group 1.  Our mascot was Piers the Puffin.  Johanna and Katriel helped me set up name tags for my group each morning as we arrived.

Stewart clocked in his fifth year as a Bible teacher.  For the first three years he was an assistant, and these last two years he’s been the lead teacher.

Marie was part an assistant in one of the music teams.

On day two we went outside to see just how long the Ark was.

Nigel acted as a villain in the drama for the third year.  This year he was also an assistant in the Kindergarten class.  (Johanna’s group.)

Tab attended.  She had a blast with her friends. 

We get to do this curriculum again in a few weeks with our church’s outreach VBS in a local community. 

Marie’s Birthday Mommy Date

As the rest of the family loaded in the big van to head to church, Marie and I got into the little van to head out for adventure.

She didn’t know where we were going, but Stewart tried to psych her out saying we were going sky-diving.  No.  No we were not going sky-diving, thank-you-very-much.

We drove for about 90 minutes and found ourselves on the Rainbow Bridge with a good amount of other travelers.  It was in line for customs that I shared that we would be visiting Niagara Falls and doing a number of the tourist attractions in the area.  Marie admitted a little while later she was a bit dubious that it was going to be all that much fun. 

It took about a half-hour to go over the border.  Driving was easy and I headed to a parking lot slightly out of the way that was part of the WE-GO bus system and a good deal cheaper than the lots closest to the Falls.  We were in the back-yard of Marineland (sigh – everyone loves Marineland).  We redeemed our internet-purchased vouchers and were given spiffy lanyards and a map.  We then took our first of many bus rides.

We disembarked initially at Table Rock to get our refillable soda bottle filled, and to give Marie a good look at the Falls from the Canadian side.  I hadn’t seen it, either, in almost two decades, despite spending innumerable days in this area in my teen/college years visiting my aunt who lived in Chippawa. 

We rode green line north until we got to White Water Walk.  We took an elevator down to be on the level of the rapids. 

We walked through the tunnels til we emerged on the river. 

photos don’t do these rapids justice.  The water is 20 feet deep in places as the water from the falls rushes through.  The waves JUMPED so high at times.  We read lots of interesting facts and took gobs of photos. 

We took the green line south after this, back toward Clifton Hill.  We enjoyed the gardens a little,

and I walked her up Clifton Hill a ways.  We were both getting pretty hungry and she chose

Hard Rock Cafe for lunch.  As we were shown to our table she noticed a Christian band she likes on the video screen across from us. 

The portions were ginormous; we should have shared a plate.

After that we headed to the Hornblower Cruise.  (Mommy took Marie to a foreign country for a cruise.)

That would be us in a few minutes!

Here we donned our first plastic bags of the day.

It loaded incredibly quickly, despite throngs and throngs of people, and we were on our way.  It was a wet and wild experience.  I enjoyed it tremendously. 

We made it off and moseyed through some shops, and I got to meet Elvis.  Marie was not interested. 

We headed to our next adventure, to walk behind the falls.  Here we put on our second plastic bag of the day.  See how small they are when they are handed out to you?

It was fun, if not creepy.  And my phone camera doesn’t do the effects justice. 

The photo above was taken just behind the water on the right.

We emerged from this experience and headed up to the last activity, and our last plastic bag of the day. 

This was a mixed bag.  The storyline was an evolutionary nightmare, and the storyline was poor to boot; but the technology of the 4D experience was so cool.  I can’t believe Disney hasn’t made an attraction like this.  We went in to this room (after the lousy movie) and it had 360-degree screens above as we stood on a moving platform.  It rained, snowed, got windy, etc., all around us.  We moved, etc.  It was really cool. 

Last, but not least, we grabbed some ice cream.  We were both getting tired and had a good ride home in front of us, still.