December 2nd–was a lot

We celebrated my birthday a day early because 12/2/23 had a LOT going on.

We started our day early, with Tabitha, John and I heading up to One Life Institute in Marietta, SC.  Tabitha has applied and has been accepted to their Gap Year Program for 2024-2025.  We had a lot of fun seeing the campus with our favorite tour guide Daniel showing us most of the highlights.   I should have taken some photos, but we were on the move a lot.  It is pretty clear to us all that this was where God was pointing Tabitha for her first year out of high school and she is super excited.

We finished there around 11:30AM and we booked it home where I quickly changed clothes, grabbed Johanna and headed to pick up much of her AHG squad to head to Charlotte to the Operation Christmas Child processing plant.   We filled the big van and headed into our 2 hour drive in the rain.

 

We spent almost 5 hour inspecting boxes.  It was exhausting.

 

 We made it home after midnight.

Festival of Trees -

It was our third year to head to the Hyatt downtown to help decorate for the Festival of Trees with AHG.

It was Johanna’s squad again, and it is more than double in size from last year.

 

Afterwards we did our annual visit to Kilwin’s Ice Cream.  It costs more than Culvers… but it is special.

 

It was a wee bit chilly, but otherwise a gorgeous night. 

I love living in a place where I am not afraid to be downtown at night. 

A camptastic weekend…

Johanna went camping on Kings Mountain, and Katriel went camping at Paris Mountain.  I did not go to either event… but my friends shared some photos.

 

 

 

 

 

Axe Throwing • Johanna

Mrs. Owings arranged for an afternoon of axe throwing. 

And one of her favorite places to eat – Culvers.

Valentine’s Parties

Valentine’s Day was coming along, and the AHG squads had parties on the mind.
Katriel was all dressed up for her outing.

 

The all made a Valentine for the girl whose name they drew.

Then they snacked and played games.

Later, Johanna’s squad met at our house and one of Johanna’s peers planned the entire activity.

Tab also decided to join her AHG party, but we don’t have photos of that.

Simpsonville Christmas Parade

This was our second year marching in the parade.  Johanna’s friend Makenna designed and prepared the float for HER level award.

It was exquisite. 

What a thrill to be able to march down Main Street with the message of Jesus.

Level Award Christmas Party

As a first year Pioneer, Johanna had two years to complete her event planning requirement for her Level Award, but she was adamant that she would complete it this year.  She was required to plan one troop wide event requiring at least 10 hours of work.   She decided to host the troop Christmas party.  And it certainly used more than 10 hours.

We prepared for months.  It was hard for me to not just jump in and take over, especially when a lot of time was being taken up for the new job.  But the purpose was to teach her all the pieces.  This included (but was not limited to) researching crafts for the age levels, the costs for the crafts, and purchasing the supplies.  She/we needed to also research games.  She also had to plan to food and supplies and we had to learn together how to make a sign-up in Sign Up Genius. 

We made practice crafts, too.   And she wrote her own devotion.

The theme was stars, and the party was stellar.

Johanna did an amazing job.

And I am sooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooo glad it is done!

I led the older girls in their star craft, and their scavenger hunt game.

We had Daddy come to also help.

She led the younger girls through their star craft and a game of Bingo.
She also had to make 45 bags of Fruit Loop Markers and we did all the prep bags for the crafts.

This post is out of order as I correct the BLOG two years later.

We used every last table we could find.