Outdoor Snow Mayhem

So this week has been a little crazy, but probably one of the most fun weeks I've had with my youth... voice or no voice.

It all started on Friday when I took a group of 14 jr. highers to camp for our district jr. high winter retreat. I have had a very nasty sinus infection for about a week and a 1/2 at this point and living on benedryl sinus. So Friday I spend the day cleaning my house for the person who is going to be watching my dog and realize that my voice doesn't sound so good, but no biggie. So we go to camp and had the greatest time.

HIGHLIGHTS:

I made my first snowangel since I was probably 3.

I played broomball for the first time ever and scored three goals, with two assists from one of my boys and one on my own! This is huge cause I suck at iceskating and i suck even more at walking on ice with no skates! Plus, one of the other boys scored a sneek attack goal when we were playing with two balls and no one was paying attention to the second ball.

Angle Ball- this is a game where there are two balls sitting atop two tetherball posts. There is a circle of orange cones set about 4 feet from the posts. The posts are set at opposite ends of a field. There are two teams and the goal is to knock down the ball from atop the opposite tetherball post. The trick is that you can run as long as you have the ball until you are tagged by someone from the other team, then you have to stop and pass the ball. If the ball hits the ground it's the other teams ball.
Anyway, this is my kids favorite game. We play it every year at Confirmation camp and in the snow it kinda leveled the running playing field a little bit and made for some probably illegal "tackles" but it was one of the best games EVER! We had so much fun!

Losing my voice- So Sunday morning I lost my voice completely. I play charades with my girls to get them to wake up and give them directions for cleaning, breakfast, showers, etc. We then went to our closing singing and devotion. The kids had been singing a song calls "He's Able" which is an echo song that different large groups of kids are invited up to lead the rest of the group. Well at the end Quik (the counselor) says that there was someone who had asked to lead the group all by themselves, and that he wasn't so sure at first but he was gonna let 'em try. And then said, "Would Kristy please come up!" HAHAHA... so I go up and another counselor offers me a mic... now I have ZERO voice and probably 100-150 people (mostly kids) there. So I "led" the group. It was quite hilarious and would have probably made a great movie.

I do have to say that my kids were awesome, very attentive, and ready to do as ordered... as soon as I finished writing. It became quite laughable and a lot of fun and very memorable.

So anyway, my voice is just starting to come back but I probably still should reast it for at least another 24 hours because I sound like Kermit the Frog on steriods! I do have to say that I don't envy people who are mute. Not being able to talk to people was not easy, and it would drive me nuts when someone would ask me a question and then turn their back from me. Or not being able to answer the phone because you sound at BEST like a stalker! It is such a blessing to see how people work together to help compensate for one person not being able to communicate, and everyone around me is getting really good at charades!

So I'm out!