summer part 1 by Caleb

          I figure I need to put my summer in three or four parts because it was so busy which was part of why I didn’t do much blogging over the summer. So I should start with the end of school. We had a fun in the sun day. We played water games for most of the day. We played water volleyball where you partner up with someone, form teams, and use a towel to launch a water balloon to the other team’s side. We also had water balloon fights and launched water balloons at targets (our target might’ve been Mr. James, Samuel’s teacher). Then the next few days we were packing and saying good-byes to friends.

Water volleyball

          Then Hannah got chikungunya, or something like it, (chickengunya is a virus carried by mosquitos that makes your joints hurt really badly for a few days to a few months) but she slept through most of it. My parents tried waking her up several times to see if she wanted to go to dinner with the Heckmans, our friends, but she would say no and go back to sleep. Now she has no recollection of being woken up at all. Then my dad got it and then my mom got it a day before we left.

When we arrived in Florida, we had to stay at an MFI house because we couldn’t get the rental car we were going to use to get to the resort we were planning on staying at. The next day we got the rental and got to see our Grandma Trudy again. Everybody was happy to see her. We stayed at a resort called The Fountains for about three days, enjoying the pool and American food.

The MFI house

 

As soon as we got out of the van we were hugging our Grandma Trudy.

The pool

All of us in the hot tub.

We saw our old dog Oreo. We were excited to see her, and she was excited to see us.

We returned home to Indiana at about midnight a few days later. The next morning we got up at 9:00 to see our friends, the Combs. I had a good morning catching up with my friend, Matthew, and playing. I can’t remember all that we did, but I do remember being really excited to see them. All that week, I saw them every day. One thing I loved doing was youth group. Sometimes I went early if I was at the Comb’s house because Matthew was in the middle school worship band and he had to be at the church an hour early for practice. When youth group started, we ate. They had sandwiches, chips, brownies or cookies, and soda. 

The Comb's trampoline

Matthew, Samuel,and I

We also played fun games like, one of the most memorable ones, nine-square. It's a game that we played set up with PVC pipe. Samuel and I helped set it up. First, we made nine squares all connected together. The catch was that the squares had to be supported in the air. So we made the whole thing upside down. In retrospect, it may not have been the best idea. First of all, all the poles that were supposed to be holding the thing up were duct taped in. Our plan was to flip the whole thing over at once. A bunch of poles came undone. More duct tape. It worked, but we spent an hour on it. When we were done, it got taken apart in about ten minutes. The point of the game was to keep a ball from going through the square overhead from hitting the ground. It got passed from person to person. That’s just one of the most memorable youth group experiences for me.