Fri. - Sun., Feb. 1-3

Friday was the day of the Area-Wide Teens’ Lock-In. However, it was also an errand day for me. Justus stayed the afternoon with Jeremy at the church building so he could get a good nap. Natasha and I went to the library and to Michael’s (She had finally decided what to purchase with her birthday money from Cl & Sy.), and then drove to the east side to pick up Chris. After dropping him off at the building to help Jeremy with set-up, N, J, and I went to Wal-Mart. It was 6pm on Feb. 1, the Friday evening before Superbowl Sunday. I had to park at Taco Bell, and about 45 minutes into our time there we decided to not even complete the list … just get what we had to – and get out! We still had to go pick up the pizzas for the Lock-In! argh

Something way-scary happened while we were picking up the pizzas. Since N & I had been to the library, there was a large selection of new-to-us books that N was anxious to delve into. I gave her the option of staying in the car to read books while J and I went in to get the pizzas. We locked her in and went in for pizza. Well, since we didn’t call ahead of time to order them (DUH) there was a 10-minute wait. Instead of just sitting there, J and I went first to the car to let N know it would be a little longer wait for her than we’d originally thought, and then I took J with me to explore the new Food City there … which we hadn’t yet experienced. When 10 minutes were up, he and I went and got the pizzas and headed to the car. Well, just as we were coming around the back of the car, N appeared. “Hmm, what’s this,” I thought. She said, in an almost panting voice, “Mom, I did what that book said to do and it turned out okay.” Shaking my head in incomprehension I said, “What??” She said, “Well, I am really thirsty and my water bottle is empty, so I went to meet you and Justus in the pizza shop. Of course I made sure all of the doors of the car were still locked, so when you weren’t there I didn’t know what to do. I thought you probably went into Food City, but I know that store is too big and I wouldn’t be able to find you, so I remembered what that book said (A library book from a while ago) about if you ever get lost: ‘Go back to where you were last with your mom or dad; that is where they will look for you first.’ But I knew that was dangerous [HELLO!!! Ajo Hwy. and Mission Ave. in west Tucson on a Friday night after dark????? I SHUDDER to think!! :*( ], so I decided that if someone was going to come kidnap me I would just crawl under the car even though Dad said it’s not a good place to play.” There were some very FIRM hugs in that moment … well, once I got the stack of pizzas placed on the passenger seat, that is. Justus was cute. He hugged N while I was putting the pizzas down. I hugged her next, and then he said, “Group hug!!” lol So we did a group hug, but I had to ask, “Where have you heard of a ‘group hug’??” “Backyardigans,” he answered. (Backyardigans is a very cute cartoon the children watch, of little ‘animal-kids’ playing sweetly together in wildly imaginative scenarios.)

There is a fine line between training your children what to do in emergencies and freaking them out of all the things that could happen. Natasha tends to be on the freaked-out, over-reactive side, so we haven’t done as much work in this area as we could possibly have done. However, it is definitely too important to neglect, so I am thankful she thought well. She had done all her good thinking and was just waiting there in the cold dark for a while before she started crying. However, by the time J and I got back to the car she had already stopped, so I am proud of her about that. She is really emotional about stuff sometimes, especially when it could be that she made a wrong choice that caused the problem. In this instance we did talk about how it would have been better for her to wait in the car and solve the thirst problem when J and I got back…. We were extremely thankful for God’s divine protection of N that night.

The Lock-In was a great time for everyone who was there. The campus group had a good turn-out, which was a huge blessing for everyone. They provided extra eyes and ears, as well as spiritual conversation and good singing help. The youth leaders from other congregations in the city were pleasantly surprised at the ‘good’ turn-out, even though there were only about 30 people there. Still, it was a good amount for the size of our building and the amount of supervising adults. Jeremy had awesome games and activities scheduled throughout the evening: a balloon shooting game, teams duct-taping a team member to the wall (so hilarious!), a game Jeremy made up that is hilarious and fun called Play-Doh-tionary, some PowerPoint Bible games he found online a while back, and the list goes on. There were two separate devotional times as well, one in the evening and one in the morning. The children and I stayed until 11:30 p.m. (!!) because they rrrrrrreally wanted to watch the duct-taping game and they both, separately, committed to me that they would keep their behavior excellent even though they were tired, including helping me unload the groceries from the car when we got home. And they KEPT their commitments amazingly.

Needless to say, Jeremy slept the first part of Saturday. Then we went back to the building to clean up the Lock-In mess; this had been arranged previously, so everyone was prepared. Allllllllllll I did was vacuum; Jeremy rearranged furniture and wrapped up a little bit of office work. The children did a lot of playing and a lot of picking up as well. The rest of the day was spent in normalcy. I made banana bread for the freezer and egg salad sandwiches for supper. (Breakfast food was purchased for the Lock-in, but no one wanted breakfast!!! So we have a LOT of bananas, eggs, etc. to use up….) Natasha pulled out the “Play Harmonica Instantly” bag, since some toy harmonicas given out at the Lock-in as prizes re-piqued her interest in her real harmonica. Yay! This is the first time she has been interested in it since I purchased the stuff for $3 at a Used Homeschool Curriculum sale in MT! It will be fun!! It does seem remarkably easy, having read the first few pages of the book! Hm! Jeremy’s new (well, ‘used’ actually) video game is the wildly-popular “Guitar Hero”. It is a pretty fun game, and he is getting somewhat good at it. We’re extremely pleased with the price he paid for the used equipment, and it was a huge hit at the Lock-in because almost all the teenagers either own or have played the game, and there were actually three Guitar Hero controllers (little guitar-shaped/sized plastic guitars – no strings, just buttons) there that night, so they were able to play it on the big screen and even do head-to-heads and such. Doesn’t interest me, but … whatever floats their boats! Ha

Today was a great day. Jeremy’s lessons were intriguing and challenging; we got soup & salad at the Olive Garden for lunch, and then came home for nnnnnnnnnaps. I talk about the McDaniel family a lot. Bobby & Dylan are Roger & Donna’s grandsons that they raised/are raising (The boys are ages 16 & 15 now.) since their daughter’s drug addiction stole her from them when B & D were 5 & 4; the boys’ dad, Rob, was unable to be a full-time father to them because he was in the Army and was always being shipped off one way or the other. Rob and Katerry were divorced when the boys were maybe 2 & 3, but Rob has continued to be in the boys’ lives as much as possible. He wrapped up a tour in Iraq about a year ago, and has been back in Tucson for this past year. He is a Christian, but he works nights at the youth detention center, so we don’t see him at church meetings much. Well, he has a girlfriend now, whom he works with. She is a spiritually-minded person, and we have been fascinated to learn that Rob and Jamie study the Bible together at LENGTH, and OFTEN! They have been attending Sunday evening church meetings with us for the past number of weeks, and because of the faith she has gained through the Word, tonight Jamie asked to be baptized into Christ, putting Him on as Lord! Jeremy asked her who she wanted to baptize her. She said, “Well, wouldn’t you do it?” He said, “Of course I would, but would you like Rob to do it?” She said, “Can we do that?” lol What a joyful moment it was. [Further details upon request.]

It didn’t hurt, to cap off the day, that the Giants won the Superbowl. Jeremy and I greatly enjoyed watching about the last 45 minutes of the game, once we got home and were settled. We like cheering for the underdogs, so in this case it had a happy ending. What a game!!