Vacation's Done

Back to work this morning. It was a long one but I was mostly prepared for it and it turned out to be a very good day all around.

My little barbershop quartet was supposed to debut this morning, but half of them forgot and so I was left with two little ones with no courage between them. We collectively agreed to postpone things for a week. I pushed it again at our religious education parent session and doubled the size of the choir; we're now at 8 little voices, three males and five females. They have all been told to be there next Sunday bright and early, so we'll try again and hopefully get this thing off the ground.

My parent session was very interactive and shockingly full this morning; there had to be 30 people in the room. We didn't get that kind of attendance last year. Hopefully they're enjoying what they're learning. I'm more or less presenting one or two new ideas from each Vatican II document each week. I'm pleased and enjoying it more, and I hope that is coming out in my more relaxed teaching style.

I ended off the day with Youth Group. The kids were stars and we had a really fun session. The boss, unbeknownst to me, decided to come in and observe almost the entire session. At first that made me a bit nervous, but then he started pitching in to keep one of our young ones under control, even telling him at one point, "I'll throw you out!" (Yikes! That's never my approach.) There was a nice balance, I thought, of educational games, just fun games, trust building activities, and some faith and theological discussion. If he had to gatecrash one session, this was a good one.

My only conundrum was that a couple of the big kids approached me about taking them on a 2-week, 88km hike through a national park in the summer, sleeping in tents built for 16. Uhmmm... totally not my strength or charism at all. Hopefully they'll forget about it, but I doubt it.