Day One complete!

Jesus gives us the Power to be Thankful! AHA!

I am thankful for a smooth day. I planned to blog about it last night when the day was over, but I came home and was just too tired to even blog:) I am happy to report that we had almost as many volunteers (135) as children, which is never a bad problem on opening night. We had 137 children in all and I anticipate even more tonight.

All of the Station leaders are reporting good nights and I imagine that as the week wears on they will become great nights! I didn't get to make it to all of the stations last night, but I think I will have more time to do just that. Thanks to Clark Dorsey and Pam Bergmann for taking some great pictures of the fun we had last night. I will try to take some pictures with my camera tonight that I can bring home and post tomorrow.

Please continue to pray for our kids. Power Lab is a wonderful stepping stone in our kids lives to teach not only about Jesus and His miraculous Power, but how they can realistically live out His power through them. I believe VBS is just another seed that is planted in our kids lives that point them towards Godliness. In 10 years they may not remember every story, every craft, or every teaching moment, but I pray that they will remember VBS as a time that they really began to understand and participate in worshiping their Saviour and learning more about Him.

We begin tonight at 5:50...hope to see you there!

Decorating Day!

Thanks to all the folks who showed up to help us start the serious decorating: Jenny Dean, Debra Hamilton, Casey Hudson, Lauren Adam, Vicky Hollenbeck, Kim and Brent Speer, Wendy and Brittany McCartney, Jean and Sidney Bing, Taylor Stewart, Lee and Abby Carter, Barbara Brown, Valerie Dixon and Sandy Smith. I hope I didn't forget anyone!

119 and counting?

Registrations just keep flowing in at a steady pace. I am so grateful to all the parents who have helped by pre-registering their children this year. It will make check-in go ever-so-smoothly...and I know our registration mavens will be appreciative of that fact:)

I finished up the crewbag tags and printed the volunteer nametags earlier this morning. Our VBS decorator extraordinaire, Jenny Dean, suggested some additional decorations for the hallways that I hope will come to fruition...still working out the logistics.

Kim & Courtney Wallace finished up putting the tags on the suncatcher crafts. Thanks! Casey Hudson will be calling crew leaders over the next few days to remind them of their assignments:) Thanks, Casey!

112 and counting...

We are now at 112 children pre-registered and will be closing online registration on this Friday, June 6. This does not mean we are closing registration, just the online version. This will give us the transfer time necessary to move over to manual registration on Sunday evening. We will still have registration forms available at the Welcome Center outside of the Worship Center on Sunday morning.

More great volunteers

Thank you, thank you, thank you to Ken Hollenbeck and Ray Wall for the hours they spent in the hot sun today setting our Blue Ridge Mountain water bottles with concrete and PVC pipe to be used to hold our information and direction signs. Because of their willingness to help, I was able to finish printing out the signs to go on the pipe and the crew bag tags just in time before I needed to head back home to be Mom again.

Thanks also are due to Brent Speer who has agreed to a last minute 'cast' change for our opening skit:)

I also must thank my daughter, Lauren, for entertaining her brothers for a few hours while I got a little more work done at home this afternoon.

I want to share an off-topic subject. I am thrilled to report that my son, Max, has decided that he wants to be baptized. We are planning on a Father's Day baptism!

Decorating Divas

Thanks to our creative Decorating Divas who showed up this morning to help get started with the backdrops and other necessary administrative preparations: Jenny Dean, Kim Wallace, Anne Payne, Kim Speer, Debra Hamilton, Sandy Smith, Casey Hudson and I think Michelle Meeks may have sneaked in at some point -- along with a handful of children who joined in service:)

Jenny, Anne and Kim W. made a huge dent in the stage 'laboratory' backdrops, Debra made a cool DNA strand, Kim S. took a hold of prepping more crafts, Sandy S. created some cool gears, Casey laminated hundreds of trading cards and Michelle finished up some science fair boards.

Tomorrow's plan of attack: (1) concrete & PVC pipes in the Blue Ridge Mountain Water bottles as our sign bases (with the assistance of Ken H. and Ray W.) and (2) finish up the laminating of the trading cards and start on the signs for the water bottles.

Breaking 100

As of tonight, we have 105 children registered and I think we have enough crew leaders to handle 105 more. Thanks to all the newly registered volunteers!

We still need a few more volunteers to help with Snack Oversight and Transport. These people are needed from 5-6 pm only. After that time, they are more than welcome to stay and help in other areas, or they may leave.