Vacation Bible School

My boys did Vacation Bible School this week at a new church. I heard about it from a friend who attends. While it was pretty late at night (IMHO), it seemed to be the only option for us this year & the boys really wanted to go to VBS. They held it from 6:30-8:30 & my boys are typically in bed by 8pm if not 7:30!

It was HOT the first three days of VBS. Oh my was it hot!!! The church is a new one & is meeting in an old elementary school. Needless to say, air circulation was difficult. In fact, one smart lady started bringing her own box fan with her!!!

One thing I really did enjoy a lot about this particular VBS, they had an adult class that met for the first four days of the week. While VBS was two hours, our class was roughly an hour. The topic was "Faith" & it was very well done.

Another neat thing about this particular VBS, it was run by a youth group from upstate New York. This is a very small church. They really didn't have enough adults/teens to run it on their own. There was a familial relationship between one of the church members here and the church from New York (her parents) & I think that's probably how it came to be. I chatted with one of the youth group teens the first night & did discover that they do a week long missions trip somewhere every year. They seemed to be having a great time - other than the heat those first few days.

They did some great puppet skits throughout the VBS. I took photos on the last night. The sets they had were just fantastic. You can see some of the backdrops here. The theme was "Fruits of the Spirit" & so they did it like a farm as well. Very cute. Be sure to click here to see the photo I took of the blackboard in another room where the youth group drew in a whole board full of fruits to match the theme.

B went up front on the last night to help lead songs. Here he is acting out the tag line for this particular song..."And that's why I'm bananas for the Lord." ;-)


On the last night, after they did the final puppet skits & songs, they went outside for a "Country Fair." They had set up a bunch of little games for the kiddos to play. The kids won tickets (anywhere from 1-3) for each game they played. They then had a "store" set up where the kids could redeem tickets for little prizes. They also had cotton candy, snow cones, & popcorn to eat. The kids had an absolute blast!

One adult there made these great balloon animals. They boys loved their little dogs. :-)


During the week they had a "Penny Parade" to raise money to buy collection plates for the church hosting VBS. The kids took this VERY seriously! :-) It was boys vs. girls. I was amazed at the total this little group brought in - $500!!! Way to go!

And the "prize" was that Mrs. B was able to "whip-cream" her hubby. Here she is getting very creative & giving him a beard. They were great sports. The reason she was able to do this was that the girls won the overall Penny Parade contest. Of course, it helped that on the last night her own son was putting rolls of pennies in to the girls bucket & another adult wrote out a check to help! ;-)

My boys had such a great time at VBS. I typically go to another town that has VBS during the day as that just works better with little ones. I know most churches now do evenings but my guys are always so tired come the end of the week. I didn't do the other VBS this year due to being so busy with baseball. The church we attend is doing VBS next week, but the boys are doing a two hour art class on Monday, Wednesday & Friday as well as continuing with swimming lessons for an hour each afternoon & then I leave for the Women of Faith Conference on Thursday afternoon. I just didn't see us fitting in VBS from 6-8 at night during that same week!

The only glitch to this week was that J ended up sick. On Tuesday he had a fever & I took him to the doctor on Wedneday am. We are treating him for strep throat. He stayed home that night as did N since he said he didn't feel well either. B & I still went & then went & got groceries after. Phew! That was a late night. We didn't get home until 10:30 - one of the downfalls of living a 30 minute drive away from the closest grocery store.

All in all it was a great week, the boys had fun, & I even got to count it as a week of school. ;-)