The Happening: Part Two

So, after saying I would write about the Happening, I never did!

It was a really great experience, and I'm glad I went. Jeremy and Luke are both glad they went, too.
The weekend was pretty much full of surprises. The staff is mostly made up of youth, and there were various positions. Each staff member was also given a topic and a guideline for talking about that topic, all from a Christian viewpoint, of course. So there was some serious stuff, but then there were some really fun surprises to balance it out.
On Saturday, at both breakfast and lunch we had place mats. They were hand drawn, and some had a picture, some gave you an activity to do, etc., You had to stand up and say what your place mat said or do what it told you to do. Jeremy had one that said "Tell the rector and observing a rector a knock-knock joke". Luke had a mad lib he had to fill in. I had to mime being stuck in a box and get the person next to me to let me out. Someone had to get up and do a dance. They were fun!
There was three buildings to this church: The old church, the new church, and the hall (where we spent most of our time). But we were in the new church for something Saturday night, and then they made all of us close our eyes, hold hands, and they started leading us somewhere. They led us around for ages! It was getting ridiculous. And finally, they said to open our eyes, and we were in the hall (so you know, 15 feet from the new church building we had been in), which was decorated with tons of streamers and balloons, and there was music, and punch and candy, and glowsticks and all sorts of little party toys. It was a surprise party! So, that was pretty fun.
Oh, and there's "candidates" which are the people who have never been to the Happening before. The candidates were split into three "families" and each family had a "gofer" (because they go for this and go for that...). My family consisted of: Mary, Owen, Levi, and Dee Dee (who is a really sweet girl who moved from Thailand last year). I wasn't so sure about my family at first, but they ended up being pretty cool.
My least favorite part of the weekend was bedtime: The room the girls were staying in was full of bugs, and we were sleeping on the floor (I have no idea why I didn't think to bring my camping cot). I woke up with a bug on my face! Gross!
Sunday the weather was really nice, so we spent a good portion of time outside. Which reminds me of Luke's incident...
They had yogurt and donuts for breakfast. The yogurt was specifically Gogurt, so it was in the plastic tube. I could not get mine open. I tried and I tried and I tried, but it would not open! Luke told me to squeeze it, but I thought that was a bad idea. He insisted though, so I passed it off to him. He folded it in half so he could squeeze it harder, and he was aiming it at the ground, but when it finally broke, it shot yogurt a good 20-30 feet, right onto one of the adult leader's cars. Oops. I was laughing really hart at Luke, but I was slightly concerned about what Jen- the car owner - would think. She was amused, thankfully!
Now, on both Saturday and Sunday (or was it Friday and Sunday?) we got "Caritas" bags. I believe that's Greek for love. The bags were filled with little gifts and notes from the staff members at the Happening, or from people from our churches. They were really nice!
Oh, and Sunday, they had a closing ceremony. Each family was asked to come up and talk about their poster (each family was required to design one based on something they had in common), and have someone from the family talk about their experience. After that, each candidate was given a cross necklace and a Bible. Oh, and earlier that day we had been give a Bible devotion book. I believe it's called the One Minute Bible, and it was one 1 minute devotion for each day of the year.

So, that's barely touching on everything. There's so many other things to talk about, but I don't want to right a ridiculously long post, so for now I'm going to leave it at that.

The Happening

Since moving to Janesville we've started attending Trinity Episcopal Church. We're really enjoying this church, and we're much happier with it than with any other church we've attended.
The youth group leader, Ed Schultz (Edward Shultz III, to be precise) was telling us about an event called "The Happening." Two other kids from the youth group are going: Ed's daughter, Maddie, and Levi Zuehlke. Ed convinced my brothers and I to go, and it starts this afternoon and goes until Sunday afternoon. This is what the website says about The Happening:

"HAPPENING is a weekend retreat run by high school students within the Diocese of Milwaukee with adult support. It is designed BY YOUTH, FOR YOUTH! It challenges youth to find their own spiritual realities based on the love of Jesus Christ. HAPPENING’s purpose is not only to have a fantastic weekend, but to build a foundation for a lifelong commitment to Christian living – a life based upon Christian values, beliefs and actions. HAPPENING is a weekend full of fun and fellowship, but it is also a weekend full of learning, sharing, growing, loving and experiencing the gifts of God."
(More information here)

I don't really know much about The Happening, and nobody will really say; apparently it's a secret until you actually go, but I got an inbox message from The Happening event page on Facebook, and it mentions some of the staff positions: There's Head Elf, Elves, Head Gnome, Gnomes, and more. I'm curious to see what that means...

A Play Date

So, I have a play date with a four year old.
I went to the park yesterday (it's just across the street and behind some houses from here).
I was by myself and I didn't want to do much, so I was sitting under a tree. A grandmother and her grandson came to the park. I could hear the little boy asking his grandma who I was, and she said she didn't know. So he walked over to me, and said, "who are you?"
I answered, "my name's Emily, what's yours?" I couldn't quite make out what he said, I did understand "Nicholas", but not the rest. His grandma served as translator though, and told me his name is Torson Nicholas Janson. He started to tell me something else. I think it was something about flipping his alphabet (I don't know what he meant), and that he was only four years old. Whatever it was, it must have been important because he put his hand under my chin to make sure I was looking up at him!
Torson went back to playing, and I sat under the tree for a bit, and then I decided I was going to go find Jeremy, so I stood up and started to leave. Torson said "Where are you going?" and I told him I was going to go find my brother. He asked me a few more questions, and then said "Well, come back tomorrow and play!" and I told him that I will if I can, so he said "bye, Emily!"
And that's how I got a play date with four year old Torson Nicholas Janson. If it's not raining or snowing later I'll go over and see if he's there.