Jovers

edit: whoops! Didn’t realize comments were not allowed for some reason! Fixed now.

I have been very tired this week.

This week my church held VBS. The overall theme was “Kingdom Chronicles” so we decorated the church with castle walls and dragons and lanterns (oh my!). The high school girls dressed up in medieval dresses to be princesses and some of the men dressed up as knights. We had all of the kids call them “lady” and “sir” and say “fare thee well!” It was awesome. It was the kind of VBS I wish I could’ve done as a kid!

I was the leader for the kindergartners and we were called the Acrobats. I had them call me “Lady Becca.” They really were a ton of fun and were (for the most part) really sweet. It’s always refreshing to see how kids take things in and how excited they get about everything. They especially loved all the songs we sang and the crafts. We made shields and catapults and castles and they loved it. As we walked through the halls I had them chant “Acrobats!” so everyone knew who we were when we were coming. My voice hurt by the end of the night, haha.

Our main focus for the week was about putting on the full armor of God. The kids were so smart – they could remember all the equipment and what they stood for. Half the time they were interrupting the teachers of the “Bible Chamber” and telling them what it meant and stood for. There was one girl that kept saying “Field of shaith!” instead of “shield of faith.” Adorable

As always, we had our annual VBS canned food drive competition between the “damsels” and the “squires.” Every year I always think that the kids will forget to bring canned goods (probably because I always do – I remembered this year though!) and every year I am floored by how many they bring. This year the ~~girls~~ damsels brought 425 and the ~~boys~~ squires brought 225 for a total of 650 canned goods that will go to help feeding those in the community. Which is awesome.

Even though the kids were adorable and it was a lot of fun for everyone (myself included), my patience was wearing very thin by the end of the week. One little boy loved to talk and you could not keep him quiet. Another little girl liked to play really rough and always was hurting the other kids. I have never felt more like a mom when I had to keep saying, “We keep our hands to ourselves!” And one little boy just didn’t want to participate in anything. But I’m a pretty good sweet-talker so I made it work, haha. It was a great week, but it was a really tiring week. I can’t image having to deal with that all the time.

But then, when they all hugged me goodbye and said they were going to really miss me, I forgot all about it. There were two little girls that wanted to hold my hands all week and then didn’t want to go back to their parents. They just melted my heart. :love: I really do pray that they will all remember what they learned and that they will come back to church, especially so I can see them again!

It’s times like these, as summer draws to a close, that I wish I would’ve decided to stay in St. Louis for college. I don’t regret my decision, but it would be nice to not have to pay for rent and gas and food all by myself; I wouldn’t have to leave all of my family and most of my friends behind. And I just really love my church. They really are like my family and it was great doing VBS with everyone this week. Only two more weeks here in the Lou.

Normally when me and Andrew go on dates, we tend to do the same thing. It’s been hard for us this summer to get together because I work mornings/afternoons and he works nights. But when he does have a night off, we usually do our normal date and go to a restaurant to eat. It’s quick and easy, which is probably why we do it so often, but it’s pretty much become habitual. So I’ve been trying to think of more creative date ideas.

In case you didn’t know, St. Louis is the home of America’s largest monument: the Gateway Arch. Even though I live just about twenty minutes from it, I haven’t actually been to the Arch since I was seven or eight. (It’s kind of funny how tourists to your city see its monuments and jewels more than you do.) So I thought it would be fun for us to picnic at the Arch grounds and then go up to the top.

It was so much fun. I love to picnic and it’s not something I do nearly enough. I packed a blanket, some fruit, sandwiches, and water bottles. I took the afternoon off of work (psh, it’s not like I’m a broke college student or anything………) and we headed downtown. It was such a nice day, which made it even better. Normally July weather is sweltering hot, but there was a cool breeze and we didn’t even break a sweat!

I wore a white dress with red flowers on it. We found a spot in the shade where we could easily see the arch (or at least it’s “foot” as I like to call it. Andrew likes to be technically correct and call it the “base,” but I think “foot” sounds much better). I hadn’t been able to see him really since I went to Puerto Rico, so I was able to share that with him while we munched on our sandwiches and fruit.

picnic

I had jokingly said to him, “Now you just need to feed me grapes and fan me with a palm leaf.” And then, like the competitive dorks that we are, had a competition to see who could throw the most grapes into the other person’s mouth. I totally one, six to four. Though, every time a large group of people would pass by I would pause because I was embarrassed, haha. Andrew, on the other hand, had no shame. I think the passerbys encouraged him and he pelted me with more grapes.

picnic 2

When we were finished and the bugs were starting to annoy us, we headed inside. We went to the ticket counter to purchase tickets to the top but it was going to be a two and a half hour wait. O.O I’ve no idea why it was so busy on a Thursday afternoon, but we didn’t feel like waiting around. We bought tickets to a movie about how the Arch was made and just did that instead. At first the movie opened up with this old man speaking in a monotonous tone and we both kind of groaned, afraid that it was going to put us straight to sleep. It was really interesting, though, and we learned lots of fun nifty facts to throw at people now, haha. (Like no one on the entire project died; if anything was 1/64 of an inch off, the whole project would have failed; when putting in the last piece, they had to pry the top two feet apart to fit it in.)

There’s an old, famous candy and ice cream shoppe downtown called Crown Candy that I’ve only heard good things about. I’ve heard friends talk about how good it is and it’s a St. Louis staple. Since I’m not downtown often enough, I had never been there and wanted to try it. Plus it’s me and Andrew, and we love candy.

It was a cute little shop with a candy/chocolate counter and all kinds of flavors of ice cream. Andrew bought some chocolate for his mom and Oreo ice cream while I got a banana split. I was still kind of full from lunch, so I was not prepared for the monsterous thing that they gave me. They put it in a large shake cup and I probably ate about a third of it before I felt like I was going to puke. But it was very delicious and if we’re ever in the area again, we’ll probably stop by.

Please, Call me “Lady Becca”

Picnicing at the Arch