On Saturday we had a reunion for our church's children's summer programme helpers. We all got together at Gabrielle's (one of the church youth leaders) house to have dinner, watch the highlights video Aonghas made of the week and share what we enjoyed about the programme.
Even though the reunion started at three in the afternoon, Aonghas was still working on the video! He had been working on the video all night...OK most of the night...he made me sleep in the lounge to keep him company. I didn't really get good sleep, that's probably what led me to having three separate dreams that night! (Shameless plug: Calum's new dream blog!). Anyway he was still working on the video at 3pm and I was still sifting through 5000 photos, cutting out the blurry ones and the duplicates! We finally finished by 4.30pm and were on our way!
We were the last to get there, and so we started eating not too long after. Even though I had been to Gabrielle's house a few times before, I had never been in her backyard before. I was surprised at how big it was! We got into groups to play a quick game - seeing which group could melt an ice-cube the fastest, before we went back inside to start eating. I had to keep a bowl of food for Aonghas and Andrew, the guy Aonghas went to pick up from a soccer game.
We all sat out in the backyard eating. We just talked for a while, while the younger people played some ball game and a couple of the girls played darts (which kept going over the fence...naughty naughty!) until it started to spit!
We went back inside to watch Aonghas's video which was well-received, before taking turns sharing what we enjoyed about the programme and receiving a little gift. What I enjoyed the most about the programme was the children's singing of course! Others talked about seeing the smiles on the children's faces and stuff like that.
After the sharing, most of the people left, and it was only us Andersons, Chins, Jenny, James and the Wong brothers remaining. We took a walk down to the nearby beach with Gabrielle and her boyfriend Tim, where the girls walked into the water and took some 'model' shots (I've yet to see them!), while us guys chucked stuff into the water and also tried skimming stones! We also attempted to bury Grace, but only got up to just below her knees. Maybe burying her lying down would've been easier!
We got to watch a really nice red-ish sunset before it started getting pretty dark. Andrew had brought a soccer ball to play on the field by the beach, but we spent so much time on the beach we had no time to play with it! We walked back to Gabrielle's house and just hung around outside talking before parents arrived to take people home. We all said our goodbyes and gave and received hugs before heading off. Now while I receive quite a few hugs from Grace, Carmen and Cleo these days (they're girls who are very huggable!), I've never received a hug from Jenny, but we had our first hug that night! I'd say that's a milestone!
The following morning at church we welcome back Jireh, one of the guys from our youth group who had been away in Singapore for a month. He gave me a little cellphone charm called the 'Forest Ghost' that is supposed to bring love and luck. Hopefully it does, as I need some of that! Yan Yan, this girl who went over to Fiji for a week also gave me a keyring in the shape of a jandal which was quite cool too!
Jireh and I managed to finish off our youth group board while Aonghas had to do some filming for a Sunday School video presentation that was going to be shown at church next week.
Later that evening was our second shared dinner of the weekend! Our mum's church group who usually meet every second Saturday had a shared dinner at one of the members' houses. We got there late as usual and they had already started eating! We just joined in.
There were a few guys from our youth group there, like Jireh and his sister, Jenny, Andrew, Ben, Gabrielle and Ruth. After eating, we all talked for a while before going inside to play the Monopoly card game. I have to say at first it sounded quite complicated! After watching a few of them play the game though I started to get it! By then though it was time to go home.
Now if only we could have shared dinners a little more often!
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