Blessing Weekend

This weekend was our blessing time for the 13 year olds in FOPS. (Fridge, Onstead, Park and Smith families) It was such a special time. I was so glad to finally get a good picture of the four of us. Well...as you can see....we are going to need to do a little airbrushing on this one.
I had to show you the hard work that Amy and Jenny went to on the cute watermelon stars.
Okay, this is a little gross. Justin had a nasty staph infection on his knee. Lu would drain it ever so often, and I am sad to say that the rest of us were so fascinated! It was like popping the best zit ever! Justin was so brave and kind to let us watch and comment.

Amy and I played Bocce with Mason and Jonathan. It was close, but we beat them!

The kids played many rounds of mafia.

The Fridges planned a great game of Amazing Race for us. We played in family teams and had to do several different events.

Not quite sure how I got this part. Mallory was shooting the cup off with a water gun. After she shot me in the face, I wised up and turned around.

Knocking cans off the fence with a BB gun

Carrying non-hard boiled eggs through an obstacle course

At the end you had to say a family cheer. Can I humbly say here that the Smith team won.

The lake was quite low from the lack of rain, but we tried some fishing.

Jonathan caught two bass.

Of course Eric got great pictures of everyone. I thought I had Mason and Mallory in here, but I don't. I'll add them in another post so it wont mess up the spacing here.

Here are the kids who received the blessings.

We started with Mason and Jonathan giving a blessing to the four kids.

Here is Mallory with each adult who blessed her.

We sat in couples, but each did individual blessings. The kids rotated around to each couple.

It was quite emotional when we did Mallory's blessing.

We had a nice church service Sunday afternoon.

At the end of church, the 13 year olds said some words of encouragement to the younger ones in the group.

Playing in the sprinklers was quite fun.

We had some pretty serious games of Wink 'Em

The traditional Nerf War took place on the 3rd floor.

The game room is also so fun.

Mallory beat Tim twice....really.

We had such a great time, and we are thankful for such wonderful friends who partner with us in this adventure of parenting. Next time you are here, ask to see Mallory's photo book and read the blessings that each adult gave her.