Chris & Rudy found the Texas Jenga set and played a game before we officially started. 

Here Chris finally made the tower fall.

Sam is allowed to share two stories each week and then we all vote if he is allowed to share a third one based on how interesting his first two were. Last week he was given a third one, this week he was not. We are expecting some good stories next week.

Rachel has taught us some great Improv games these last few weeks. Today there were four people who could only speak in jibberish as they tried to explain to another person a clue like scenario including 1. Who was killed 2. With what 3. at what location.

Andria played guitar, Emily Preston played piano(keyboard) and Emily Currey and Elle lead singing as during songs of worship tonight. We sang Psalm 130, Abide with Me and For All the Saints. I’ve noticed lately that Hymn writers misspell quite a bit, at least spell check thinks they do.  

This is Rachel Hutson teaching these guys Settlers. They liked the game so much they didn’t want to leave at the end of the night.

Here John Hutson is teaching a game I simply cannot pronounce or remember. I think Nathan won, but I’m not certain of that. 

These crazies played Apples to Apples.

While these guys played Texas Jenga. During the night Chris lost once and Ubuntu lost twice. Jenga’s weird because the person who loses gets recognized not the people who won. 

Alas, the blocks tumbled. 

Somehow Ubuntu found Cam responsible.

In Apples to Apples the cards you win are supposed to explain your own personality. You can see that is good and bad in this picture. 

We bought 8 2×4 boards. Cost for wood $18.36. We also learned the 2×4 pieces of wood are actually 3 3/8 and not 4 inches wide. Who knew? After loading our swagger wagon with wood we brought it home.

I have learned over our 5+ years here that the best way to get things made out of wood is to ask the great family across the street how to make boards turn into really cool things. Ron always knows what to do.

Laura helped by testing the tensile strength of the wood. 

Sadie Piper helped by running around like she was flying. 

I had planned to measure out 3 times 3 3/8 (whatever that is) on each board and mark it with a pencil. Ron just made a nook like thing with the saw so every cut would be the right length, no measuring, no pencils, etc. Our 8 foot boards made  9 blocks and had less than a centimeter of wasted wood.

The next step was sanding. My plan was to use some sandpaper sponges I bought at the store to sand all 72 blocks by hand. Ron suggested we use his big sanding machine that sanded a block in about 30 seconds. His way seemed better than my way

We tested it out as we went, so excited! 

To make things even more efficient Ron cut two boards at a time. 

The girls helped transporting blocks back home (before we knew about the sanding machine) in the stroller. 

This is the sanding machine. I had a block rip out of my hand and shoot away from it.  

The Pre-Sanding station. 

This is what happens if you question the genius of making a Texas Jenga set. 

Afterwards we played a game with the Youngs. 

This was the move before the game ended. Tammy had the unfortunate designation of the first person to lose Texas Jenga. 

This is what happens when the game is over. This is action shot just as it is hitting the ground. 

It didn’t take long to realize something was still missing. The blocks needed to read “Texas Jenga” on the side so Beckham and I headed to Hobby Lobby to find stencils and spray paint. Most ridiculously girlie store I have ever been in. It was like Home Depot for Women.

I made a stencil and decide I need more coverage around it so I cut holes in paper and taped my stencil on that.

Here is a picture of me doing it, but Laura actually sprayed 95% of them. My craft skills are a bit like my wood working skills.

Here is what the blocks turned out looking like. Now they were perfect. 

Huge thank you to our great neighbors help making this happen. The game is really fun to play.

 
Here is how the game goes, Lydia and I played a round at Church Monday morning.

This Tuesday, January 31st 2012 is our monthly Iota gathering. Students in 2nd through 5th grade are invited to a night of singing worship, playing games, fellowship and teaching. We meet from 6:30 to 8:00 in the South Building (white building on back of Redeemer property). HCA, Redeemer or anyone at all is welcome to come apart of this. We hope to see you there this Tuesday as we look at a Biblical perspective Patience.

Here is what is for Breakfast tomorrow for Junior High and High School Sunday School Classes. Hope to see you there as we continue our study on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. Thank you Shari Felich for Breakfast this week. And thank you everyone who helps out every week.

Summer Camps will be here before we know it! For us girls, finding a cute and modest swimsuit that fits is some times near impossible.

LimeRicki has super cute, modest and, bonus since it’s not summer yet, cheap swimwear! Most of their suits are tankinis so you get to mix and match! They have boy shorts and skirts for bottoms too. It’s only online, but suits that aren’t final sale (since it’s end of season right now there are a lot of those) they let you exchange for free.

So, go sign up for camps too! For Clearwater (going into 6th through going into 8th), click here. For RiverRanch (going into 9th though going into 12th), click here. 

We’ve been beginning each Breakaway lately with Improv games that Rachel Hudson has been teaching everyone. Here is a small clip from tonight. Unfortunately the clip ends before Sam Ba-Sham gets in the car and states, “You mind if I do the Tebow?” He then proceeds to do the Tebow pose.

We’ll have another round of Improv With Rachel to start the night off and later we’ll be answering the student asked questions, What is proper worship? Does musical style matter? How do we know? Hope to see you there from 6:30 to 8:00 tonight.