VBS Week, and More Roofing

This week is Vacation Bible School at our church. We do it in the evening to make it easier for more adults to participate. I suppose it also makes it easier for parents who work to take their kids too. Anyway, it's this week, and our first night was last night. The theme this year is "Outrigger Island," a real tropical, Hawaiian luau kind of thing, minus the tiki gods and hula girls. It's the Lifeway curriculum for this year. I'm teaching 5th grade music. My big girl is 5 and old enough to participate, so she goes with me. My little girl is 3 and she's staying home with her daddy this week. Last night my husband forgot that it was VBS week, and he got home about 10 minutes after I was supposed to be at the church. I was just about to get shoes on the little one to take her with me and have him pick her up there when he walked in the door.

Later, after I had taught my lessons for the night, I was preparing for tonight's lesson, resetting some props when a sweet lady came in and tagged some things that will be reused on a mission trip to Romania later this summer. She tagged an inflatable sea turtle. The turtle is being used to reinforce the truth of the day. I'm supposed to hide it in the room, and the kids are to find it, and then I get it out and turn it over and the truth for the day is on its tummy. Last night it said "God is real." Tonight's truth is "Jesus is God's son." So I had just written that in dry erase marker on the turtle's tummy when the lady from the Romania team stepped in. After she left, I looked around for a spot to hide the turtle. In my VBS room there's a wall of cabinets with about a foot of space above it going all the way across. At the very end of the row of cabinets, there's a place where it's not wide enough for another cabinet, and there's a face plate, even with the plane of the cabinet doors. I thought I'd put the turtle right up there on top of that spot. When I did, it went all the way down. I dropped it in a cavity that ran nearly the entire height of the wall! Not only could the Romania team not have it, I couldn't have it for the rest of the week! Panicking, I called the sweet lady back to tell her what I had done, and then I climbed up on a bookshelf and took a look from the top where I had dropped the turtle. To my surprise and relief, there was a space at the bottom where the toe-kick was set back from the panel. I could see carpet, and light down there. There was hope of recovering the turtle! So I got down on the floor and stuck my hand up that space, looking for the little stopper on the turtle with my fingers. I found it but I couldn't pull it with my fingernails. (Why did I cut them yesterday??) That's a job I'd usually do with my teeth. I just couldn't get it. It's a good thing that the other sweet lady was able to get it with her fingernails, and she deflated the turtle enough to pull it out. It was a successful rescue! That was enough drama for the week. I sure hope I don't do anything so stupid tonight! (And if I do, I hope it can be corrected like last night!)

So with the island theme, a friend of mine put Jonathan Coulton's "Skullcusher Mountain" in my head. It's a very funny song written from the perspective of a James Bond-type villain, holding a pretty girl captive.

Roofing continues today. Initially they told us they could do it in one day, but I guess the siesta went a little long yesterday afternoon. I don't really care, as long as it gets done and they do a good job. And really, there's no threat of rain. (I wish that weren't the case. We need the rain!)