Standard procedure: this is Thursday's post, because of the pictures.

First of all: I mentioned the Jaywalker socks. So I decided to take a picture of the current progress:



Only, I'm calling them Syncline/Anticline socks because the color is named for a semi-geologic term (Petroglyph - I suppose that's actually more anthropological than geological, but whatever).

Also, these are the first few blocks of the new quilt:


I'm not sure I'm in love with that green and black combination, but hopefully it will balance out with the pink and green I'm using.

Tonight was cookout night for the Youth Group. (We are winding down for the summer). And, even though I'm probably the only one reading this who ever works with a Youth Group, I think I have a few rules of Youth Group Outings figured out:

1. The less standing in line is involved, the better the experience will be.

2. The higher the ratio of time spent having fun to time spent getting there, the better.

3. The "safer" the area (i.e., the less close supervision required) the better. (The best part about this park? The picnic area is up on a hill and you can hang out up there and pretty much see all the rest of the park. So we knew where everyone was at all times, without us being right there breathing down their necks.)

In other words: simple pleasures really ARE the best.

Tonight, we went to a local park (no one had to travel more than 10 minutes to get there). I cooked out (food was the only expense: the trip cost less than 1/3 of the mini golf outing). The kids ate, we had the lesson, and then we turned them loose. The dad of two of the boys supervised a touch football game, some of the kids went and skated on the skateboard park, and a couple of the girls went down to the creek to look for frogs (but ultimately fell in; still, that was okay - no one got hurt and none of them were upset about it)

I think the kids were happier at the end of the evening tonight than they were after the mini golf. And I know I was happier and a lot less stressed out. I told my co-leaders that we should do that again, as one of the summer activities, instead of giving into the temptation to be all flashy and hip and do something expensive and far away (like the mini golf or several years' ago water park trip). It's a lot less stressful on us this way, and as I said, it seems like the kids enjoyed themselves MORE just running around in a park than they did at some expensive, more rule-bound activity.

(I also noticed this from our "swimmin' hole" trip vs. the fancy-schmancy waterslide park trip: the waterslide park involved endless lines and required close supervision; the swimmin' hole allowed us to sit on the side of the area and watch the kids and just occasionally tell someone to be careful or not to do something. I think part of the greater-fun comes from not having to wait to have fun, and part comes from the fact that the adults aren't breathing down your neck to watch over you.)