If You Give a Boy a Paintbrush...

Have you ever read the children's book If You Give a Mouse a Cookie? Well, today was a bit like that. First, Gracie needed a butterfly painted on her face to go with her fairy costume, so Mom asked me to do that for her. It turned out quite a bit better than I had expected. :D 

Then, of course, she had to do mine...

Then I had to get out my camera and take her to the backyard for a quick photoshoot...

Then I had to take a shower.

Then Clay came and asked me to paint a blue flame over the side of his face. 

And while I did, Gracie kept asking me to let her re-paint my face, seeing as how it all washed off in the shower. So I let her.

Then, as I was passing out candy to two young trick-or-treat-ers, one of them wouldn't come close to me. She was probably two or three, and kept staring at my face like I was a monster. So I washed it off again.

And now, as I'm writing this, I'm waiting for more trick-or-treat-ers to arrive and eating the candy that's supposed to be for them. (Only the really good stuff, like the Reese's and the Twix.) No. I'm not that heartless. I'm only eating some of it. x]

And about an hour from now, Gracie will come home and probably ask if she can paint my face again.

Worldview Academy 2012

Last week, I attended Worldview Academy's 2012 Texas Fall Camp. Sounds pretty boring like that, doesn't it?

Wrong.

It's anything but. I spent the week learning (24+ hours of lectures), eating (the food is unbelievably good for a cafeteria), playing ultimate frisbee, jungle ball, gaga ball and mafia; discussing the lectures with my small group, taking pictures (over 800--I deleted half of them), climbing 50 feet up a climbing tower, evangelizing at the University of Texas campus in Austin, worshiping, and meeting with God. All fueled by 3-4 cups of coffee a day. :D

Playing Ultimate--or attempting to. It was rather chilly that morning.

Ethan eating breakfast with his small group

Mafia! The card game, that is.

Mike Schutt, one of the speakers

Randy Sims, speaker #2 and director of Worldview Academy

Gaga Ball--an odd game in which you basically try to keep
the ball away from your feet by hitting it with your hands
and bouncing it off the walls...

The 50-foot climbing tower

Thank you Jesus for coffee!

Bill Jack, the third speaker. He's about to light that
 twenty-dollar bill on fire. :O

The sunset was rather glorious Wednesday evening. :D

The Merch table

The path between the two halves of the pond.
It led to the lecture hall. In the background, you can sorta see
 Conference Room A, which was where we played Mafia.

The view I had of the sunrise from my bench

On Wednesday, I believe it was, the clouds were
a bit heavy and decided they needed to drop off a bit
of weight...which resulted in an early-morning shower.

The staff's cover of Walk Off The Earth's cover of Gotye's
song, "Somebody That I Used to Know"

This is during the Thursday afternoon Color Team rally before
the Spamley Cup competition.

Green team performing their cheer

Red team performing theirs

And now, part two of the relay! (Sadly, I didn't get a good picture of part 1,
 which was hopping to the bucket and back with a
beanie bag between your legs.) Four boys and four girls
had to walk through two hula-hoops, around a bucket,
and back through the hula-hoops with a bean bag on their heads.

Part 3--The Weave

Also part 3, but this time the guys had to weave between the girls.
Part 4, which I failed to get a good picture of as well, was launching
a bean bag with a towel 20 feet or so into a bucket.

Oh, the reason we had the Spamley Cup competition inside
was because of the torrent that decided to loose itself upon Camp Tejas
on Thursday afternoon...but it made for some cool pictures. :D

This one is probably one of my favorites from the week. :]

Setting up for Human Foosball--Red and Yellow vs. Blue and Green

Line Change!
I had fun experimenting with shutter speed. :D

Thursday evening--the time when most people
go around with notebooks, exchanging Facebook names,
phone numbers and email addresses

Reagan and Lindsey Moreno--two of our childhood friends
that moved away several years ago.
Great fun getting to see them again. :D
But Reagan doesn't really like getting his picture taken...

Campfire

My seat of choice for quiet times. My planks of wood by the
pond. My place to meet with God in the mornings.
My bench. :D

This is another of my favorites--the sun's reflection
off the surface of the pond.

Spiiiiiderrrr! :O

Friday afternoon--waiting outside the meeting hall before we
rush in and surprise all our parents

Two of the members of the worship team. They were great. :)