Monessen Day 1

We departed from the church somewhere around 12:30-12:45.  Papa Don took the lead with Big Dumb Chris as his co-pilot (the kids nick named Chris that name affectionately.  Chris is big, but not dumb at all and he is a very good sport).  Paula's vehicle was in the middle, due to her fear of getting lost on a road that leads to a big city (seriously, this is her greatest fear) and she had her youngest son, Dane, PK, Corinna and Rachel.  I brought up the tail with Kirk, Molly and Shawnie.

The drive was pretty uneventful.  We stopped at Taco Bell (ugh for a WLS patient!) and I ate a couple of nachos.  Then we were onto the PA Turnpike for the remainder of the journey.  We arrived at 4:00 on the nose and were the first church group to arrive. 



 We immediately met our leaders, Kelly, Sarah, Jeremy and Kyle.
 


As we began to unload our vehicles of suitcases, duffle bags, sleeping bags and air mattresses.  Turning to Kelly, we asked where our sleeping quarters were and we were informed they were on the fourth floor.  There was no elevator.  Okay, so exercise was not going to be an issue.

We hauled all our stuff upstairs and the good part about arriving first was being able to select our sleeping quarters.  Once we were unpacked and our air mattresses were blown up, we headed back downstairs to the dining/kitchen/club room to wait for others to arrive.

When the other groups began to arrive, they did not seem all that friendly.  I said hello to some of them and they nodded in return but all in all it felt awkward.  The other groups were all from up north (Canada, Upper PA and Michigan) and it seemed they were just not as warm and outgoing as our kids were, but it was still way too early to tell.

We had dinner (I totally forget what we had) and just before that, the adult leaders headed upstairs for a meeting with Kelly, where we divided our kids into work groups for the next day.  My group, which consisted of me, Paula, PK, Rachel, Kirk and Corinna, would be starting off our week with Kid's Club, which is essentially a VBS for the neighborhood kids.

After dinner, we had Club, which is usually a time of music, some fun and then a more serious talk given by Sarah.  After Club each night, we all had our individual church group time and the first night, the kids were a little disgruntled but how cold some of the other kids seemed to be.  We tried to assure them that it was only the first night and that they needed to give it time, but actually, only time would tell.

When we were finished church group time, we headed back up to the 4th floor for bed.  Wake up the next morning for the adult leaders would be 5:45 if we wanted to shower.  I did.