Oh summer (or at least it certainly feels like summer outside)…you never cease to surprise me. Always hot. Always busy. So much going on that the blog takes a back seat…

As I carve out a few minutes today, let’s do a quick check in on what all is going on in my world.

• Summer Camps As I mentioned in my last blog post, one of the biggest parts of my job during the summer is helping host/coordinate multiple summer camp offerings for our community. This week is our Vacation Bible School, which is hosting almost 200 kids, students and volunteers. It’s always a great event for our church!

• TV/Movies Rachel and I typically use the summer months to catch up on several TV shows and movies. We’ve been rewatching a lot of comedies on Hulu/Netflix recently. So far, The Last Man On Earth and Brooklyn 99 have been our go to shows. For movies, we’ve seen Avengers: Infinity War, Solo, TheIncredibles 2, and Won’t You Be My Neighbor. Tomorrow night, we are going to see the new Jurassic Park movie. We’ve been quite pleased with all of the movies we’ve seen, but the The Incredibles 2 has easily been our favorite!

• Running Even with the weather turning almost unbearably hot/humid, I’ve been able to keep the weekly/monthly mileage up. It’s been helpful to not have to really train for any races for the summer months (outside of the Peachtree Road Race on July 4th). Running in the early morning definitely helps…but at this point, even a short 3-4 mile run looks like I’ve jumped in a pool afterwards.

• New Pastors Starting tomorrow, our church (my job) will be getting 2 new pastors…which means I will be getting new bosses. I’ve had an opportunity to spend a little time already with the new Senior Pastor. He seems awesome so far!
• Upcoming Vacation Two weeks from tomorrow, Rachel and I will be heading up to the Pacific Northwest and California for a 10 day trip to Portland, Seattle and Disneyland. We are getting excited to have some time away as both of our jobs have been crazy recently.

• Rachel’s Job Anniversary Today marks Rachel’s 11th year with her company. It’s pretty rare to stay with a company for over 10 years and this is her first company job after college. I’m so crazy proud of her and all the work she does!

• Time with Family And finally…we’ve had some good time with our families over the past month. We celebrated Father’s Day with Rachel’s family this past weekend. It’s always a joy to spend time with them! And over Memorial Day, we had some awesome time with my Dad and Suzanne at the beach. Family is so important to us and we are grateful to both have wonderful families who love and support us.

All in all, life has been quite busy, but good. Rachel and I are happy. As we get into the heart of the “summer,” let us all be mindful of this blessing we call life. Until next time…

One of the cool parts of my job as Director of Activities Ministries at St. James UMC is hosting/running over 20 camps during the summer. Each summer, our church partners with several different companies to run everything from drama, science, soccer, basketball, volleyball, music and more. In fact, this summer, 9 of our camps are being run in house by our Children’s, Music and Activities Ministries.

Today begins the first week of these camp offerings at our church. 

Club SciKidz Camp

Dos Santos Soccer Camp

From now to the end of August, we will have over 1,000 campers (from ages 9 months to 18 years old) come through our building. And while it’s a very busy time in my world, it’s one of the most rewarding parts of my job. Here’s to another great summer!