Merry Christmas. December 25th, Entry #53.

Sara:  I won't say much today.  I just wanted to share 2 great things with you that we have come across that I think are great and just darn Christmasy.  Merry Jesusday and never forget the reason for the season.


#1  This video was forwarded to us from Mr. Ogilvie....Aaron's dad, not actually Aaron himself.  Jesus has gone high-tech.

   

#2  And this one...well...let's just say that I am glad to claim Mikey for Kansas City and the Archdiocese.

       

Hide and Seek. December 21st, Entry #52.

Sara:  So, Erica and Sara came and visited Aaron and I in the office today.  We just hung out and chatted for a bit.  First they finished finals (woohoo), then they went to Starbucks and then they went to Target and then they went to Erica's house to give Erica's mom her coffee from Starbucks because she didn't like it.....it tasted too much like coffee, but that tends to happen when you put a shot of ESPRESSO in your drink....and then they came and hung out with us.  Well really, they came to give us gum.  I know, right, kind of weird.  But Sara gave me a piece of gum and then I made her feel bad about not giving Aaron one. so she did, that was nice.  And at the end of our little adventure they decided to hide 2 more pieces of gum in my office for me to find later.  And find them I did...I am quite the detective.

The first one was in my printer.

 And the second one was in my desk drawer.

Sherlock Holmes don't have nothing on me!!

Fun with Escalators. December 10th, Entry #51.

Sara:  boys + escalators = laughs for everyone else.

Try to guess who will trip and fall down: Mikey or Kyle.

So, so, so proud to get to work with this guy.

Youth Ministry Draft. December 10th, Entry #50.

Sara: I would like to share with you one of the funniest conversations about youth ministry that I have ever heard.  At the NCCYM conference we were sitting around one evening hanging out, chatting and laughing while in the background there was a Sports Center baseball story about who has been traded to whom and for how much and how long their contracts were, etc.  Now, I don't remember who exactly said what, but I do remember the gist of the story and I'm pretty sure that Mikey started it.

"What if there was a news story about youth ministers getting traded to another parish?"
"Chris Walters has just been traded to Holy Trinity with a 7 year contract for 1.4 thousand a year!"
"Oh man!  He's making a fortune!"
"What minor league parish did he come from?"
"Man, Holy Trinity, he's making it big in the majors."
"What if there was a Youth Minister draft?"
"We've got a new graduate from Benedictine with a major in theology and 2 years experience working at camp AND he can play the guitar...he ought to be in the top 5 drafts picks for sure."
"Even better...we could have a fantasy league!"

And then we sent a step further and decided that we should extend this to seminarians.

"This year Sacred Heart is going to make a strong start with their rookie out of Kenrick Glennon Seminary."
"And then we could have trading cards for each of the seminarians."
"And kids could try and collect them all"
"Hey look, I just got a Jeff Lamont!"
"Yeah? I've got Archbishop Naumann!  Beat that!"
"Ha!  Pope card!  I win!!"

seewhatididthere? December 10th, Entry #49.

Sara: While I blog a lot about Kyle and Chris, there is another YM that'd I like to highlight....Mr. Mikey Needleman.  You all know him, most of you love him, he's half the reason that my kiddos want to go to rallies and retreats.... "oh, Mikey's playing, we have to go!"....this is not an exaggeration.  But, I will admit, I just haven't ever known him very well.  This is probably due to the fact that he's an up-and-coming celebrity and therefore really busy and I'm just awkward and lame.  I think that sums it up pretty well.

However, I got to spend a lot of time with Mikey this past week and let me just say...he is totally worth all the hype.  Here are a few things I learned about Mikey: he is half Puerto Rican, he has a great story about how he started dating his girlfriend, he is ridiculously hilarious, he would have stayed up until 3am every night if we had let him, he can rock the sweater vest and the boy knows his stuff!  He is one solid Catholic dude.

Well, our dear friend Mikey led a breakout session at this conference entitled "Effectively creating and maintaining a choir/band".  And of course we all had to attend his session and support him even though I have absolutely nothing to do with music in our church.

See, doesn't he rock the sweater vest? 
And he looks so professional!

Now, I did mention that Mikey is hilarious....and not only is Mikey hilarious, he is up for anything.  So, when we decided at lunch (1 hour before his session) that we were going to come up with a list of 10 things that Mikey needed to somehow slip into his presentation...he was totally up for it.  And, if he got at least 5 out of the 10, he would get one giant group hug from us....I know, right, how lucky was he! 

Here is the list and the ones that he succeeded in saying

X  Stapler
    Toaster
    I like to skateboard!
X  SeewhatIdidthere?
    Sweater vests
    Doodie Burger (thanks Kyle for this very mature phrase)
    Whoop! Whoop! Whoop!
X  Party in the USA
X  Light the Fire
X  Beef and Cheese

Impressive.  Very impressive.

Also, Mikey had a knack for shortening words that really didn't need to be shortened...so we all enjoyed giving him a hard time about that later.  For instance:
"Here are some obvies to play for an opening song"  Actual word: obvious
"Here are some suggests for Advent"  Actual word: suggestions
And, my favorite phrase of the session: let's pray it out.  Yeah team, we got a big mass coming up, we got to play for Jesus, we got to stay focused, we got to win the gold, "LET'S PRAY IT OUT!".

Shaky Face. December 11th, Entry #48.

Sara: You know the game...I first learned it from Hope Piernick on a trip to Omaha...you know you've played...and if you haven't, you're going to want to after you see these pictures.

It's a simple premise....you shake your face, I take a picture in the middle of it.  See how talented and gorgeous your Johnson County Youth Ministers (and a few random people along the way) are.

Doesn't it look like Kyle is smashed up against a window right now?

Really bad mug shot.

I like Kyle creepin' in the background.  Sorry Chels.

Cdub wasn't very good at this game.  He always looked down.

Sonie, our waitress.  Somehow she looks like a model in this shot.  Not fair.

The eyes rolling back into the head...favorite part.

Mike Debus....our famous artist friend.  BEST lips out of everyone!

Jackie Francois.  She didn't know what she was getting into
when she became friends with us.

Thank you, Shawn, for the tongue.  Love it.

There is absolutely NO WAY to do shaky face and look attractive.

Mikey looks like a horse.

Tonya, our waitress at the restaurant at the airport.



McKabe, new friends we made at the airport.

  

Heather, our other friend from the airport.

I loved that we would meet people and within 10 minutes of talking to them we got them to do shaky face.  You can't stop the magic of shaky face.  Embrace it.  Share the love.  Spread the shaky face.

NCCYM. December 8th, Entry #47.

Sara:  So, just a preface....there are about to be numerous blog posts about one awesome week that we just spent in New Orleans.  I say numerous because there were just too many awesome things that happened/were said/made us laugh/made us think/made us laugh some more.  And for the sake of your eyes and the sake of my poor little fingers, I am not going to try and put them into one giant post.  So, sit back, relax and partake of our fabulous week.

So, first up...the details.  Aaron and I traveled to New Orleans to attend the National Conference on Catholic Youth Ministry....NCCYM for short.  We partied with 2,500 other YMs from around the country...we even met some from Canada! (America's hat)  And we were fortunate enough to be with about a dozen awesome people from our own Archdiocese....Chris Walters, Chelsea Schmidt, Dana, Debbie and Mary Eloise Nearmyer, Mike Debus, Mikey Needleman, Kyle Kuckleman, Rick Cheek, Joe Peterson, and even though he just moved and is no longer in our diocese but I'm going to count him anyways, Shawn Madden.  Totally awesome, right??  Right.

We got to hob-nob with Catholic youth minister type celebrities.  We got to be part of a flash mob dance. (down below, we're in the background, look for us)  We learned more about each other than we probably ever wanted to know.  We toured New Orleans.  We teased Kyle when he was star struck with these Catholic YM celebrities.  We ate a lot of Cajun food.  I got to reconnect with old friends that I have met at other conferences. I literally laughed until my face hurt.  We were challenged and inspired by people such as Mark Hart and Fr. Larry Richards.  We talked a lot about poop (you spend that much time with more boys than girls and it's bound to happen).  All in all I'd say it was a pretty great week.

Oregon Trail. December 1st, Entry #46.

Sara: Just a quote from AP FLOCK last night.  Not much introduction I need to give this one.

Jane: my sister has a Mrs. Claus bonnet.
Joe: a bonnet?  Did she wear it on the Oregon Trail?
Aaron: Nice 90's computer game reference!!
Aaron: Dang it!  I died of dysentery!
Joe: My son got hit by a wagon!

I flippin' loved this game when I was in elementary school!  Long live the Oregon Trail!