Success!

The all-nighter went off without many issues. I did almost lose my temper with one kid who often pushes me to lose it. But mostly I kept patient and decided it wasn't worth getting short with the kids on our last official night together.

The kids did a surprisingly good job cleaning up afterwards and they all went home around 9:00. I begged them not to come to the youth center til at least 6, even though it was open at 3, so I could have a nap on the couch til movie time. So I went home and slept from 9:30 to 1:00, knowing I had to get up in the afternoon to get ready to open up the center again. Well two kids showed up at 3:01, but only stayed for about 20 minutes so I got a chance to relax a while.

I put a movie on the big screen (A League of Their Own), hoping to fall asleep because usually my own movies have been seen enough that I can easily fall asleep during them. Well apparently I'm still too stoked about this movie because I was wide awake and fully attentive watching my hero Geena Davis pull the splits while catching a pop foul. So I stayed up the whole time and just waited for the kids that I *knew* were showing up at 9 for more movies.

I made the slight mistake (well, not really mistake) of inviting Te Ana and Amanda (two of the original girls in the youth group) to spend the NEXT night over at the center as well! This means that I got very little sleep the entire weekend, coz we were up gabbing for the better part of the night even after going to bed at 1. We all ran on very little sleep. But it was good coz I'm going to miss those girls a lot so I'm not going to pass up an extra opportunity to spend time with them.

Today I am completely shattered. Tired, that is. Very little sleep last night with the girls, followed by church and then my farewell lunch afterwards. It went well and I was glad to say goodbye to some of the people that I won't see all week. The *hardest* goodbyes are still yet to come, though - Tuesday night for the "core" youth who have been coming from the beginning, Wednesday night for my home group and Thursday night for Bethany, Richard and their daughter Hannah. THAT will be a super hard one I think. I always joke around about Bethany and I being best friends but to be honest she has been my best friend here and even though I'm excited to go home and see my little Jayden, it means I have to trade off by not seeing little Hannah grow up (she's about the same age as Jayden). Gutting. There's also the matter of the best behaved boys, Dylan and Cameron and their little sister Scarlett too...ack! I'm not looking forward to the goodbyes this week. I had no use in wearing make up this morning coz it was cried off less than 15 minutes into the service - Karl had two of the mother figures, Heather and Jocelyn, come up and pray for me...yeah I had very little make up left after that one.

Sooooo that's my life. I came home after the lunch, Rae cut my hair, and then I tried to sleep for a few hours but only got about an hour in before having to get back up for dinner and to go to TCC for evening church. Now it's 11:30 and even though I know I need the sleep, I'm just not tired.

This is due to a couple different things, though...I do feel tired but I'm really stoked coz I just got an email from one of my childhood heroes - one of my old dance teachers, Karyn. So since that woke me up completely, and since I'm starting to get really super excited about seeing my family and friends and catching up with old friends that I haven't seen in years...I don't see myself *getting* to sleep too easily, but I know that once I do fall asleep, there is very little chance that I will stir or wake up at all during the night.

Since Friday night I have only had a total of about 7 hours sleep. How insane is that? That's almost 3 days now.

Okay so with that said, I'm going to bed. See you all in 5 sleeps!!!