Day 1 - The Familes are Here!

First of all, Happy Father's Day! Here at Blue Skies, Father's Day started with a pancake breakfast. My condomate, Allison Gruehn, was up WAY before me as she was on the pancake cooking crew. I heard it was delicious (it's possible I may have missed it and ate my oatmeal instead). My sweet roommate, Salli Beasley, demonstrated her gift of encouragement with this sweet surprise on my bed this morning.

Thanks Salli. I have a lot to learn from you!

We started the day with our morning meeting. Our directors have been great about giving us the information we need without making me feel overwhelmed. Thanks for that guys!

From there, we went to the "green room" (because it's painted green!) to learn where to get our supplies for "turn down" each night. This room is where we go to get things we need for our rooms, our H2O groups, etc. This is only SOME of the supplies. The rest of the stuff is in the resource room.

After setting up our guest families rooms, it was time for lunch. Most days we will eat here at the condo with our guest families but today we were free to leave and do our own thing. After a quick stop for a picture, we had a delicious seafood lunch at the marina.

Once we got back it was time to wait for our families...and wait...and wait. Check in time was between 3 and 4 but my family didn't arrive until after 5. It was worth the wait. My little buddy is PRECIOUS! He has been sick more of his life than he has been well but he is happy, full of smiles and plays the best air guitar you have ever heard! Melinda personally takes every child on a golf cart ride when they get there, honking the horn and celebrating their arrival. Here is a picture of my fella! (whoops. Caught him with his eyes closed.) As luck would have it, he also has a broken leg. That's just not fair!

While we waited there were numerous activities including a huge jumpy house. It was HOT outside but the kids had fun anyway.

After my family got here I spent some time helping them unload and getting settled. Then it was time for our welcome party. It was all about celebrating your team spirit. The overwhelming majority were dressed in Auburn gear (War Eagle!), I was the only one sporting the GT apparel and Salli was repping Samford.

Everything around here is a party and meals are no exception. The tables are decorated beautifully and let me tell you, the food is ridiculously good AND abundant. The menu tonight was marinated grilled flank steak, salad, mac and cheese, rolls, baked potatoes, green beans and this amazing ice cream type pie. Yum!

After dinner we went down to the beach to watch the sunset and to release lanterns...only we couldn't release lanterns because the wind was blowing the wrong direction (which would have set the resort on fire). So instead, blue balloons were released. The sunset was gorgeous tonight!

 

 

Each night we will end with a short time of worship and thanks for the day. Tomorrow we start at 8:00. So happy to be here and so blessed to be able to be a part of such a great ministry. Thank you again for all of your support and prayers.