The junior and senior youth groups at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church launched the new program year with a pool party and barbecue at the Kellogg Club in Morristown on Sept. 2. Here, MG correspondent Carl Hausman, a youth group member who will turn 12 on Sept. 4, describes Sunday’s outing.
The youth groups are open to any youngsters in seventh through 12th grade. Earlier this summer, the high school youth participated in a mission trip to North Carolina and blogged about it for MorristownGreen.com. Anyone interested in joining the junior or senior youth group is welcome to attend an informational meeting at the church at 12:30 p.m. on Sept. 9 or to contact the Rev. Melissa Hall at MHall@stpetersmorristown.org or 973-538-0555, ext. 25.
By Carl Hausman, MG Kids correspondent
On Sunday, Sept. 2, the youth group of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Morristown went to a party to kick off the new year of youth group activities.
It was a pool party! There was a pool with a cement walk all around, and a wall in back of that. Up top was a nice slope of grass. We spread out our towels in the grass, got into bathing suits and went swimming!
Surprisingly for such a cloudy, chilly day, the pool was comfortably lukewarm. I was third in the water and did several cannon balls off the diving board. I also invented a new dive in which you sit with your back to the water at the edge of the pool, then fall in backwards and kick out hard while moving your arms back and forth. It’s similar to doing a snow angel but across the surface of the water and propelling you a quarter of the way across the pool.
I had fun with this for awhile, playing tag games with some of the other kids. But then I was catching my breath at the wall when suddenly the water seemed to feel colder. I got out and dried off, then inquired about lunch (hamburgers and hot dogs on a grill, salad, and chips) just as a light sprinkle came down.
This soon passed, and everyone came up and got lunch. Then, we did a check-in, which was where we told about things that were happening in our lives. Then, we were supposed to play a game of “sharks and minnows.”
I remembered how the pool had suddenly felt colder, so I reached down a hand to check the temperature. The pool literally felt about 10 degrees cooler. I excused myself from the game because of the cold water. I had just moved my stuff onto a bench when a drizzle started coming down, worse than the earlier rain. There was a mad scramble to get towels and other belongings under the umbrellas.
I couldn’t believe it, but the game still continued in the water. However, it rapidly deteriorated when the drizzle turned into pouring rain.
We took shelter under the umbrellas, with towels and platters of watermelon. But then, things took a turn for the better. My birthday is on Tuesday, so my mom had made cupcakes, and we had a small celebration.
After that, of course, as soon as the last of the already-soaked belongings had come under the umbrella, the rain let up. We got back down to the pool, and with a foot I tested the temperature. Surprisingly, it was as warm as in the beginning.
Next, four of the kids started tossing balls around, seeing how long they could keep them off the ground. I was the one who retrieved balls that went into the pool or onto the grass. Then, they came up with a game where one of them would jump off the diving board and the other would throw one of the balls to him and he would try to catch it in mid-air. If he succeeded, he got a point. In the end, the score was roughly 0 out of 20.
Then, I borrowed goggles, which I hadn’t worn in four years. Miracle of miracles – my eyes no longer had evil chlorinated water attacking them!
After lots of fun in the pool, we had to go.
On the way back, we found a juvenile gray squirrel with a wounded leg on the sidewalk. We put him on the watermelon platter (emptied of its former contents) to carry him back to the church. We then put him in a box and my mom and I took him home. He currently resides in a comfortable cage just outside the front door until we can get ahold of an animal-rehabilitation expert.
So that’s what happened at the youth group kick-off pool party.
The youth group is lots of fun! We’ve done things like organize a haunted house, gone on mission trips, and gone to New York City early in the morning to see the Christmas tree and the Macy’s holiday windows. It’s lots of fun and a great group to join!
I hope we do something this exciting this year!!!
MG Kids invites kids of all ages to write about youth events in town as well as to submit photographs or artwork for publication. To participate, contact Sharon Sheridan at MGKids@sharonsheridan.com.
