Settlers of Catan

Jason and I have found a new game we love...

It's Catan the Card Game...for two people!

And here is a picture I promised would go up on our blog if it was taken...Charlie Sommers having some fun with our camera.

Stitches!!!

So this week has been really tough. Everybody's exhausted and/or sick on our staff and it just seems like a lot of things are going wrong and/or not right this week. I'm glad it's over and we can look forward to another week....

As you can see, I had to get stitches this week as well. I was playing assassins, a game of squirt gun fun, where you have a person to shoot and a person chasing you, and if you shoot your "contract" then you get their person and it goes until there's just one person left. Needless to say, I didn't win, but I did get injured in the process of stealthily going after my contract.

Seven stitches later, I'm pretty much a beast.

Anyway--the Brooklyn Tabernacle was here this week and we watched this movie about them last night at the service, and it was pretty cool to see the stories of the people who's lives have changed...

We get to ride a helicopter this week too. Um, that rocks.

So the coffee of the day is hopefully some sugar-free fat-free carmel latte at a place where we can get free wi-fi since the internet here at Maranatha is on the brink. Haven't been able to get on all week until today!

So yay! Have a great day!

Date Night in Grand Haven

Saturday night was "date night" for the Kotarski's since it's our only evening we have off during the week. We took the night to walk the boardwalk at Grand Haven, eat a pronto pup (a hot dog dipped in pancake batter on a stick), and go to the movies--we saw Wall-e, which was great!

It's kind of funny how little we've been watching TV or movies since being at Maranatha...we have literally only watched Wall-e last night, Be Kind Rewind with my family the night of the funeral a few weekends ago, and one time we put on an episode of The Office, only to turn it off after 7 minutes and go to sleep instead....

So anyway--here's a picture of Date Night in Grand Haven!

Happy Fourth of July!!

Happy Fourth of July everybody (a few days late!)!! Hope you're all had a great long weekend wherever you were! We sure did! We had to work in the morning and at night, but Carolyn was here for the weekend, so we went to lunch with her (yummy Brooklyn Bagels) and then to the beach for the afternoon...what a beautiful day we had here at Maranatha!

In the evening we had to sing in the service, and then we had to "work" the beach at night during the fireworks, but it was a blast and we got to hang out with Carolyn and the Sommers Family....Here's some pictures from the day!
Some kids playing beach volleyball at night...Actually it's this strange Maranatha game called "nuke 'em" which involves catching the ball instead of hitting it back and forth.
One family was handing out glow jewelry, so we stocked up!
Carolyn and I goofing around with the camera...
This is Rose, Carolyn's "baby" from last year in the baby nursery...Rose is two now, and is a lot bigger than Carolyn remembered! :)
The fireworks went off right from our beach...They were pretty good...and it was fun to be right there!

The Sommers Kids...

So here's some pictures of our new friends the Sommers and their cute kids. Love 'em! (really it's just the kids, but if you look in the background of the first picture, they're over there on the left!)

Pictures from Week Two!

So here we are in Week Two already!! I'm going to post some pictures from our week and then I'm going to post a video of OUR NEW BUILDING! We weren't expecting to be in it so quick but our first program meeting was this morning and we ARE PUMPED! So hope you enjoy!

Sunday nights we have a pizza party to welcome the kids to another week!!

These are two resident kids who we've gotten to know pretty well!

Tuesday nights is "Teen Swim" at the pool...This is one of our leaders, Tyler, showing off his mad swimming skills!

Freezing cold after Teen Swim--trying to stay warm!

So here's a video from earlier today of our new building!

We're really excited to finally be in the NEW AND IMPROVED Lebanon (all the building at maranatha are named after countries) and not to have to walk all over the grounds and carry big sound equipment up a million stairs...This morning was really fun, the loud music rocks, the powerpoint games are fun and the kids especially LOVE the big cushy bean bags...Everybody was running and jumping on them all night...we finally had to nix it when they were smushing a kid b/w two big bags, and then standing on top of it all.

Oh, I pray to have little girls someday! :)

On the Porch

just chillin' on the porch....right before a game of Dutch Blitz, our new favorite game!