Today was freshmen move-in day at the University I graduated from, so I headed out to one of the dorms to take lunch to a girl who is from my home church.  Though she’s heard me speak about Starlite at our church back home several times before, we’ve never met before today.  We’re also several years apart in age, but I wanted her to know that there was at least someone nearby she could call if she needed anything.

As she showed me the pile of clothes she brought and the closet which is far too small to hold even a fourth of those clothes, I couldn’t help but think about the day I moved into my own freshman dorm.  I was 17 and, if you want to know the truth, very possibly adorable. I was thin, smart and bubbly — three things I hadn’t yet realized about myself.

I was also ready to love and be loved, something I had already realized about myself.

For the next six years, I waited for love to come.  There was only one person I ever loved during those years, memories of him sprinkled throughout different semesters and graduations.  There were other boys in passing, too, but it seems almost redundant to tell you that nothing lasted.  You can already see that, can’t you?

Since that last graduation day, there’s been plenty of time spent at work, the weekly schedule always punctuated by weddings and baby showers on the weekends.  There’s been a few dates and then one relationship that I knew better than to be in but chose anyway, a decision made out of desperation and loneliness.  That one ended last fall and now, some nine months later, I find myself laying in bed with a ribbon in my hair, writing to you because, for some reason, you listen to me.  It’s another quiet Friday night knowing that my phone will not ring tonight with the offer of a date, another Friday night without someone at my door.

And the strangest thing is that I’m relieved it’s this way.

Over the last four months, I’ve been thinking about how tricky love can be.  Before now, love has always been something mysterious and wonderful to me, the one thing I was willing to admit I wanted more than almost anything.  I was in love with love, passionate about passion.

But now I want nothing to do with it.

If that statement sounds like something you can barely recognize coming from me, well, you’re not alone.  I don’t even recognize my own heart anymore and I hate it.  I don’t want to think about being in love because, in a very real sense, I think I’ve just given up on the idea that someone will want to love me.

That sounds dramatic and I’m sure that, if you and I were sitting across the table from each other right now, you’d reach your hand out to mine and tell me that it isn’t true, that someone will want to love me one day.  But you’re not here with me tonight.  You’re not here in my quiet house, watching me cry as I type this because seeing the words on the screen in front of me confirm what my heart has been feeling for weeks: maybe it’s time to give up on love.

And it isn’t a thing of being impatient, either.  It used to be that, but it somehow morphed into this belief that it would be almost impossible for someone to want to love me, so why look forward to something that isn’t happening?  Before you start arguing with me, consider this one fact: how can you tell a girl that someone will want to love her when no boy has ever wanted to stay in love with her?

I have been dated.  I have been in serious relationships.  I have shown my dreams and stories and heart to boys and I have nothing to show for it.  I have been shopped, but no one has purchased.  I’m still on the shelf, gathering dust and secretly wishing someone would just move me back to the storage room so I don’t have to feel the rejection the next time someone picks me up to inspect me before returning me to my little corner of the display.  I don’t like hoping that someone will see me and love me only to find that no one ever does.

No one wants to take me home with them.  Literally.

So, I’ve just quietly given up.  Do I think that someday there might be someone who will love me?  Well, maybe.  I mean, I can’t totally rule that out because I don’t know the future.  But can I get that image in my head right now, a virtual picture of me being loved?  Can I get a picture of me being kissed on the forehead, brought home at midnight, told that I’m loved?  No, no I can’t.  For the first time in my life, I honestly can’t imagine it. I can’t even fathom it, no matter how hard I try.

What has happened to me?

Dear Cate,

Today you turn 23!

(And on that note, how is it that we’re two years apart in age, yet act so much alike?!?)

(Also: I love being older than you, ’cause it gives you more excuses to be the sillier one!)

In honor of your birthday today, I’m presenting you with 23 reasons of why I adore you all in list format with a few pictures of you (and us!) sprinkled throughout. Shall we begin?

1. I love you because, when I got into the ocean in Egypt to snorkel before you arrived, I couldn’t enjoy it because you weren’t there yet. I stayed above water, watching for you to come to the shore. It wasn’t fun to me until you were under the water with me, both of us swimming merrily alongside each other. The best part? Both of us coming up for air only to admit, at the same time no less, that we were both pretending to host a National Geographic show whilst under the water.

2. I love you because, when you see that I put a picture of you in a bathing suit up on my blog, you’re going to call me and say “I cannot BELIEVE you put that picture of me on your BLOG!” with the words “believe” and “blog” emphasized the most. I’ll tell you that it was fair game ’cause you put it on Facebook first and even tagged yourself in it, so don’t get smart with me! And then we’ll both start talking about how you got stung by that coral and then we’ll start talking about your trip to the ER that one night in Egypt and then we’ll realize that we’ve been on the phone for 34 minutes.

3. I love you because I have more inside jokes with you than anyone else in my life: “I’m naming my kids CVS, Walgreens and Eckerds;” “477 in the 865″ and how could we forget “HELGA!” My favorite, however, will never change: “STEPHEN! Boy, put that down. SON, I SAID TO PUT THAT THING DOWN WHERE YOU FOUND IT!” I’ll let you tell that story on your blog, if you can get through it without blushing whilst you type, that is.

4. I love you because you stand up for me when it comes to unhealthy relationships in my life. I’ll never forget driving home with you one night and telling you about a phone call I had earlier that day with someone in my life. When I finished the story, you were really quiet (something I’m not used to saying about you!) before finally saying “I’ve never really realized how much that relationship hurts you and how there’s nothing you can do to make it better after all these years of trying.” I felt like someone finally “got it” that night.

5. I love you because men in at least five foreign nations have fallen in love with you simply from looking into your eyes.

6. I love you because we spent this past Valentine’s Day together — morning, noon and night. I’ll never forget us getting all dressed up in your bedroom and then heading out for a fancy meal at McDonald’s followed by driving downtown for an evening of contra dancing for hours. You know what? I wouldn’t trade that night for anything, even if neither one of us had a date. Sisters before misters, and don’t you dare forget it.

7. I love you because we finally snuck into that gated park after months of swearing we were really going to do it one night.

8. I love you because you live at home and that means I can come and borrow your mom to talk to whenever I need it, even if you’re out of town. Also: I love that your mom didn’t flip out on me that time I accidentally texted a naughty word about that stupid boy to her cell phone instead of yours. Ooops.

9. I love you because you actually considered purchasing the skirt in this picture. I love you even more because you found the willpower to resist the urge. And I love you even more because we actually went into the dressing room and tried on various hideous outfits that night.

10. I love you because, whenever we go on road trips with our friends, everyone naturally assumes you and I will agree to share a bed since we’re related and all. On a related note: I love the fact that you don’t get mad when I end up hitting you in the night. Always accidentally, of course.

11. I love you because, whenever we attend lingerie showers together, you always show up with the most embarrassing gift for the bride-to-be.

12. I love you because you love Beth Moore almost as much as I do. I love that we can quote exact lines from her books to each other and frequently discuss what topics we would like to talk to her about should we ever find ourselves sharing some lemonade with her.

13. I love you because we finally did a Bible study together this year after talking about it forever, even if we didn’t actually do our homework each week.

14. I love you because you introduced me to my current five favorite songs, all courtesy of your iPod.

15. I love you because you told me when my hair didn’t look good before Katie’s wedding and then didn’t stay mad at me when I got mad at you because it hurt my feelings to hear the truth about my hair because, hey, we all know I’m a wee bit sensitive about it. If you hadn’t told me it looked bad, I would have never had the girl fix it another way, therefore securing The Highest Volume Hair I Have Ever Had.

16. I love you because I couldn’t walk down the aisle at her wedding until I had apologized to you for being angry that you had told me the truth about my hair that day.

17. I love you because, that one time we got in another argument over something silly with Starlite, we were both miserable for days. I love you even more for sending me an email that said “Okay, can we be done fighting now? I want to hang out.”

18. I love you because whenever we’re having serious talks about life at your house, we always lay on the bed in the guest bedroom for some reason. Why do we do that? Especially since it’s just a twin bed and one of us always ends up in the floor?

19. I love you because, when I found out that one boy had been cheating on me, you drove straight to the Starlite office and dialed his number for me. I also loved that you were ready, at a moment’s notice, to drive straight to his house for what you called “a little chat with Cousin Cate.” I loved that you gave me permission to be angry about the whole thing, too.

20. I love that you don’t take junk from anybody, especially when someone’s trying to hurt someone you love.

21. I love you because you let me hide my face in your jacket that time we rode the thing-y up the mountain and didn’t make fun of me because I started crying because I was so scared. I also love you because you convinced me to look up long enough to take a picture together even though I was still crying.

22. I love you because, no matter how old you try to act, you’ve still got the heart of a little girl.

23. But most of all, I love you because you’re you, Cate. You don’t say you’re over that boy when you’re really not. You don’t answer that everything’s “fine” when it really isn’t. You don’t pretend to be someone else, even when it would be convenient. And you don’t ever need to because you know what?

I love you just the way you are.

Happy Birthday, gypsy.

amy beth

Dear Snuggles,

When mama fills the bathtub with water so she take a bath, that is not an invitation for you to jump in with your favorite toy and splash around!  The punishment is swift and quite terrible: you must be wrapped up in a towel and held like a baby for at least 15 minutes so your mama can remember how she used to hold you when you were a wee little puppy.

Love,

mama

(whom you may know better as “the girl who gives me a treat when I don’t act naughty!”)

You’ve been to the “spa,” you’ve watched the dramas and you’ve even listened to the band.  What’s next?

We knew that part of what makes a slumber party so special was the “thrill” of getting to stay up late (especially if you’re a pre-teen!).  We had pizza and drinks at midnight since the girls were usually hungry again by then.  Whatever happened next was usually based on whatever facility we were using for the evening.

One of our favorite facilities had a rock climbing wall, so we hired a professional to come in for a couple of hours to help us out.

Stage events are fun, too!  The girls loved “Starlite Idol,” where we let them perform song and dance routines in groups with our very own “celebrity” judges in the audience.  And then there was the cricket eating contest, something that only our college volunteers participated in (but the girls LOVED cheering their school volunteers on during the contest!).

The first time we ever held one of these events, I told the girls that if at least 50 of them showed up at the event, I’d let them throw a pie in my face.  We had 153 in attendance that night.

Of course, at some point they have to go to bed.  Our general rule was to put a movie in at 3 a.m. and watch as they slowly fell asleep.  I’m going to be honest and admit that, by this point, I was usually asleep in the backseat of my car (but more on that later).  Also: do you have any idea how hard it is to get a few hundred girls to brush their teeth, find a spot for their sleeping bag and settle in for the night?  I think this is the only picture we have of me still awake at that time in the morning — and we only have this picture because it was our first sleepover ever and I didn’t yet know it was okay for me to take a break before the girls went to sleep!

We typically asked parents to pick their daughters up by 10 a.m., sending breakfast with them as they headed out the door.  To make this process easier, we always had a team of volunteers who had not yet volunteered at the event who showed up (fresh! and clean! and with plenty of sleep!) at 8 a.m. to begin the clean-up and tear down process.  Once we got the girls out the door, the main group of us would leave (and, per tradition, usually grab breakfast together before crashing for the rest of the weekend).  To this day, I’ve still never experienced as sweet a feeling of relief as what I would feel when I’d crawl into my bed on those Saturday afternoons.

As I’ve been writing today’s posts, I’ve thought of a thousand different “tips” I’d like to pass your way (on a related note, wouldn’t this type of stuff make a fantastic book?!?).  Here’s some of my favorites for your next slumber party:

1. Know your limits. I mentioned earlier that I would sleep during our events.  Here’s the deal: I know myself and I know that I cannot — CANNOT — go a full night without sleep.  The set-up for our events was so massive that I usually slept very little the night before as we began load-in.  Then, I spent the day of the event making sure everything was ready on site.  By the time I had been at the event for seven hours or so, I was spent. Knowing that this would always be the case, we always had someone else to be completely in charge beginning at 2 a.m. so that I could go sleep for a bit.  She (and her team) would meet with me and whoever was helping me to “pass off” any information about the rest of the night.  Then I (and part of our team) would find a place to get at least four hours of sleep before waking up (before the girls woke up!) to start the load-out process.  Moms, know that you can’t stay up all night to supervise your daughter’s party?  Hire a college girl you trust and get the sleep you need!

2. Get help. In seven years of Starlite, I can only remember two or three times when we were in real need of extra volunteers.  I know enough about ministry to know how uncommon that is, so I was always thankful that we had the help we needed to pull off events like this!  The best thing we did was look at our team of leaders (20 – 25 college-aged girls) and divide them up based on their strengths — and then divided up the remaining 125 or so volunteers with them.  Shannon was great at P.R., so we would put her talking to parents who were nervous about leaving their little darling with a bunch of college girls.  Kelly knew logistics inside and out, so she was in charge of luggage drop-off, building needs, etc.  Cara came alive in the wee hours of the morning, so she almost always took the 3 a.m. shift for us (and with a smile!).  Look at your team, see what they’re good at and go from there.

3. Plan for worst case scenarios. Whenever we held an event of this magnitude, we had crisis plans in place.  Our team of leaders each had a place of the building assigned to them in the event of a fire or other similar disaster.  We covered the entire building (even storage closets) so that, if we needed to evacuate the building in an emergency, we all immediately knew that every inch of the facility would be checked before that leader left the building herself.  The plan was always that I would be the last out, but that I would know I didn’t need to run through each hallway because they had already been checked.  We also had plans in place for natural disasters, abductions and so forth.  It sounds dramatic to make these plans, but as I’ve already mentioned earlier today, we had three different experiences where our plans came in handy.

4. Take care of your volunteers. Around 3 a.m., we would send some of our team to McDonald’s or Steak ‘N Shake to buy meals for the remaining volunteers to thank them for being willing to volunteer such long hours with us.  Judging by how thankful the volunteers were just to have a hamburger and chocolate shake (remember, those are big treats to broke college students!), I’d say the money was well spent.

5. Go above and beyond. Typically, on the mornings of our big events, our college volunteers would wake up to find a small bag or box outside their dorm room door.  The gifts were different each time, but they all had a similar theme: we’re excited about you helping us tonight and we want you to know we already appreciate it.  One of my favorite things we ever did was put some sugar-filled items in a cute bag and attach a note that said “Trust us — you’re going to need this tonight.”  The volunteers adored the personal attention and we adored getting to thank them in advance.  On a side note, we always made sure to thank them after the events, too, usually with a handwritten thank you note from me arriving in their campus mailbox within one week of the event (I love writing personal notes!).

6. Realize your limits. We once scheduled back-to-back events — ending a sleepover at 10 a.m. in one city before driving 1.5 hours to another city and beginning a second sleepover two hours after that.  If that wasn’t enough, the following morning I spoke at two back-to-back Sunday morning services at a very large church in the second city.  Looking back, I wouldn’t change anything about that weekend because our team pulled together to just make it work.  But we knew it was something we didn’t want to do often, so after that, we made sure our schedule allowed plenty of time for rest between events.

7. Put first things first. The girls who came to our events never realized — and probably won’t ever realize — all the work that went into making the events run smoothly.  Our team realized that everything began with God and everything ended there, too.  To quote Hillsong, we weren’t satisfied “to have the form but not the power.”  We wanted them both, and so we made sure that everything matched up.  Those spa stations?  The girls saw them as something “fun,” but we saw them as a chance for the volunteers to connect with the girls on a one-on-one basis.  During our massive volunteer meetings before the events would begin, I would tell our volunteers that the first part of the altar call began in the pedicure seats.  Don’t ever forget that ministry doesn’t start in the altars — and it doesn’t end there, either.

Okay, I think you’ve heard plenty from me today!  What are your best tips for slumber party events (small or large!)?  Or do you have questions about an event you’re throwing that I (or another one of our readers!) might be able to answer?  Let’s hear them in the comments!

You’re reading Part Three of a series about how to plan sleepover events for pre-teen girls.  Missed the other posts?  Check out Part One here and Part Two here!

Now that we’ve discussed spa and food at your sleepover event, let’s get to the important part: the main event!

When we first decided to begin these events, we knew that we wanted the girls to have fun, but that we also wanted them to leave with more Jesus than they showed up with. For some reason, our in-school programs drew the “unchurched” girls — those who weren’t plugged into youth groups, usually because their parents weren’t in church themselves and certainly weren’t willing to drive their pre-teen to church on Wednesday night. Even though we didn’t want it to be this way, our programs began becoming their only experience with “church” — so it was important that we used our events wisely.

Everybody has different philosophies of ministry — mine is built around two things: the real-life experience I’ve had through Starlite and the classroom knowledge I got while earning my masters in youth and family work. Here are some very basic things I’ve found that worked for us:

1. Free is the way to be. Many of the girls we served were from lower-income situations, so it was very important that we took that into consideration when we planned our events. We realized early on that charging for our events was prohibiting girls from coming, so we decided that we would never charge for an event (or anything else, for that matter) from that point forward. Sure, it meant we had to do a lot more fundraising, but it was worth it to make sure no girl missed coming because she didn’t have money to pay an admittance fee. I realize that, for certain events like retreats or conferences, it’s almost impossible to send your girls for free. Any effort that we as the global Church can make to get to that point, though, means that we’ll get the girls who need it most to the actual event.

2. If you meet physical needs first, it may be easier to get the spiritual ones met later on. This is just a personal philosophy, but I believe that — especially when you’re dealing with students from lower income situations — it’s important to meet whatever physical needs you can. To put it bluntly, I just don’t see the point of trying to teach girls about Jesus while their stomachs are empty because their single mom didn’t have money to feed them before they showed up at our event. So, we made sure we met whatever basic needs we could long before we began the spiritual part. That meant going heavy on the food (since we knew some of them hadn’t been fed dinner), making sure no girl skipped coming because she didn’t have “presentable” pajamas, etc. Sure, it cost more money — but it was absolutely worth every dime.

3. Teach it on their level. When you’re teaching a 12 year old girl about a God she doesn’t really know anything about, it’s important to show her how He relates to her life. We could have stood on a stage, preached a sermon and then offered an altar call — but we didn’t think recreating your typical Sunday morning service was necessarily the way to go. Instead we used popular music (some Christian, some secular — but nothing with questionable lyrics) to create a drama based on whatever we wanted the girls to “get.” We took some heat from critics over using some popular secular music, but sometimes, we felt that it demonstrated points we were trying to get across in a way no other song could. For example, we once used the song “Dream” by secular artist Priscilla Ahn to show a little girl growing up hoping her daddy would come back home and love her. Check out these lyrics –

“I was a little girl, alone in my little world, who dreamed of a little home for me.

I played pretend between the trees and fed my house guests bark and leaves,

and laughed in my pretty bed of green.

I had a dream that I could fly from the highest swing…”

Wait, I’m getting ahead of myself! Let’s run through a typical “service” at one of our events:

We always began with praise and worship — and we had an incredible band for the last few years. At one point we had 13 different people in it, including a violin player. I wish I had time today to find a video of them because I think you’d be shocked at the quality of music we had for the events. The girls loved it.

Side note: we did have males on our team, both in the band and for security (we had a few times where an estranged father would find out his daughter was at our event and show up at the door demanding to see her). We made sure we included information about there being males at our events on each permission form and also limited their interaction with the girls. Being Sally Safety, I also gave a lecture to all of our volunteers — college-aged girls and guys — before the events would begin about the fact that this wasn’t the time for flirting. We had some strict boundaries in place, but it saved us from headaches later on!

After the worship, we presented whatever message we were trying to get across that night through drama. At every event we held, the issue of the father / daughter divide was involved somehow. I’ll never forget the time Cate built a massive “pit” for our event (she is VERY resourceful when it comes to a drill and planks of wood!). During a drama completely set to music, we showed a girl desperately trying to get love and attention from her father. Eventually he has enough and decides he’s going to leave — but before he goes, he picks the girl up, throws her over his shoulder, and dumps her in the pit. Girls were flooding the altars before I could even finish giving the altar call.

We worked hard on the dramas for our events and it showed on stage.

Check out the ballet slippers on those girls — we weren’t messing around, y’all. When you’ve got a few hours to pour into hurting girls’ lives, there isn’t a large margin for error after all (thank God — literally — that He covered our inadequacies and mistakes and still found a way to use our feeble efforts).

If we had an event with 300 girls attending, we typically had about 125 – 150 college-aged female volunteers who could pray in the altar with girls (we never allowed our male volunteers to pray with the girls). This meant that there was typically only half of the girls in our altar being prayed for at a time since almost the entire group of girls would be in the altar. That sounds like a lofty thing to say, but it was absolutely true. I’ll never forget coming off stage one night to have my assistant at the time tell me that out of the 306 girls attending the event, 294 had been in the altar that night.

Now, I know what you’re thinking — what does this have to do with my daughter’s slumber party? While it’s not totally “typical” to include something like “ministry time” in a pre-teen sleepover, it doesn’t mean it can’t happen. A couple that I’m close to hired me a few years ago to plan and chaperone their daughter’s 14th birthday slumber party at their home (for the record, if I could do that as a job, I’d do it in a heartbeat!).

Since I was a college student, I was instantly “cool” in the eyes of the girls and that won me points at the very beginning. After about six hours of fun (including “sneaking” them out of the house to go play in the snow outside), I told them I had something planned for them. I had brought paper with each girls’ name on it and, for the next hour or so, they took turns telling each girl what she meant to them (all of the girls knew each other going into the slumber party). When they finished, I talked about what good friends they were to each other and how I had seen so much love in their actions to each other. I then asked the girls to go around the circle again, this time telling the rest of the group one thing the other girls could pray for them about. Within about 10 minutes, the whole group of us were crying as the girls took turns talking about their parents’ divorce or a boyfriend that had broken a young heart. Those girls are older now but, to this day, they still mention that part of the sleepover whenever I run into them in town.

Up next? Everything else — including how to tie everything together at the end!

You’re reading Part Two of a series about how to plan sleepover events for pre-teen girls.  Missed the other posts?  Check out Part One here and Part Three here!

Well, first things first this morning: I hope you saw that I found Clay’s house key last night!!! I had planned for a locksmith to come today to take the whole doorknob out of the house and put a new one in, so you can imagine my relief right about now.

I woke up this morning to a comment Clay left on that post after I had gone to bed last night:

“but you didn’t tell the good part of that conversation… you know… where you ran up the driveway in your pjs and high heels to see if the key was the right one!  hahahaha — i have the feeling this is going to be an eventful chapter in my life.”

As soon as I read his comment, reality flashed right before my eyes: Clay has a blog.  That I’ve already shown you the link to.  Which means you’re probably going to read the stories about me I don’t usually post (i.e. running up the driveway in high heels for crying out loud) because Clay’s probably going to post them on his blog.

I am a wee bit nervous now.

Also: Clay, you have no idea just how eventful this next chapter of your life is going to be now Cate and I are involved in it.

On a different note, I opened my Facebook inbox a couple of days ago to find a sweet message from my eighth grade homeroom teacher (who, for the record, was one of my absolute favorite teachers ever!).  Her pre-teen daughter is having a birthday slumber party this weekend and, knowing that Starlite did plenty of sleepovers over the last seven years, she wanted to know if I might have any tips for her.  I believe her exact quote was “the teacher has become the student.”

Well, ma’am, I hope you brought your Trapper Keeper notebook today because I am about to school you in the art of the pre-teen sleepover.

Now, that may sound a bit presumptuous but I am prepared to defend my title of Planner of the Ultimate Pre-Teen Sleepovers by displaying one very significant photograph:

That’s right, people.  Nearly 300 middle school girls in one night. Like, for real.

With Starlite, we hosted a weekly program in the schools one day a week at each school (so, ten schools equaled ten separate programs a week — obviously, we had a large enough team to hold some programs simultaneously).  Once a semester, however, we held a sleepover event for the first 300 middle school girls who arrived (in the early days, it wasn’t always 300 there — but as we began adding schools and getting more girls, we eventually had to draw the line at 300 girls per event for obvious reasons).

I’ve received a few other emails lately from various youth pastors / staff who want to know if I have any tips for their upcoming events, so I decided to combine one request into a three-part blog series, all of which will be posted today (morning, noon and night!).  Over the course of the day, I’ll be posting various things we learned that you can recreate in your church or just in your living room.  Even if you’re not planning an event, I think you might like a “behind the scenes” look at part of my job for the past few years.

So… first things first!

Holding an event for minors that was as big in attendance as our events were meant that we had to somehow combine fun and safety, all whilst wearing our cutest pajamas.

By the fifth year of Starlite, we had even taken our act on the road, hosting our sleepover at a large church about an hour from us.  Can you recognize who that girl in the front of the bus might be?  I bet you’d know her if you could hear that country accent of hers!

I’m not silly enough to think I’m an “expert” when it comes to pre-teen sleepovers but, after hosting thousands of girls at them in the last few years, I do have a few tips to pass your way whether you’re helping your youth pastor plan something for the girls in your church or whether your daughter is turning 12 years old and wants to have 12 of her friends over for the night.

First off: registration.  Okay, I’m going to be straight up with you: I think that, anytime you have an event — whether it’s for 300 girls or three — you need to have permission forms signed by parents if the girls attending are under the age of 18.  During the course of Starlite’s history, we experienced a tornado a few miles from us, a fire in the same room as our event and a minor medical emergency (all at separate events).  No one was injured or hurt during any of these events, but if they had of been, we had very strong permission forms already signed (often requiring notarization, something we provided at the door).

I know it’s a bit “Sally Safety” to suggest that a mom should draw up a permission form for the parents of the girls coming to her daughter’s birthday slumber party, but I think that with all the things that times have changed, you really can’t protect yourself enough.  Another tip that would make your pre-teen daughter hate me: I would limit cell phone use, including texting.  We actually didn’t allow cell phones at our events; our volunteers and leaders had cell phones on them at all times in case of emergencies and girls were never kept from calling a parent if they requested to do so.  Our decision to prohibit cell phones wasn’t popular with the pre-teen set, but we never once had to deal with inappropriate pictures being sent from the bathroom stall either.

(By the way, if you think that kind of stuff isn’t happening, think again.  In the last six months, I’ve talked to at least four different girls in their early twenties — good girls who sincerely love God — who have fallen in the trap of sending inappropriate pictures via their cell phones just to get — or sometimes try to keep — a guy’s attention.)

Registration was a big deal for us, requiring a team to check girls in, go through their bags (oh yes we did!) and make sure parents or legal guardians had identification them for notarization reasons.

But once the girls were inside, the fun began!  Our events always included a full spa where girls could receive a manicure, pedicure and make-up application courtesy of our college-aged volunteers.  For the first few years, we used to offer hairstyles, too.  We never experience a lice outbreak, probably because we were stringent about our cleaning processes but eventually we decided the effort we were having to put into it just wasn’t worth it. The girls were too distracted by everything else to even miss the hairstyles!

One lesson we learned early on was that every bit of “special” effort we put into the spa stations (really, every part of the events) was definitely noticed by the girls.  At one event we had three separate rooms where the girls would enter for services.  While they were receiving pedicures in one room, they were offered a fruity drink (Hawaiian punch!) with a little umbrella in it.  In another room, while they waited for their turn to have a little make-up makeover, they could dip marshmallows, pretzels, etc. into chocolate fountains.  It wasn’t just about the spa service — it was about the whole spa experience.

Okay, let’s use list format to hit the highlights of how to make this happen at your church or in your living room:

1. Know when to use quality and when to go cheap. It didn’t take us long to find out that buying the cheap chocolate for the chocolate fountains was actually going to cost us more after it almost destroyed our machines.  On the flip side, we always bought cheap nail polish since we needed so many (think 60 bottles or more per event — I talked about how we do our manicure stations last year).

2. Always have more drinks than you think you’re going to need. We found that a good rule of thumb is one two-liter of soda per girl attending.  That sounds like a lot, but you’ll be surprised at how fast it goes — especially when they’re spilling it everywhere. If you’re planning for a large event, I suggest watching for sales on drinks up to two months before your event.  We would watch for two-liters to go to at least $0.89 each before buying — especially since we were buying several hundred at a time!

3. Always have more food than you think you’re going to need. Listen, I don’t care how old they are — growing girls can put food away. We typically served food at different intervals during the night (and morning!).  During the spa time, the girls had “tickets” they could use to pick different food items (this was separate from the snacks we offered during some spa events).  We usually offered candy bars, nachos, bags of chips, etc.  As much as I hated having to see vats of processed nacho cheese, it was the best thing we offered by far simply because we could stretch it as far as we needed.  At midnight, we would serve pizza — but more on that later today.

4. Don’t forget about breakfast. We forced the girls to go to bed by 3 a.m. (more on this in the next section of this little blog series, too!), so we knew we needed something good for when they woke up.  We handled this differently at each event, sometimes providing breakfast from McDonalds or another fast food restaurant that was willing to cut us a good deal.  The most popular thing we ever did, however, was fill white paper lunch bags with an assortment of breakfast items (individually wrapped donuts, piece of fruit, juice box).  The bags were decorated with a polka dot label that read “Good morning, princess!” and tied off with ribbon.  The girls loved waking up to that!

5. Offer something other than just “girlie” activities. We were very aware that not every pre-teen girl wanted a spa treatment, so we made sure we had other stations set-up, too.  Sometimes we had craft stations (they LOVED making their own jewelry!), basketball courts open, etc.  We made sure that no girl felt out of place if her nails remained unpainted.

Check back around lunchtime today for part two — The Main Event!

You’re reading Part One of a series about how to plan sleepover events for pre-teen girls.  Missed the other posts?  Check out Part Two here and Part Three here!

Me: “Clay, I FOUND THE KEY TO YOUR HOUSE!”

Clay: “For real?  Seriously?”

Me: “YES!!!!!!!!!  I’m so sorry I put you through this these last few days…”

Clay: “I’m sorry you put me through it, too.”

I sent the following email to my soon-to-be new neighbor Clay a few days ago to give him an update on a cat that has been stalking our houses. The cat was obviously homeless and very, very ill. I knew I needed to have him taken away, but I was having a hard time doing it even though I felt like it was the ethical thing to do.

(Side note: I know there are a LOT of different opinions about this type of thing; my decision to call for him to be taken was made after I had someone look at him to determine if he could be nursed back to health.  I’m not a cat lover, but I hate to see any animal hurting, so I would have done it if it had of been possible — but he was too far gone.)

Behold the email to Clay, word-for-word:

“Dear Clay,

This morning at approximately 5:37 a.m., I was awoken by the sounds of Scat, the cat living outside our homes, sitting outside my bedroom window purring because he was hungry. (By the way, I went ahead and named him because I didn’t want to wait for you to get here to help with the whole naming process. I hope Scat is okay; I thought it went well with “the Cat.”)

Scat proceeded to purr for approximately one more hour before I finally rose and began my day. Upon arriving at my office, I called our friends at Animal Control Services to schedule a little pick-up for Scat. They called about half an hour later to inform me that they were at my house, yet couldn’t locate Scat. I believe their direct quote was “There is no cat on your property.”

I assured them that Scat was there and they suggested I come out and show this “mysterious” cat to them. When I arrived at my humble abode, I found Scat on the front porch (apparently the kind man from Animal Control Services didn’t think to look on the front porch). He immediately diagnosed Scat with “cat leukemia,” something I’m not quite sure actually exists. I asked how he could tell that Scat had such a terrible diagnosis just from looking at him and the man proceeded to tell me that “it’s not like human leukemia.” He assured me that Scat was very ill and that it was good that I had called.

As he reached to take Scat away, little Scat ran between my legs and hid. I became very sad at this point because, basically, Scat was begging me to protect him and here I had called Animal Control Services to take him away to a certain death. The man went to get Scat again which caused him (Scat, of course) to cling to my leg and thus me to begin crying. What can I say? I have a soft heart.

I’ll spare you the rest of the details and just tell you that Scat has gone on to a better place now, namely the Cleveland Animal Services Clinic. He will have three days for an owner to claim him, which is another way of saying I will have three days to think about his imminent death and my role in it.

Your pal,

amy beth”

After sending that email to Clay, I got an instant message from my friend Kelly talking about how she hoped I wouldn’t be lonely in my new house. And then…

Kelly: well, at least for now you have Scat.

Me: actually. about Scat.

Kelly: you kill him?

Me: … animal control called. they were there to pick him up but couldn’t find him.

Kelly: really?

Me: so i drive out there and lo and behold, he’s sitting by
my front door . the guy immediately gave Scat the diagnosis of “cat
leukemia.”

Kelly: um, what?

Me: he says it’s not like human leukemia.

Kelly: did they take him?

Me: yes. and i cried. like, real tears.

Kelly: you.did.not.

Me: I DID. i feel like the worst person. i let them take that cat to kill it!!!!!!!!

Kelly: i’m going to chalk this up to jet lag.

I am coming at you live from The House of Hotness once again.

I must tell you that I wish the above comment was in reference to the physical appearance of the man currently crawling through the attic above my bedroom, but I’m afraid that grown males with rat tails as their predominant hairstyle just doesn’t do it for me personally.

I’m going to be real honest with you and tell you that when Mr. AC Repairman Number Two (oh, that’s correct — we have A NEW AC REPAIRMAN ON THE SCENE!) called to tell me he was on his way to my house, I got kind of excited mainly because he:

A.) Sounded single. And manly.

and

B.) Sounded like he might be able to actually fix my air conditioning, something that ranks a little higher on my list right now that just about anything else, even the whole single and manly thing.

As I pulled in the driveway and saw his truck waiting for me, I actually said aloud “Please let him be the one, please let him be the one, please let him be the one” and, for the first time in my life, I wasn’t talking about The One I’m Gonna Walk Down The Aisle To One Day Hopefully During This Current Century. No, this time I was talking about The One That Will Be Able To Fix My Air Conditioning, a man seemingly harder to find than somebody willing to spend the rest of his life with me.

Speaking of men, have I got some news for you! I haven’t even told you the best thing about my new house yet, believe it or not. You’re going to love this story because it involves a boy and, really, most stories involving a boy are rather fantastic, no?

Directly behind my house (like, a few feet away) sits a second house that shares the same piece of property and, of course, the same landlord as me. When I started the process of renting my house, I found out the other house was coming available for rent and immediately became a little concerned given the fact that it backs up to my bedroom window AND HELLO, I DON’T WANT SOME WEIRDO AT MY BEDROOM WINDOW.

Now, here’s where the story gets cool.

My friend Clay has been planning to move back to Cleveland for a bit and I’ve been looking for a place for him to rent for awhile now (you’re already seeing where this is going, right?). It turns out that the little house behind me is the perfect spot for him and I am happy to report that I will have a new neighbor by the end of this week! And he’s a boy! A REAL, LIVE BOY! LIVING BEHIND MY HOUSE!

Of course, immediately after I’ve shared this news with various people in my life, the reaction has been the same each time: “Dating material? IS HE DATING MATERIAL, AMY BETH?” Since it’s already the elephant in the room (and now on the blog), I must say that, while he most certainly is dating material, he isn’t dating material for me (I promise you that he is looking at his computer screen yelling “AND SHE IS NOT DATING MATERIAL FOR ME!” while breaking out in a cold sweat at the mere thought of us dating).

I cannot tell you how excited I am to live next to a BOY! Cate is friends with Clay, too, and she’s equally thrilled that we’re going to (finally) have a guy to hang out with. We have major plans for him including but not limited to: home repairs, demonstrations on how to actually work the DVD player, interviews with potential boyfriends, etc. We’ve even already started planning “family nights” that will include dinner, movies, etc. at either my or Clay’s house. Clay quickly agreed to the family night plan with only one condition — he said that he, not Cate nor I, will be doing the cooking and by “cooking” he means he’ll get take-out from a restaurant.

Clay arrives here at the end of this week, which is fantastic news other than the fact that the landlord gave me the key to his house as Cate and I were going to sneak in and leave some “Welcome To Town We Can’t Wait Until You Figure Out How To Program The DVD Player!” treats and now? NOW I HAVE GONE AND LOST THE ONLY EXISTING KEY TO CLAY’S HOUSE.

You think I’m joking but, alas, I am not. I did however go ahead and tell Clay that the key is “temporarily misplaced” but that has only prompted him to check in with me each day to see if I’ve located it or not.

Exhibit A:

Last night’s text: “Asking inquisitively not accusatively, has the key to my house been found?”

Exhibit B:

Response to anonymous blog survey: “Have you found the key to my house yet?”

The way he’s acting, you’d think it was something important, not just a silly little missing house key.

(I’m still trying to find it, Clay.)

(Don’t worry. Everything will be okay.)

(Because if we don’t find it, Cate’s gonna kick down your front door so we can get you moved in.)

(WELCOME HOME!!!)

Oh my.

When I wrote that post earlier for the first 100 of you to tell me your thoughts on the blog, I figured it would take all week to be finished. Y’all filled it up in like four hours. WHOA.

I’ve made an identical survey for the next 100 of you that can be accessed by clicking here. It’s the same questions, so you can get your opinion in, too.

For those of you who HAVE already commented… I am just blown away by what you’re telling me, and not just about the blog. You’re sharing your lives with me and I am just sitting here thinking WE HAVE TO GET TOGETHER, I WANT TO HAVE A SLUMBER PARTY WITH THESE PEOPLE.

In other words, I think you’re swell.