Toothpick Umbrellas

Do you know how hard it is to find toothpick umbrellas?

I do now!!!

On Saturday, some of my new friends and I began to plan cupcakes for some HCBC staff birthdays coming up this week to celebrate at our staff inning Sunday.  Originally, we wanted to attempt to create a giant cupcake with the humongous coffee filters we have for our industrial sized coffee maker. But this endeavor was traded out for some simpler ones with beach decor (though I still haven't lost the desire to attempt one with the filters).

Most of the ingredients were easy to locate at Target and/or CVS, all except toothpick umbrellas! Those little stinkers. So yesterday morning the dorm head and I set out on a quest to find them. We tried CVS, several small shops, two grocery stores on the island, and the 5 and Dime (which had about everything else you can imagine) all to no avail. I even bumper bumped a wall of a building in this journey without any success. After grabbing the gifts and some coffee we headed back to the conference center empty handed (minus the other shopping I got sucked into from entering so many shops).  After dinner, I resumed the search for these little parasols and decided to call a number of places; Costco, Walmart, Michaels, and a few other dives on the island before making the drive. Nada. Zilch. Finally, a phone call to 5 Belo and a Jeep ride over the causeway brought us success. Check out the creations...

So we end the second week. It was a fun one full of energetic middle schoolers whom we high fived as they entered the dining hall every meal. Many of them lived by Messiah and I even met some leaders who were Messiah alum and a student their now! I loved seeing so many Messiah shirts. One day my spill count was at a two as I dripped water on two of the guests. Whoops! Middle schoolers are quite a riot and we have quite a rambunctious group coming today, or so I hear! Happy Monday all!