VBS: Very Busy Summer (or Vacation Bible School)

Fish with grapes and squeezy cheese by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Summer began with a roaring start this year with a weeklong Vacation Bible School, VBS to those in the know. This is a ministry for my church, and it takes a lot of volunteers to pull it off to make a successful program for the 200 children attending. A core group of volunteer and church staff begin planning in December in order to get the program together by June. This year, the theme was Pandamania, a program that teaches God's love through various characters, including Boomer the Panda.

I was very excited this year to be in the kitchen, providing snacks for the kids. And I was in hog heaven on the first day when Kathy, the kitchen leader, asked me to help bake 250 cupcakes. No glue dots in the craft room for this craft-school dropout, cupcakes for 250 is a ministry that I can get into! We learned to use the commercial-size mixer and ovens and even though we used a mix, I was pretty pleased with the results:

VBS cupcake by Laura Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

The week of VBS was a renewing week for me. I love my church, but I'm in the mommy years, which means that when I'm in the church building, I get distracted keeping up with my kids and where they need to be, making sure my own volunteer responsibilities are met, in other words: keeping all my ducks in a row. I hardly have time to hang out and enjoy the other women and the young people around me. During VBS, I put names with faces, matched children to parents, and made new friends while bonding over squeezy cheese and rice cakes.
And speaking of, this was my favorite snack of the week: two Quaker Cheddar Cheese Quakes sandwiched with squeezy cheese and a triangle-shaped Triscuit Thin Crisp to create a fish shape, and a raisin for an eye.



Fish crackers by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

(The Quaker Cheddar Cheese Quakes are my current favorite snack food - I could seriously eat an entire bag with no evidence other than the cheesy powder on my fingers.)

What about you? Is VBS a part of your summer? And what is your favorite packaged snack food?