We recently had a huge sleepover with our good friend, Jenna! Our parents met her in college and she works for their business. She is also my Godmom, and for many years when we were younger her job description for the business was pretty much “Nanny”. She’d spend the day with us while my parents worked downstairs. She’s a great family friend and we’ve spent a lot of fun time and done a lot of sleepovers with her over the years.

My parents were going on an anniversary/work trip! Jenna lives with her best friend, Sue- both of them and my parents all became friends in college. We don’t live as close to them anymore and Jenna and Sue have been working on building a house for a while, this was our first time seeing it and staying over! It’s a few hours away from our house. It’s built on a hill around farmland. We don’t get to see them that often anymore so we were looking forward to it.

We stayed at our house with Jenna for the first few days, then drove to their new house where we stayed and hung out with Sue and Jenna for a few days, then drove back to our house for the last bit.

A while ago we also came up with the idea to do themes for each day, to help inspire what board games to play (Jenna loves board games and has a bunch, that’s always one of the main things we do with her!), the food we eat, what we watch, etc. It was our first sleepover doing this!

It was a very fun-filled week!

Here are some of the highlights from each day…

Day 1: Wednesday, June 5th- Animal Day

The first day I had a lot of horse stuff, I was working at a barn in the morning and then had a riding lesson in the afternoon. So I was gone most of the day, although I was with animals on animal day! ? Jenna and my siblings played Too Many Monkeys and the Animals Cardline and we figured out meals for the week while I was home for lunch so later in the afternoon they went shopping. For dinner we made animal shaped pizzas! The pizza crust took a little finagling but they got it worked out well and there ended up being plenty and it was yummy! Jenna did a whale pizza, I did a horse, Ro did a ladybug and Ben did an elephant! I started out kind of using the toppings for the horse look, but eventually kinda gave up. ? That night we watched Zootopia (animal day!) and we ate some yummy cookies that Jenna brought.

Day 2: Thursday, June 6th- Disney Day

The next day was pretty much free! We all had Disney shirts on and played quite a few Disney games such as “Dwarf Mine” (that’s what we call it), Disney Villainous (I was Prince John, Ben was the Evil Queen, Ro was Ursula, Jenna was Mother Gothel), Disney Colorbrain and Disney Sketchy Tales, where we had a huge laughing fit, it was hilarious! There were tears! For dinner we had Mickey Mouse pancakes with fruit and sausage where we all doctored up our own faces on our pancakes! That night we watched Tarazan.

Day 3: Friday, June 7th- Donut Day

This was actually National Donut Day! Jenna is known for loving donuts and we were planning on celebrating this day well. ? I worked in the morning. While I was gone Jenna and my siblings stopped at a couple donut places. One was pretty bare, for donuts they only had cinnamon rolls with frosting- cloud pies and mud pies, so they got some of those. The other place had a line out the door so they didn’t stop then, and later when they were picking me up they stopped in and got a couple there.

Eventually we headed out to travel to their new house. Partway through we stopped at a really good donut place and picked up half a dozen there! Their selection was huge!! They had a bunch of different kinds of filled donuts too. I ended up getting one filled with vanilla buttercream and topped with chocolate frosting (my favorite) with a white drizzle. We got to their new house and got a tour, then for dinner we kept up the donut theme with scrambled eggs in a donut shape- using the donut pan- and hash browns. Later on in the night we had our donuts, I had my buttercream one and also a quarter of the cherry jelly filled one that Jenna got. We decided to watch the iconic Curious George with the donuts, plus the other one in that episode and then an Unwrapped on donuts!

Day 4: Saturday, June 8th- (Originally Sports Day, turned into PJ Day)

Saturday was originally meant to be sports day, with Pj day on Sunday. But the weather was working out better for Pj day today so that’s what we did, apart from church. We played a game new to us called Everdell which was fun! We had mac and cheese, brats/hot dogs and fruit for lunch, then went down the rabbit hole of watching some SNL videos. We started the game of Codenames, then went to church. My dad, brother and I had been dong a consecration to Mary and this was the Consecration Day! My mom and sister are also doing it but started on a later date. So after Mass Ben and I made our consecrations. For dinner we made chicken bacon ranch sandwiches with broccoli and chips, finished our game of Codenames, I had split-skies for dessert (which is a favorite of Sue and Jenna, they split a package of Little Debbie Swiss Rolls and Nutty Buddy’s, having one of each) and we watched Luca.

Day 5: Sunday, June 9th- (Originally PJ Day, turned into Sports Day)

Sunday was originally meant to be Pj day, but it ended up being sports day. In the morning, we started things off well with biscuits and gravy, made by Jenna and Ro. Then we went disc golfing, another activity Sue and Jenna enjoy and they have shared it with us. It was fun, although the course had a lot brush which meant we were searching for discs in it pretty often. And then I accidentally threw their disc that I was using in a patch of very tall plants that was also not really near a path. We were in it and looked, but we ended up leaving it behind.

We came back and had lunch, then headed to the pool! Eventually, Sue and I headed back and I took a shower and later the rest of them came back. After a bit I spent some time in the sun/prayer room. For dinner we did “Scoops dinner”, another favorite of Sue and Jenna. They use Tostitos Scoops chips filled with cheese and some sort of meat, we had sausage and chicken. I really enjoyed the chicken, they used this fajita seasoning they had! I had split-skies again for dessert and we watched the 3 Littlest Saints episodes on Formed which was Sue and Jenna’s first time seeing them, and we watched the Young David series on Angel Studios.

Day 6: Monday, June 10th- Food Day

Our theme for Monday was food day and in the past we have done waffles for several meals a day and we wanted to do that again! We had a regular breakfast, and then Ben and Jenna headed to play with her pickle ball group, Sue took Ro and I there a bit later. I played two games, one with Jenna and two other ladies who were super patient and nice. The other game was with Sue, Ben and Ro. It was a bit hard to get the hang of, I’ve had very little experience with pickle ball. I got better, although keeping track of the scoring and servers and stuff is pretty confusing. I could have tried harder though.

When we got home, we played Sushi Roll and Food Fight. Then we had waffle grilled cheese, fruit and chips for lunch. They were made with great bread and cheese, plus I had ham in mine- it was very yummy! We then started a game of Wingspan which I enjoyed playing, that’s a good game! Sue had to do a work thing so we took a break. Ro had started earlier and now Ben and Ro were working on setting up Jenna’s Disney Infinity characters, a video game we always have fun playing when we’re with her. We finished Wingspan and had dinner, regular waffles, bacon and fruit. At some point they had gotten Infinity set up and eventually Ben and Ro were playing that while Sue, Jenna and I played Azul. We then had dessert of another one of our favorites… brownie waffles. We had it with mint moose tracks ice cream and on the second bit we had it with Sue’s homemade whipped cream! Ben and I had an epic fight on Infinity and then we played a miniature version of Hive Mind- just answering the questions and keeping score on our paper, which was fun!

Day 7: Tuesday, June 11th- Color Day

We had a regular breakfast and worked on getting packed up, then headed out to travel back home. On the way we stopped at Culver’s which was super yummy! I got a cheeseburger and my favorite- cheese curds! Ro used the custard token on her kids meal to get the flavor of the day there, Blackberry Cobbler. We then headed to another Culver’s because of their flavor of the day, both Ben and I got Devil’s Food Cake and Jenna got something else too. It was very yummy, although we both asked for brownies on top and there wasn’t any of the chocolate cake chunks it said it had so maybe that was the reason. It still had hard chocolate pieces and the actual custard had a good, different chocolatey taste to it. We arrived home and played Mechanica, our first time doing that one! For dinner we had pasta with Alfredo sauce and chicken nuggets, cheesy garlic bread and green beans! Then we watched some Disney shorts and videos and edits of old pictures on Jenna’s phone. ?

Day 8: Wednesday, June 12th- Superhero Day

Our last day together! I worked at the horse barn in the morning and into the afternoon. It was actually my last day working there! While I was gone, Ro and Jenna played Cir*Kis and Ben and Jenna played the Marvel Smashup. We had lunch and then played Qwirkle, Dragonwood and Sagrata. Ben and Jenna played Schotten Totten. We had tater tot casserole for dinner, did our nightly Rosary and then Jenna headed back home. Our parents were getting back less than an hour after she left, so they came home and we talked, had dessert, and talked some more. It was fun to tell them about our time and hear about their trip!

What’s something you liked about it (and why)? I liked seeing Sue and Jenna’s new house and getting to stay there! It had some really neat parts to it and I loved the solitude and view of being up on the hill in farmland, but still close to the action of their small town. I also liked all the great food we ate over our time!

What’s something you disliked about it (and why)? I did not like loosing the disc in the brush and also being in there looking for it! I appreciate Sue and Jenna, they both did their share of being in there looking for lost discs too, they tried harder and did more than me. I did not try as well as I could have most of the time.

What was your biggest takeaway or lesson? Sue is a consecrated virgin and very religious, some of my takeaway is what I talk about in the next question! I also enjoyed and found it interesting to see their house and the town they live in, and to live there for a few days.

I think it’s interested how when we play games, I, at least, focus the whole time on trying to win- whatever will help me be the best and win. But when it comes time to counting the scores and seeing who actually wins, I don’t really care that much! Sure, I’d like to know, I find it interesting but not a ton! It seems like a lot of times, later on, I don’t remember or care who won the game we played. But I still like playing the game as trying to get the most points, do the best, be the best, it’s fun! Now- I do get sad or frustrated when it’s going bad and when I’m far behind. But if I loose badly, in the long run I don’t really care, sometime after the game is over. Maybe that’s just the part of me trying to win as I’m playing it. Also, I’m sure if I kept not winning ever, it would be frustrating after a while.

I don’t know how much of this is right or true, maybe I have it wrong but it’s interesting to examine how I play games and what part of it I enjoy.

What is something you’re curious to learn more about as a result of this experience? So like I said, Sue is very religious and we did our nightly Rosary with Jenna when we were at our house, but while we were at their house we did it with them both which I think she enjoyed doing with us. I liking getting to see her and her piety and love in her devotions and how she’d talk sometimes about Jesus and Mary or when doing the Rosary, and I liked seeing some of their faith items in their house. Their prayer/sun room was so beautiful and neat! Before one of the Rosaries, Sue was telling us some of the story behind Our Lady of Perpetual Help which was an image they had in the room, and Our Lady of Czestochowa. I really liked hearing about them, the way Sue talked about it and I loved the imagery and meaning of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. I’d like to learn more about those two titles of Our Lady and more!

Thank you very much for reading!

Lucy