Northern Lights

There is no way to capture the excitement of Prestonwood's Northern Lights in a short blog post! 

I love the heart of our church campus!  After much strategic planning, we opened our doors to over 14,000 people!  The entire purpose of Northern Lights was to be a light to our community and follow up with those visiting our campus.  Each person who visited received a follow-up email inviting them to our Christmas Eve service.  We pray many are drawn to the Savior whose birth we celebrate.  

Here are some interesting statistics from the week!

• 14,000 people in attendance
• 600 families were visited by our membership to invite them to Prestonwood
• 3,000+ photos with Santa
• 5,400 cookies decorated
• 3,600 crafts created
• 540+ volunteers
• 8 years old – youngest volunteer (not counting baby Jesus)
• 78 years old – oldest volunteer (as far as we know)
• 100+ volunteers from Student Ministry
• 33 Living Nativity performances
• 61 adult choir members volunteered their time to perform
• 240 PBC North students and children performed
• 2,573 cups of hot cocoa sold 

I'm sure you've heard by now - PCA ran the hot cocoa booth!  We sold 2,573 cups of hot chocolate and had the opportunity to tell many about our school campus.  We bought every bulk container of Swiss Miss mix we could find and by the last night, we opened individual packets to make our large batches!  We ran out of marshmallows after 51 large bags!  Whew...lots of volunteer help from the North staff and parents as well as from our good friends from the Plano campus!  This was definitely a school-wide effort. 

Enjoy a few pictures of a very special eight days!,

Hot Chocolate Booth

Robert and Ginger Weeks and Tamara Daugherty built and decorated our booth!  It was FABULOUS!  
A special shout-out to my "right arm," Anslie Dysart!  This woman had us organized and worked tirelessly to make sure things ran smoothly!  Her nickname isn't "Dazzling Dysart" for nothing! 

 

Thanks to our many, many volunteers!

 

On two nights, we sold out - running out of marshmallows, whipped topping and cocoa!

Here are some pictures of our students enjoying other Northern Lights activities! 

 

What a great week!  This really makes us look forward to next year!

Beginning Christmas Traditions

One of the most fun things about being a part of a new campus is establishing new traditions!

Each family was invited to help us build our ornament collection for our school's Christmas tree.  We have a budding collection, each significant to our students or school in some way.  The child's name and year are written on the bottom of the ornament.  As I told the students, "This is very cool this year, but can you IMAGINE what our tree will be like in five years?"  

Students are able to share their ornaments with our student body during our morning assembly time before their ornament is placed on the tree.  It's been great fun seeing everyone's selection.  Some are PCA themed.  Others focus on the birth of our Savior.  Others have significance to the student - sharing one of their hobbies are interests.  All help make for the beginning of a great PCA North tradition!

Three siblings donated these PCA ornaments.   A name of each child in the family is written on the back of "their" ornament.  

 

The ornament below helps us remember our Pioneer Picnic - our first school wide event, held back in August.  

This ornament was selected by a third grader because his research project was on cardinals.  Thus, an ornament with cardinals!

I love this PCA stocking!  Sweet little PreK student told me his mother bought it at the store "just like this." 

 

 

 

 

So many great ornaments, but I couldn't resist sharing mine with you.  Love carrying my camera around to capture all of the great things happening at PCA North!

 

A Day We Will Never Forget - ICE SKATING!

I treasure many things about our North campus, but one of my favorite things is the relationship between our church and school.  Prestonwood North + PCA North = GREAT friends.  

Here's a great example:  Dr. Chris Kouba, Lead Pastor at Prestonwood North, approached me with a proposal.  Since the ice rink is in place for Prestonwood's Northern Lights, why don't we bring all of our students outside to ice skate?  Hummmm????  That was not a hard question to answer.  YES and THANK YOU!









When do students in Texas get to step out their school's front door and ice skate?  I would venture to say we probably were the only school in Texas who could say we had that opportunity today!

The weather was perfect!  Not freezing cold, but cold enough!  Pastor Kouba helped ready the rink and then took the inaugural first spin around the rink.  

Our students had plenty of help, changing into their skates and making their way to the ice.  Most of our youngest students "skated" in their shoes.  All had a great time!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Oh, NO!  You have to look at the next five shots in succession.  For the record - everyone was fine!  Low center of gravity is a wonderful thing!