Mission: Mission
Monday, February 18, 2008 at 1:34PM This weekend turned out to be great. Sure I started Saturday off with a “gain” weigh in at Weight Watchers of .4 lbs but seriously, that is nothing so I am not upset.
Yesterday after church my daughter Gillian and I headed off to the craft store to pick up a Mission Kit for her 4th grade mission project. She had already decided that she wanted to do the San Gabriel Mission. We had been there for a wedding and my wife used to attend services there as a child.
When we got to the store there was a huge display with every Mission in the state in model form. There is something weird about Styrofoam models that are only about an inch think in the package. We thumbed through the case and found the last San Gabriel Mission model set. Just in time! 
All around this display were little trees, little people, little cattle, little stalks of corn, and lots of other little things. We grabbed a monk, a cross, some bells, an adobe roof, and a few trees and left. I realized about halfway through the shopping that I had no clue what we even needed since the kit didn’t say much except for show a picture drawing of the finished product!
When we hopped in the car I told Gillian that we should hop online and check out pictures of the mission to get ideas on how to decorate it. She agreed and asked me which mission I did in 4th grade. I told about how for some weird reason our teacher did not have a mission report for us to do. My sisters, all the kids before and after our class, and pretty much every other person in the state got to make missions and frankly I was bummed that we didn’t. It looked like a fun project but oh well.
When we started to put it together we realized that this is going to be a much bigger project then either one of us pictured it to be. We covered a table with newspaper, broke out the kit, opened the glue, and started going. It was a blast! We were cutting Styrofoam with such precision you would have thought we were architects or something. You know like, Mike Brady? Then gluing column together to make sure they were exactly the correct distance from one another. It was awesome!
And it looks great so far. We just put it all together and have downloaded many pics of the mission from websites galore to get ideas. This coming weekend we are going to drive over to the mission and take a tour. Gillian wants to get pictures of herself in front of the mission and do some extra credit stuff for fun (seriously who is this kid?). So we plan on doing some light decorating this week like painting the roof and such and then do the final touches next week.
The best part of the day was a short conversation that occurred while using popsicle sticks to evenly spread glue on little Styrofoam columns.
Gillian said, “I am glad you are doing this with me daddy.”
“Me too Shug. It’s fun!” I honestly replied.
“Yeah. I am just glad because you didn’t get to make one before.”
I agreed after I held in a tear and let go of hugging her.
Reader Comments (6)
Awww, how sweet your daughter is :)
Cool project...you certainly don't get to do anything that exciting in Illinois (!)
I remember that project!
I will have to ask my mom which mission I did but I remember visiting the mission and making bricks. I also remember thinking the name Juniper Serra was cool because it was almost my name!
I may have been a dork in a past life!
I have no idea what this whole thing is about. A mission project? Never heard of such, must be a California thing. She sounds like a great kid.
Anyway yay for another Jillian even if it is with a G. Want to know something some what creepy? My dad's name is George too.
my daughter did the Mission Nuestra Señora de la Soledad for hers! we had such fun doing it together. i'll have to email you the pic!
just enjoy the time doing this with your daughter, soon she'll be 17 like mine, and i hardly see her!
aww, I'm all choked up! What a sweet kid. :)
A mission project. This must be the California equivalent of making a model of the Mayflower for New England children.
What a sweet kid.