Day Four: At A Friend's House

Day Four: Annetta reporting.

Today, Josh, Katrina, and I drove over to a friend's house to spend the night. We arrived at 11 o'clock, and ate lunch; and it is currently 4:21 p.m. 

I know how much you all wanted to hear from me, so I've graciously decided to blog for my fans again... (You may laugh as derisively as you like, I can't hear you.)

I have my two friends, Kim and Rachel with me, and they are co-writing, just to give credit where credit is due. :) I apologize in advance for all the pictures. If you don't like pictures, close your eyes; this post isn't for you.

Do you know how much luggage is necessary to pack even for an overnight trip? To give you an idea, below is *gasp* a picture! This is only some of it...  

(Hosanna, that is NOT your backpack. I would never steal it. Never. It only looks like your backpack , 'k?)

the girl's luggage

 Me being the wonderful babysitter that I am, I forgot to comb Katrina's hair...since Sunday. I know. So, fortunately, Rachel was able to do something with it. No tears either!

Katrina's cool hair

 Okay, people, now I can introduce Kimberlynne and Rachel. Kim is on the the far left, I'm in the middle with Katrina, and Rachel is on the right. Oh, and notice the pretty pink walls! They just finished painting and redecorating their room, and I have to admit I love the way it looks! (No jealousy here, folks, none at all... :P)

this is one of the "nice" pictures; I can't vouch for the rest...

 Four girls taking pictures...you know what that means. Silly faces. Get used to it; we've got more coming right up...

 Here's a picture of our lovely nails...we should open a salon, don't you think? Try to guess which is which, if you dare.

 We dug out the accessories at this point. :) Notice the flowers...the picture is a little dark.

 More accessories...hey, we're girls. Don't judge. Hat and scarf time!

 Individual pictures...

 Here is where you can be jealous. We got cookies. :) They were delicious, by the way!

Katrina apparently likes cookies :)

Maybe some of you are wondering where Josh is in all of this...

Kim and Rachel have six younger brothers, so Joshua has been in good hands! In a couple of hours, we'll be eating supper, and then the girls have a chick flick to watch. No boys allowed!

Now that we're done regaling you with our adventures, it's time for you to comment and tell us about your normal/wonderful/exhilarating/humdrum/awesome/or whatever-the-case-may-be lives. 

Four (almost) down, six to go!

Cinderella signing off.

From the Travelers

We are currently in Port Wentworth, Georgia, preparing to depart for our last 6 hours of driving before we get to Highland Hammocks. We left Friday afternoon around 2:15 and drove to MD, stopping in Philipsburg for supper (Philipsburg and Ridgway are my two favorite PA towns). We got to Jess's place around 9 pm and sat around talking and eating cake with Mr. and Mrs. D, Ardee, Christina, Lisa, Andrew, Jess, and Kevin. My mom, Lydia, Hosanna, and Joanna went to bed around 10:30 or 11, but Andrew and I had a project to work on. We're making a photo guest book for the wedding, and we made good headway on it. Ardee and Christina watched a movie in the livingroom too, and Jess and a sleeping Kevin were in a corner of the living room, so we had a nice little party. Around 1:30, my brain's capacity for coherent thought and speech had decreased to a point where Andrew and I decided that actually, we could finish this via screen share, and Jess and I walked over to the grandmother's house where she stays, and we went to bed.

We left around 8 o'clock the next morning after breakfast and drove to Raleigh, NC, where we had lunch with Stephen's family. We had a good time, eating and roaming around their creek/woods area behind their house. Then it was off again to this hotel. We got here around 10 last night. And we should be leaving soon. By the time we get to the campground, Aunt Joanne, Uncle Victor, Julia, Grandpa Bob, and Grandma Suzy should be there, and we'll set up our tents and eat supper and stuff. And hopefully it will be very warm (I'm having vivid flashbacks to a frigid Texas).

I do have some pictures, but I forgot my USB cord so they're not on my computer. 

Day One: Check

Hacking Erika's blog is painfully easy.

Anyway, this is Annetta. As quite a few of you are aware, the rest of my family (minus, Josh, Katrina, and my dad) are enjoying warm, sunshiny weather right now and for the next nine days. I promised I would write an update while they're gone, and I'm bored right now, so you get to hear all about my life! (Cheering would be appropriate.)

Yesterday, the travelers managed to get underway around two in the afternoon. We threw a small party.

(Ok, that last part may or may not be entirely true. It might be slightly more accurate to say that I cleaned and made supper. And I made Josh and Katrina clean too. That was sorta fun... *evil snicker*)

Anyway, the angelic pair have not yet burned down the house or created any (more) holes in the walls or ceiling, so we're off to a good start. ;)

Today (Day TWO) Josh has a birthday party to attend, so Katrina and I have the run of the house. (Read: we have laundry and cooking. Josh failed to mention his lack of clean clothes before the party, so it's sort of a belated effort. Oh well. If I do laundry today, he'll have no excuse not to look sharp tomorrow for church. HA.)

As far as the cooking goes, the lasagna is in the oven and it smells promising, as long as I remember not to burn it. Our smoke detectors have been acting a little weird lately, and I don't know how to shut them off. That's strong motivation not to burn anything. It's also one of the reasons babysitters love sandwiches.
  
Well, I have stack of dishes calling for me, and remember that laundry I mentioned? I've found out that my mental powers don't extend to telekinesis; I actually have to get up and physically work to get it done.

To sum up; things are going fairly smoothly. Josh has been extremely helpful, taking on the responsibility of watering the plants and feeding the fish. Katrina has been helping me with cooking, and we're planning on chocolate chip cookies this afternoon. One day down, nine to go...wish me luck.

Oh, and call me Cinderella. ;)  

I'm bored

So, our printer is kinda slow. And I'm sitting here waiting for it to print off 50 copies of a bridal shower game we're playing tomorrow, so I figured I might as well blog while waiting. Yeah...it's a 40 second wait between each copy, and it just did copy number 22. So lemme pull out my math skills and say...it will be about another 17 minutes before they're done! Whee!

Sooo...I think I'm tired of talking about college, besides, I don't think anything has changed on that front. I was officially accepted to Houghton College, and I am planning to go there this fall. The idea will be to attend 4 semesters there (2 years) and then graduate, so that would be2015, I think.

But right now, what's really on the brain is the bridal shower. Jessica and Christina, Lisa, and Catherine (Kevin's sisters) drove up today for the shower. As far as I know, they'll be headed back on Sunday. Aaand...the bridal shower is tomorrow afternoon. A bunch of friends came with us this evening to set up and decorate, and it looks fabulous. I mean, Annetta, Rachel, and I bought the tablecloths and table stuff a month or 2 ago, and we have random decorating stuff at the church and at the house of a lady in our church who does really well with decorating, but I was really impressed with how well it came together. So much purple!

I  just thought of something funny. Our printer is putting the time each one was printed n the bottom. Which means that I can hand them out in numerical order based on when they were printed. I doubt I will...wonder if anyone will notice or be annoyed if I don't hand them out in order...

Oh yay...it's done printing!

Semesters and Randomness

Hmm, it's been a tad bit of a while since I posted last... The spring semester started on Monday, so today marks the end of the first week of class. I'm only taking 4 classes this semester, which makes my weekly schedule quite a bit different. Last semester, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday were my longest days, with 4 classes...my first class was at 8 am, and my last one ended a little before 3. Then I had a Tuesday class, and a Tues/Thurs class. This semester, however, I only have one class on MWF, and it's in the afternoon. Bonus is, I can sleep in...as late as I want! Downside is...I have to park in the far parking lot, and it's been blustery and chilly these past few days. Tuesday and Thursday are my longest days...I have 3 classes, with the first one starting at 9:30, second one starting at 11, and third one starting at 12:30 (and ending at 1:50). I don't love having to be in class during lunchtime, but I have been surviving just fine...and if anyone has any easy, packable, non-refrigerated lunch ideas, share away :) Also, last semester, most of my classes were also with Jordan, meaning I could drive him both ways. This time, however, we only have 2 of the same classes, so I only end up driving him one way.

Speaking of driving...that's a good bridge into talking about the weather! So, Wednesday, it was an awesome 60 degrees. I went to bed with my window opened a but so I could hear the peepers (!!!!) squeaking away in their little ponds. The wind was very howly that night, and the next morning I woke up to a layer of ice and snow. And then it sort of blizzarded all day Thursday, rendering driving very scary. I did manage to get Jordan home, but then I decided that driving in white out conditions up our somewhat un-plowed back roads to get home did not sound like a smart thing to do. When the weather cleared a bit, our neighbor drove down and picked me up in his large truck. And then, about 5 minutes after I got home, I looked out the window, and I could barely see our porch posts because of the snow and the wind. Whew! It's still snowing and blowing today, but it's not as bad. Crazy weather :P (See what you're missing, Jess :P)

Let's see...what else have we been doing.. Ah yes...wedding planning! haha. Last Saturday, Rachel and Elizabeth came up and we ate cookies and made the invitations. Then I took the invitations to the post office, but they crazily changed the post office hours to like something ridiculous like only being open in the morning. So the invitations have not yet been mailed, but maybe between my mom and me driving hither and yon, we can get them mailed in the next couple of days.

The other big project that we've been working on is cleaning my grandpa's house. We did quite a bit with it last spring, but that was mostly just cleaning, not, like, getting rid of tons of stuff. Now, I'm trying to do a major overhaul...it needs to be done eventually, and since we're planning on housing the groomsmen down there for the wedding, it might as well get done by then. So we (read: Hosanna and me, primarily) have been dragging stuff out of the the upstairs cubby space so that my dad and his brother (Uncle Bill) can look at it and either relocate it or get rid of it. We also are planning to get a dumpster (excuse me...trash disposal container) so that we can, well, ahem, GET RID OF ALL OF THE THINGS!!! Or at least as much as they let me ;) Nah, there's some cool stuff down there. But with that said...if any of you find yourselves desperately bored some day...well then...hehehe...I bet I could find a way to un-bored you :) I actually may organize a massive hauling-stuff-out-to-the-dumpster-when-it-comes party, but we'll see. A lot of the cleaning has to be done a little at a time, because it has to be sorted.

Well, I think I've rambled enough. I think you can consider yourself caught up on my life now :P Do leave me a comment to tell me how your life is going!

Grandpa...Heaven just got closer

On Jan 17th, I posted about Grandpa, and how he had suddenly taken a dramatic turn for the worse. Over the past months, I've posted updates about him (here, here, here, here, and here). Since he was released from the nursing home on May 29th, he'd been living at our home. We have a downstairs bedroom that had been a schoolroom, but we stuck a bed and a chair and so forth in it and he lived there. Starting this past Monday evening, he started not doing very well. Tuesday (yep, Christmas Day), he slept for a very long time in the morning, which is not typical...usually he'd be up by 7:30 or 8. But he slept til almost noon, didn't feel like eating, and was generally out of it. He got worse that way until Friday afternoon, we finally got a nurse to come and she recommended he go to a hospital. An ambulance came (actually, 3...and one got stuck in the snow in our yard) and took him to Brooks Memorial. They found that he had pneumonia and a urinary tract infection and began treating him for that. However, Sunday afternoon around 1 pm, he left us for bigger and better things. No longer is he hampered by arthritis...I imagine he's quite happy about that. I also like to imagine that Grandma Snell (his wife who died some 25 or 30 years ago) met him with a chainsaw for him to play with.

My uncle Bill was with him when he passed away. (He called my dad, but by the time my dad got there, Grandpa had already died.) Uncle Bill said that Grandpa had been struggling to breathe, but then he relaxed, started breathing easier, and then stopped.

I have so many memories of him...
-Him reading to Jess and me as we sat on his lap...him reading to the younger ones as they sat on his lap (that Dr Seuss book about the guy who could put spots on anything...that other book about Mack and the truck and the girl who could hammer anything)...
-that awkward memory of him coming up to babysit Jess and me. I was just little and went to the bathroom but couldn't wipe myself, so I went out to the living room where he was sitting and asked him to wipe me...he said he would if I brought him tissue, so I did and he wiped my lil butt for me (man...now THAT'S awkward...I'm cringing just thinking about it! I must have been like 3 or 4).
-Doing chores with him...he bought calves one year, but he was too crippled up to do all the chores himself, so he would drive up in his red, very loud and un-muffled car and Jess and I took turns every morning going up and feeding calves with him. Sometimes in the winter his hands got so cold he'd go into the milkhouse and take off his gloves and cup them around the lightbulb. Running a chainsaw I guess destroys your circulation.
-In the fall he'd get apples from his old schoolteacher who had an apple orchard and he'd make the best apple crisp. Sometimes he made cookies, and I mean no disrespect, but his pies and crisps were a whole lot better. He always had ice cream...Snells always love ice cream...so if one found his cake or cookies or whatever to be dubious looking, there was ice cream to munch on instead :)
-Up until this past year, he'd hop on his tractor and go out back and cut wood or cut down brush. And he'd make hay every year. Up until a couple years ago, anyone who got stuck in snow in the wintertime near our house could count on him helping to pull them out. And even when Grandpa was hallucinating this past year, he'd see people stuck in the ditch and want us to go help them.
-Within the past couple years, when he'd be out back cutting brush and whatnot, I'd conveniently take walks out back and double around and check on him and chat a bit I don't really know what we talked about, but I'm glad we did. Once he had me move the tractor, and I awkwardly couldn't figure out how to turn it off or put it in park, so I was sitting there holding the clutch down frantically pushing and pulling buttons. I uh figured it out finally. Red button. Pull it. Yeah.
-Once I was helping him him hay in the field behind our house, and that was when the local bee guy had beehives back there, and the honey bees didn't like the tractor noise, so they came zooming over. A couple of them got stuck in my hair, and I was a little scared and went over to Grandpa on the tractor and asked him to get the bee. He just squished it with his thumb. It probably stung him, cause it didn't sting me.
-oh yeah...this last one's going to make me cry. It made a really big impression on me at the time...I forget if I blogged about it when it happened...I don't think so. Anyhow...Grandpa baled the Old Home field in round bales, and then wanted me to help him gather the bales up and transport them to behind our house so we could use them. I drove the red International with the hay wagon attached behind, and he drove the John Deere loader. He'd poke a round bale, stick it on my wagon, repeat a bunch of times, and then we'd drive over to where we were unloading them and he'd unload. Repeat many times. The International is an old tractor with a tendency to spew oil...actually, it gushed oil, and i mean that in the most literal sense. It was kinda scary to drive...I was scared the duct tape would fall off and it would fall apart :P To make it worse, he informed me that this tractor also had a tendency to stall when going up steep hills while pulling large loads. Cough. The field we were in does indeed have a very steep hill...and haybales make for a heavy load. Nervous? Me? Haha. We gathered up all the bales at the top of the hill, and then moved downwards. Typically, Grandpa would load my wagon and then drive off in front of me to the unloading place. However, when we got to the bales at the bottom-ish of the hill and we were ready to drive off to unload, I suddenly noticed like halfway up the hill that he wasn't in front of me, or beside. I glanced over my shoulder, and he was driving behind me. We had a couple more loads at the bottom of the hill, and every time I had to drive up the hill with a full load, he drove behind me. Now, I have no idea what he thought he could do if I started stalling and rolling backwards...but it made me think quite a bit...just seeing him on his little tractor behind my huge load, ready to protect me if there had been any problems.

Well anyhow. Visitation is at the Morse Funeral Home in Brocton from 4 to 7 this Thursday. There's a funeral service in the Family Life Center at 10 am Friday morning, followed by the actual burying thing in the cemetery, and then lunch at church.

 I have a great new game idea. It's called Guess the Blog Post, and I just post pictures and you try to guess what they are!! Just kidding ;) I thought I'd post about the past couple of days/week in our house. For starters, last week was finals week at SUNY Fredonia, meaning Jordan and I have successfully completed our first entire on-campus semester of college work. This plugs me at something like 36 credits, which means I'm a sophomore. I think the cut off typically is 30 credits per year, depending where you go...most colleges have the cut-off between sophomore and junior being 60 credit hours, so I'm over a quarter of the way done with the credits for a normal bachelor's degree. Yay.

Moving on. Last weekend (as in...the 15th), Jess and Kevin drove up for Christmas break, and we went to see the Hobbit in theater with them and a bunch of friends (happy birthday to Annetta!). It was a great movie that involved a lot of violence, a lot of bashing and hacking and goriness, plus a very nice moose for a few seconds at the beginning. I hope the moose reappears in the next one too...

Wedding planning has also been being done. Things like a guest list, decorations ideas, type of reception...et cetera. Also, dress shopping! Which is where we get to the picture part of this post. last...Saturday (I think?), a lot of us went to the Erie mall and went bridesmaid dress shopping.

 Well, first we went to David's Bridal to look at the dress Jess discovered. And yes there are pics and no you may not see them unless you have special permission from Jessica herself :)

 Anyhow, we then went to Macy's (where the van proceeded to die...oh well...thankfully we just got Triple A for the Texas Trip, so we called them and then shopped for umpteen hours waiting for them to come) and tried on bridesmaid dresses. Lovely, eh? Two have been purchased, and the rest will be purchased very shortly. There may have been a small fiasco later that night/the next day involving discovering that the dress is not made in certain sizes needed by some members of the party, but with the sewing expertise of certain others, a crisis was avoided and life as we know it cruises smoothly onward.

 Ah right...the jewelry! Charming Charlie's is a charming little jewelry store (women's boutique I think is the correct terminology). Annetta, Elizabeth, Jennifer, Rachel, and I had a lot of fun picking out and trying on jewelry and hair things while Jess and Kevin talked to people at David's Bridal. We photographed it so we could show it to Jess later and then come back and possibly purchase some after getting the dresses (yes...the pics are out of order...David's Bridal, then Charming Charlie's...then we met up at Macy's...).

 (I like how the chandelier makes Elizabeth look like she's wearing a tiara...)

 Above, Rachel and Elizabeth have a very technical and complicated conversation about earrings and making the earrings that come with the necklaces clip ons instead of the um...poky kind. I lost track of their convo about 3 sentences in (ok...2), but they got it figured out.

 Okay...so then we went to Macy's...found the dresses...and Jenn and Rachel bought theirs. And since the tow truck still wasn't here, we went back to Charming Charlie's and selected and purchased the bridesmaid jewelry.

 Then we had supper...it was delicious.

 And the tow truck came! He towed our van all the way to our mechanic, and then our neighbor came and picked us up from there.

 So that was a fun, adventuresome, productive day!

Moving on to Christmas: It is truly a Christmas miracle...my Christmas cactus bloomed for the first time since I got it several years ago.

 And my Texas Cactus has a cute lil "baby bump" on the very top...it's alive and growing!

 And we have these owl decorations on our tree. They're slightly disturbing.

 My dad got our cats a Christmas present too...they loved it very much.

I hope you all are having a lovely Christmas vacation!

November [thus far]

 This is a brief synopsis of the month of November...so far. We had company the second week of November: Grandma Suzy and Grandpa Bob and Jess and Kevin came up, and at the end of the week, Uncle Wayne, Aunt Valerie, and our cousins Nolan and Justin came up.

While Jess was here, we girls hearkened back to the ole days when the 4 of us tromped over hill and dale and tree trying to get lost and so forth in our woods. We walked and talked about boys and stuff and took pictures. 

Grandpa Bob took the grandkids out to lunch at Bob Evans:

Friday night, when Uncle Wayne et al came in, we had a big family dinner. Then we sat on the steps and took a picture.

The next day, everyone came to our house for our Thanksgiving Dinner. It was delicious :)

 The sport of the day was arm wrestling...

We also ate pie. (Hi, Justin!)

They matched. Without even planning on it.

Certain of the cousins played a prank on Kevin that involved tinted chapstick, known for all intents and purposes as lipstick...

A couple days ago, Annetta and I went to Lake Erie with Rachel. It was, ahem, rather chilly...

And for any of you who might not have heard (actually...I don't even have any blog stalkers, I don't think...so you all know. but whatever.), Jess and Kevin are somehow engaged or something, so there are pictures. Here's the link to my album (HERE), and below are a few of my faves. 

Okay, the end. I must needs proceed with this 8 page paper :P

Texas Trip

Howdy! So, you know, I had big plans to do an epic post, with tons of pictures and tons of words and stuff. But then I started editing pictures, and I ended up with 98 ones that I liked.And suddenly I didn't want to upload them all to blogger and write about them. So here's what I'm doing. I'm putting the link to my fb album RIGHT HERE and then I will write a big long post that tells the story. So you get the pictures and you get the words, just not in the same spot.

We left last Wednesday, at about 6 am. We had packed up, made lists, made food, and basically gotten details ironed out before we left, so we loaded ourselves up, set Garmin westward, and headed off. Josh and Katrina were really excited about seeing "the mountains of the west" but of course they were a long way off. We were headed out to MO to pick up Rachel, and as we had made our travel plans, we assumed we would need to stop a night between here and there. But, we forgot one detail: central time. We had thought about it in connection to other things, just not with travel time. So, we made it all the way out there by Wednesday night, spent the night, and the packed and left by 8 am the next morning. Then we drove all the way to Big Sandy, Texas.

It was about an 8 hour drive, so with stops, it was maybe 5 when we got there. We drove through OK (sadly did not see any tumbleweeds), and then finally into Texas. We passed a lot of cattle ranches, slept on and off, and played some games. But finally! we arrived. And in typical Erika fashion, I got bit by an ant minutes after arriving at the conference. The first thing we did was find our primitive campsite. Now, a little background story first:I really, really wanted to see a cactus in Texas. Like, I really, really wanted to. So it was so cool when we finally selected our campsite, pulled up, hopped out, and practically stepped on a cactus. It was just sitting there, waiting for me to come and adopt it. And it was the only cactus I saw the whole time. I planted it in a pot and I'm hoping it adapts well :)

We finished registering at the convention center, and set up our campsite. My mom, Josh, and Katrina slept in a tent, and Annetta, Rachel, and I folded down the back bench seat in our van and slept in the back hatch/trunk. Yes, we fit. But barely :P

That evening, they had an opening session which we attended. Then we trekked back to our campsite, slew some of the monster spiders in the bathroom, realized it was futile, switched shower stalls to a less populated one, and then went to bed. (Yeah...Texas has daddy long leg spiders almost as big as my hand. They are creepy and awful and they like the bathroom and I hate every single one of them). In the fb album, you will note some interesting pictures that we took before falling asleep.

The next morning, we awoke and heard the melodic sound of wind whipping around and the air was freezing and the sky was gray. Clearly, our first thought was, "what in the world will we wear?? what did we bring that is warm??" That was a common theme. I ended up wearing two pairs of jeans, socks and shoes, a tank top, a long sleeve shirt, a short sleeve shirt, and a hoodie on Saturday...that's how cold it was. But it was adventurous and we survived.

Friday morning we attended the conference sessions. I think they were basically all group sessions. They had some special music groups and then speaking. After that, it was lunch time! So all we had to do was stroll down to the dining hall, get food, eat it, and then stroll back up to our next session. However, we did not know where the dining hall was. And it started raining lightly as we walked. We finally found it, went through the line, and sat down and ate. It was really good, too. Then we hiked back to the next session. My mom took the kids to a Bible story hour, while Rachel, Annetta, and I listened to Shalom Brand (one of the Pearls daughters) speak on Preparing to be His Helpmeet, which is one of the books No Greater Joy has written and sells. It was interesting, and while I am not wholeheartedly endorsing it, I really liked it. After that, my mom and the kids joined us for another session led by Mrs. Pearl and Shalom on homeschooling and stuff.

Once that let out, we had about an hour to spare before supper, so we headed to the area where the dining hall, gym, and rock wall climbing are. We hung out there, then had supper, and then there were a few more sessions.

Now, during one of the afternoon sessions, Mrs. Pearl informed the audience that this was a Shindig the likes of which was trying to get singles to meet each other and then, like, get married. But we singles needed a helpful boost in the meeting each other arena, so she had an idea that she was going to share later that evening. So after the last evening session, she told us all that the next day, she was organizing basically a speed dating event, where the guys and girls lined up facing each other and had one minute to talk. Then the guys would move down one, talk, move down another, and so on until they had met every girl. And that was happening the next day. But that evening, Shoshanna announced that she was organizing some games for the singles ages 15 and up. Ever played Musical Chairs with seriously 100 to 150 teenagers? It's a blast. So is Duck Duck Goose, played with perhaps 50 teenagers. One holds one's breath (figuratively speaking) and prays that one does not get run over. Rachel, Annetta, and I partook in these activities til about 10:30, at which point we walked back to the campsite. Then we froze through another night.

Saturday morning dawned with BLUE SKY! It was windy and chilly, but there was SUNSHINE. Again, we had breakfast at our site, had some main sessions, then had lunch. After lunch, Annetta, Josh, and I went rock wall climbing (pics of that in the album too). Then, my mom took Josh and Katrina and the Garmin to Longview to pick up Stephen from his college (LeTourneau University) to bring him back for the rest of the day. Rachel, Annetta, and I went to another session in the interim.

When they got back, we went canoeing on the lake (pics from that in album), and then had supper. After supper, we went back to a conference session, listened to Josh and Kelsie Steele tell their love story, walked around, talked, ate cheese and clementines and candy, sat down a bit, and then it was time to take Stephen back to campus. Annetta, Rachel, and I drove him back, and because it was open dorm time, we were allowed to (gasp) go into the boys' dorm and (GASP) into his room! We had to wait before going in because someone in his room needed to put a shirt on (don't you love colleges like that?), but we got to go in and meet Stephen's roommate and a couple other guys. Then we drove back to the conference.

The next morning, we packed up in the frigid coldness, ate breakfast in the frigid coldness, had the adventure of moving our borrowed picnic table back to its original space, hopped into our church clothes (when I packed that skirt and shirt, I was not thinking that it would be so cold down there...), and drove to the church where Stephen attends when he's at college. It was a nice service. The pastor talked about circumstances and used Paul's life as an illustration. After that, we had lunch at Sonic, because I've been wanting a strawberry shake ever since I had one 2 and a half years ago when Jess and I went to TN to campaign for our friends! So I got a strawberry shake and it was delicious.

We got to tour LeTourneau after lunch, and then we we left! We made it almost through Arkansas before we had to stop for the night...then we drove all day Monday, and had to stop again...and then we finally got home Tuesday around noon!

It was such a fun trip. I know that we'll remember it forever :)