snowflakes.

This weekend has been a blast in every way possible. Two all-star ones in a row! I finished up my long term care rotation on Friday, and it definitely had the feel of a last day. My preceptor wasn’t in the mood to do work either, so we took plenty of time to talk about life, visit with other staff, make Italian sodas, talk with the residents, and procrastinate in general. We did get all the essentials done though!

Friday night the girls in my community group tapped back into our middle school days and had an old-school sleepover. We made tacos for dinner, then had snacks (popcorn, chips and salsa, angel food cake with cream and strawberries, rocky road ice cream) the rest of the evening. We played mostly question kinds of games. We know each other, but there’s so much more of each of us to know! Normally games like that are more silly and superficial, but we have some thinkers in our group, so it got deep fast. Questions like “what’s your biggest fear?” and “who has shaped who you are the most?” were the norm, often with follow up questions like “how do you see the Lord in that?” It was the most intentional sleepover I’ve ever been to, it was great! We stayed up late, of course, because that’s what you do, watching a movie until the wee hours of the morning. Then we hunkered down throughout Dorina’s apartment and slept in late. Orange cinnamon rolls for breakfast, another throwback! I think I ate those at least once a week growing up. We drank coffee and talked the morning away, then everyone kind of split to do their own things that afternoon. I hit up the gym, then finished my homework so I wouldn’t have to worry about it for the rest of the weekend.

Saturday evening showed up in a hurry: dinner at Endelyn Joes. I’d never been before; it’s a restaurant that re-decorates from time to time with different themes, changing their menu to match. Current theme: Chicago. I had the gorgonzola pear ravioli with aged basalmic sautéed onions and some other yummy things that I can’t remember, and it was packed with flavor. I enjoyed every bite (and every minute). Dessert was a strawberry/blueberry/apple fruit tart with caramel and ice cream on top. Mmmm. Lots of wandering around Barnes and Noble after that, which turns out, is a great place to spark all kinds of conversation. Take note friends: go there on a date. Or maybe I’m just a bookstore and library junkie. We were thoroughly familiar with the layout of Barnes and Noble a couple hours later, stopping here and there to solve riddles from “creative thinking” books and learning about random things like different ways to tie ties and the Amish culture.

After stopping back by the house for a minute I headed to Dorina’s to meet up with her and the Reeds, and the girls snuggled on the couch while we all watched part of The Bodyguard.

When I woke up this morning there was snow on the deck! I didn’t believe it was snow at first, because it was just sitting there. I’m used to it melting the second it hits the ground. But I went outside to check, and sure enough, it was snow! First of the season I think, unless I missed some. I still walked to church, cold but dry. Today was my first morning to volunteer at the children’s ministry. I helped check kids in, the system is so efficient, props to whoever designed it. I got to see lots of adorable little munchkins and talk with Katy and Tyler, who were also working at the front desk. After that, we headed upstairs for the 11:15 service. Music was great today- some of my favorites.

This afternoon was decorate-the-church-day, so we blasted some Christmas tunes and spent the hours painting, wrapping, hanging, lighting, decorating in general. The pot luck lunch consisted of primarily two food groups- chips and dessert. I figure if that’s all that’s available, it’s a great excuse to indulge! After that down in the children’s ministry we spent plenty of time cutting out LOTS of snowflakes and handprints.

We hung the snowflakes from the ceilings of the classrooms (I got to be on the ladder- woohoo!), and made the hands into Christmas trees. We then relocated upstairs, where Gary and I were assigned the task of wrapping some of the pictures on the wall upstairs to make them look like presents. Of course right after we finished were we informed that there were other plans for the room…so we proceeded to unwrap all our hard work. Bummer.  On to the next task…bowmaking. Only to find that we couldn’t do that EITHER because we had the wrong ribbon. So, seeing as it was 7 o’clock and tasks were sparse, we decided to call it a night.

So here I am, writing this post in Microsoft word, because our internet has been out all weekend. To be posted asap :)