Turkey Time

Wow! What a great Thanksgiving. If you ever want to be more thankful for what you have, walk away from it for awhile: then, you'll realize how thankful you really should be for all things (Ephesians 5:20). I had/have an entirely new appreciation for family, friends, and life in general since I moved. It's been awesome. Here are some pictures of me reunited with them:)

Asher is SOOOO cute

 

Danny missed me.....but I guess not that much!

BANG! (the game we are playing.....at which I lost miserably)

 

Elly is a genius.

 

(Me and Daniello took quite the road trip! He is staying with me in Athens for a week. We made a pitstop at Wendy's, of course:)

Triple Axle Flying Spin

...Okay, okay so I'm not an Olympic ice-skater, but I do like hockey:) While skating, we only sustained a few minor injuries and the typical major embarrassment of colliding with other skaters, wiping out, and getting into a heated discussion with a teenage boy about how dangerous it was to link arms on the ice.

Jessica was a machine on the ice. One time, as she blew by me, (i'm a really slow skater), she stuck her arm out and took me out! The nerve! (okay....that was an exaggeration:).....okay, it was actually a flat out farce!

Then, there was Anna and Bamber, who were quite skilled at the sacred art of "smiling while wiping out"...heehee.....just kidding:).....but they did wipe out....and they do smile a lot!

Then, there was Sarah. Now, some people say that I am the weird one in the apartment, but she is the one who has grandiose dreams of being an Olympic gymnast, and apparently, figure-skater:

We were all quite famished after that, so we ate some tasty morsels at CeCe's Pizza place....which was strangely occupied by 50 million boyscouts everywhere! - you can see them all watching the Alabama game on TV in the background - (apparently there is a "pizza" merit badge I didn't know about:)

It was a great time, despite the strange chinese man who randomly yelled, "Halloween is over!" at us.....at which I replied, "Merry Christmas!"

where to start?

I guess I'll start with Friday:

pizza, Wal-mart run, cookie baking (with intesting ingredients), Ice Age, tickle torture, soap wars....just a typical Friday night:)

Saturday: Birmingham Alabama, Civil Rights Museum (we couldn't take pictures inside), homeless man encounter (with the bike), out to eat with a Jamaican.....just a typical Saturday.

At this church, the KKK set off a bomb that killed four little black girls just 40 years ago. Pulaski, TN is the birth place of the KKK and it is only 45 minutes north of Athens (we just sang at a nursing home there last week). How could so much change in just 40 years? I look at those white people in the pictures laughing as two black men hang from a tree, lynched. I wonder how those white people could be so wicked and so wrong? Then, I wonder what is wicked and wrong today (just 40 years later) that we choose to be blind to?

 

and then.........

Sunday: three souls started their journey with Jesus Christ!!!!!.......NOT a typical Sunday here in Alabama!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Orphan Sunday

We ate at Famous Dave's. Apparently, Indiana even has them, but I had never heard of them. See all that food? If you look close, you can see that it is served on a garbage can lid! There is a roll of paper towel on the table and 5 different BBQ sauces!


One of the BBQ sauces was called: (it wasn't really that spicy)

We traveled to Nashville (1 and 1/2 hours away), to see a free orphan promotion concert by Steven Curtis Chapman. It was really awesome, especially when He talked about losing His adopted daughter, Maria, and how his song about "Yours God. Yours God. Everything is Yours. Etc." applies to even his daughter being owned by God and not by him. There were also some other famous people there (that I had never heard of) who talked about orphans.

James 1:27 - Pure and undefiled religion is this: to visit the widows and orphans in their affliction.

You'll be sure to laugh...out loud

FROM THE MOUTH OF BABES: (some things I hear at the preschool)

As Miss Cassie hands out the wax paper cups full of water (the drinking fountain being incapacitated), one brown-eyed, bronze-skinned 3 year-old hands her cup back with a bite out of the top. Miss Cassie, wide-eyed, asks, "Did you just eat a bite of your cup?" The little girl smiles warmly and opens her mouth to reply, but all that comes out is, "BURRRRRP!"

A 4 year-old, blue-eyed beauty states, "When I go home, I am going poop!" Later that day, the same girl yells, "Miss Cassie! There was a spider just sittin' right beside me while I was do-doing! It watched me the whole time!".

Miss Cassie: (after sweeping the class rooms everyday) "By jove, I think I've developed sweeper's elbow!" *[I know I'm not a babe.....but I kind of am:)]

Miss Cassie hears this often: "Miss Cassie, her said she gonna tell on me!". Hmmmm......?? Telling on someone for telling on someone for telling on someone for telling on someone. Typical.

A very, very cute 2 year-old blond whips off her shirt outside in broad daylight just as another kid's daddy pulls up to pick up his kid. Miss Cassie apologizes repeatedly as she frantically chases the giggling girl across the playground, unsuccessfully attempting to clothe the obscenity.

One boy: "Miss Cassie, my daddy is seeing somebody."

Another boy: "Is it a barbie or a woman?"

Miss Cassie whispers in a girl's ear, "I climbed up on that roof once.". The little girl laughs hyterically. Miss Cassie is confused, and asks, "What? What did I say that's so funny?". The little girl responds still giggling, "Your dog got smushed on the road!". .....what? Okay? Odd child.

Miss Cassie: "Okay class, what are you thankful for?"

Class: "What does 'thankful' mean?"

Miss Cassie: "It means you are glad you have something."

Class' responses: "Mommy and Daddy, friends, baby brother, bike, transformers, power rangers, sharks, whales, crocodiles, sea horses, horses, tomato soup." *wow, things really started going downhill after bike*

One little girl cries over something, and a minute later says, "Miss Cassie, someone put water on my cheeks!"

[Kids are one of the purest sources of such blissful, innocent laughter:)]

Git er DONE!

Homecoming Weekend: a bunch of people that have random connections with Athens come down and have a huge ho-down together! Of course southern BBQ was also included:)

I even got to play guitar:)

The Gramm Family: awesome kids from Georgia! (if you click the pic and look close, you can see that the little girl on the right is wearing my name tag: her name is Cassie too, so we switched:)

The Illinois people (+ me...and Javon)

Playing Scrabble with our meal numbers:)

Jean, Bamber, Clint, Faith, and Jess marvel over the Rubik's cube:

It was a great weekend:)