life on the lakes

Edit: A few email updates from last summer that I found...

Weekend Trip#1
To quote my sister quoting a favorite quote: "Let me 'splain...no, let me sum up!" --- Sun. Driving. Rain. Catching up with friends from far and farther. Alumni Weekend. Hanging out with the Chow's. Coffee Shop. Thoroughly Modern Milly at Fireside. More sun. Church. More driving. Sleep!

To be more specific my weekend started around 11:15 a.m. on beautiful, sunny Friday. Using my 2nd free, summer 1/2 day, I headed out of downtown Mpls going the wrong way! Never fear, I found my way out of the city and on to WI. The trip was relatively uneventful until it started to rain about 10 miles from the WI Dells. I made it safely to Madison and joined Kim and Tricia, two college friends, for dinner at TGIF at East Towne. Kim just got back from Romania and Tricia is transitioning to a new job, so we had lots to catch up on. When I reached Watertown it was quite late -- for a working girl -- after a long week.

Saturday turned out to be a beautiful sunny day as well! I headed up to campus to check out Alumni Weekend. If you remember, the football and soccer games were cancelled so not a lot of action was planned. Mr. Davis welcomed me to campus and gave me a tour of the new, very up-to-date coffee shop. I'm so glad I had a part in it! After the tour I was off to the volleyball game. The alumni had a good showing, but the Crusaders won. I had fun catching up with Pam and Mark. Little Noah made me smile when he greeted me with a huge smile and said my name! I was able to catch up with several more people at the Alumni cookout. I think everyone enjoyed the snow cones best! I hung out with the Chowanec crew for a while after the cookout was over. I left them planning to take a nap and then get ready for my evening. I made a quick stop at Speedway to fill up for my trip home and then got a call that my good lunch buddy was at the new coffee shop. I headed back up to campus to enjoy the atmosphere of the new coffee shop and catch up with my friends the Hibbs. I stayed until it was time to get ready for an evening at the theater. Sue and I headed to Fort Atkinson to watch a musical at the Fireside. Last Christmas Sue's mom had given us a gift certificate but we hadn't found time to go and/or a show we wanted to go see. Dinner was a five course meal and was very delicious. The show was amazing! I loved it! The evening was kind of long after such an eventful day and the long drive the day before.

Sunday I thoroughly enjoyed visiting my home church, Calvary. It was very refreshing to see everyone and participate in awesome congregational singing! I can't believe how well Calvary sings! Over the years I've heard people say that we have some of the best singing, but it really was evident to me this visit. Pastor also preached a great message that was both encouraging and challenging to me. After church I headed to the Upper Krust for lunch with the Lawsons, Chowanecs, etc. My long drive looming ahead, I decided to get on the road, but not before I contemplated a nap. Not wanting to get home too late, I decided to skip the nap and just drive. I made it to Madison before my weekend caught up with me...I had to pull over for a short rest. After dozing off for just a few minutes, I felt refreshed enough to finish the rest of my drive...4 more hours! Thankfully I made it back to the Cities without incident. I got back in time to meet Morgen and Carsten at McDonald's after church. Oh, Jen and Eric were there too :)

Weekend Trip #2
Because Jess and I have great bosses we were able to head out of town for the long weekend by 3:00 pm on Friday. Traffic in the Cities was not bad so we thought we could make good time to Indiana, maybe 9 1/2 hours instead of 10. We got on the road and were on the east side of Mpls when I remembered that I was in charge of brining the I-Pass (Jess loaned hers to a friend). Nope, I didn't bring it. We discussed how driving through Chicago without an I-Pass could add quite a bit of time to our already long trip. Then we had a revelation...I thought I had read online when I first set up my I-Pass about paying for missed tolls online. Of course I set up my I-Pass almost 2 years ago and couldn't remember exactly. We called one of Jess's friends who had Internet access right then and found out we could go through without our I-Pass and we would be charged later. Whew!!

We made it to Amish-ville, as we fondly call the area where my parents live, without incident, but it was about 2am. My mom greeted us with a yawn, a hug, and "Hi, glad you made it, brunch is at 10:30. Good night!" and we all went to bed. My dad was still out on his weekly ride-a-long as Chaplain (Nappanee Police and Elkhart Cty Sheriff Depts). He got in about 3am. We didn't hear a sound.

On Saturday Anna was there when I got up and we ate a delicious brunch prepared by mom. Sometime after noon we headed to Goshen to see Anna's new apartment. She got a sweet deal because she's an officer. She drives around the complex before and after her shift and gets a lot of money off her rent each month. We were all impressed! After the apartment tour Anna had to work so the rest of us headed to Warsaw to pick up 11 gallons of paint for the new condo (mom gets a deal from work at Sherwin Williams). We stopped at Lowe's and Walmart to complete our shopping experience that day. When we got back to the ranch we opened up the Flaming Salon: Mom and I highlighted each others hair. We think it turned out great! :) Mom then prepared us another great meal...lasagna.

We enjoyed a great Sunday: Church, Lunch, Nap, Church. It was good to be home! Monday was travel day and back to reality! Tuesday morning came too early!

Currently, no trips planned until Thanksgiving. You're welcome to come visit me in the Cities!