Stafford.

I had quite the entourage at graduation. Besides my wonderful
family, Mary flew in from Va, Leslie from So. Ill, and Kim and Lauren
took time out of their busy schedules to come too!

My "sorority" sisters.... yeah we were trying the whole throwing the
caps thing and just ended up looking silly!

Well, I'm back home in Virginia, at least for a little bit. It has been a whirlwind last few days too! I left Texas last Monday, 2 days after my seminary graduation for Nashville. My best friend Stacy and her husband live in Nashville, as well as one of my dear friends from Dallas, and a bunch of my favorites from Fuge too! It was so great to be with people I love in a city that is just so much fun. If you've never been to Nashville, you should definitely check it out! I got to Nashville on Monday night, the drive wasnt bad at all, and then I hungout with Stacy and Lance. On tuesday I hungout with camp friends where we watched American Idol and then played the American Idol game on some gaming system. I got to meet my director for this summer out at Glorieta which helped alleviate some of the stress of not knowing anyone on my staff this summer. Then Wednesday I had lunch with Laura who is one of the reasons my time in Dallas was as amazing as it was. It was so good to spend time with her and catch up on life. She moved to Nashville in January and so my last semester at DTS was definitely missing its quality Laura time! Thursday evening Stacy and I left for Stafford and drove through the night. We pulled into my driveway at 4:08am and boy did it feel good to be home! My bed, in my purple room, felt so good once I finally got to sleep!

Stacy came home with me for one of our good friends' wedding and my graduation party. It was great that she could make it. Our friend, whom we've known since the 5th grade, was both of our roommates (mine in Texas and hers in college at JMU) and so it was a special day for sure. Ashley looked beautiful on her big day and it was just so much fun to see the meshing of my Texas world and my Virginia world, although I'll admit it was a bit overwhelming at times too. One of Ashley's maids of honor was a friend who hasnt been to Stafford to visit in 10 years! It was so good to see her, and it was as if she had never moved! We all picked up right where we left off. Isn't it amazing that when people have that commonality of Christ, you can just skip over the surface level stuff and get right down to what's going onin a person's life? We partied hard on Saturday, cried a little, laughed a lot, oh and got wicked sunburns too! It was so much fun! I did have to say goodbye to 4 of my DTS girls and a couple boys, and that was hard. It was kind of like the real closing of that chapter in my life. Those people made a huge impact in my life, so it was really hard to say goodbye!

*We had a mini high school reunion at the wedding!*

Sunday was my graduation party. It was a joint party with 2 good friends who also just got their masters degrees. I felt so loved and it was just so good to have all of my favorite people from home in one place.

I have no idea why the Lord brought me back to Stafford, because I definitely feel like this is where I'm supposed to be for the next few months (at least). I know that He's got something up His sleeve, I just wish I knew what that was! I guess I'll find out after camp? I leave next friday morning for Glorieta, New Mexico to work camp just one more summer. I'm working with 11th and 12th graders again this summer, which I'm realy excited about!

That's about it. Just an update. I've been thinking about some things the Lord has been showing me lately, but I'm just not ready to sit down and formulate them into a blog quite yet.

All We Are Saying.. Is Give Peace a Chance

So tonight I went out and had a grand old time for my last real weekend in the Big D. My boss had to go out of town on a business trip and she happens to be a season ticket holder to the Dallas Musical theater and offered me her tickets for this weekend since she wasn't going to be able to use them. I'm usually down for a good musical, but wow I didn't know what I was getting myself into! "Rain: A Beatles Experience" is in town... and holy cow I saw a different side of history for sure. Basically these 4 guys put on a 2 hour Beatles concert while in character of the different guys. In between the sets of music they'd play news clips and commercials from whatever era the guys were playing music from.

I'm going to be honest and put it out there that I know about 5 songs from the Beatles. My friend Kim came along with me to the show and she knew every stinkin song the guys played. I think she thought I had a deprived childhood, but whatever. I could sing Tina Turner's "What's Love Got to Do With It" and Whitney's "I Wanna Dance With Somebody" when I was 5 years old... beat that! So anyway, alot of my time at the show was not spent singing along, but instead people watching and taking it all in. Kim and I were about 30-40 years younger than most of the people in the theater tonight, but these people were definitely rockin out and reliving a part of their younger years. I mean peace signs were being waved like nobody's business, and I'm pretty sure the woman that sat 2 rows in front of us was still tripping on something from her days spent living it up in the 70s.

At one point during the show I felt like I was at a peace rally as they played John Lennon's "Give Peace a Chance." I thought about what it must have been like to hear that song in the early 70s as Americans were tired and worn from the Vietnam War. I looked around the room and saw people who had lived through that time. I wondered where each of them were in 1969 during Woodstock or during the war, and then I thought about my generation today. I thought about the passion that young people had in the 60s and 70s... and wondered what exactly my generation is passionate about. Tonight I was just really reminded what a different time that was in our history.

The guys played all of the classics, but of course leaving most of the best songs for their two encores. If they were accurately portraying the members of the Beatles, I think I would have liked John Lennon or George Harrison best. Paul McCartney seemed a bit boring and Ringo was just crazy. My favorite part of the night was the grand finale. The guys had just taken their first bow when they ran back to their instruments and started playin "Hey Jude." The nostalgia in that room was overwhelming as these old people started waving peace signs and their cell phones back and forth. It was pretty comical, but it was also fun to watch these people relive some of the best years of their lives.


Tonight ended up being a lot of fun. It reminded me that lives lived passionately typically end up being a lot more fun than not caring about anything at all and I think I'm going to have to ask my parents about the 60s and 70s and see what they were up to in those days...