What a whirlwind!
I was inspired to blog, but now I am finally feeling exhausted. I got up to take my 3 sisters to the airport this morning (we left at 5am). They visited me for 9 full days~~it was pure awesomeness! I really enjoyed showing them what life is like here, and was so glad for some quality sister bonding times. My facebook photo albums would probably do a better job at describing what we all did, haha, but I suppose I could list the locations we went at least...So the tone of this is going to sound aloof and disconnected, but will get the idea across!
Friday night: Picked them up from the airport. Delays, so Amy, Heidi and I sat at a nearby Burger King at midnight to wait for Sarah. Stalked a nice chauffeur who was also waiting because his person was on Sarah's flight. Got back super late and crashed.
Saturday: Went to see the tide pool and cool rock formations at Leo Carillo State Beach. Ate a picnic lunch there, explored, then went to Escondido Falls to hike. The falls were much slower than when I went with Jenni and Marissa in the spring, but the hike was still cool. Poor Amy was quite sick, so she hiked to the 1st falls and then waited while Heidi, Sarah and I hiked to the higher falls. Practiced "I'll Fly Away" at night.
Sunday: Went to church at 9:30 to practice "I'll Fly Away" but Lois was not there. Practiced anyhow--Sang during offertory which was fun not only to sing to God but to "showcase" my sisters. Sarah played guitar, I had a clarinet part. Sarah sang melody, Heidi high harmony, me low harmony. Poor Amy was sick. :( Pastor had a prayer call at the end which I think really meant something to some of my sisters. We all enjoyed the service. :) Ate lunch afterwards and met some friends. Then went to the Getty Center. Girls really liked the gardens. After Getty, drove along Mulholland to try to find Tom Hanks house. Tom Tom led us astray...But we got to see the Beverly Hills ritzy neighborhood!
Went to Hollywood, took pictures at the Chinese Theatre and the Hollywood sign. Skipped ending at Griffith Park, but ended by going to Ruhn Pear in Thai Town. Girls were okay with it but didn't really love it.
Monday: Went into work. Left early to take Amy and Heidi to Santa Monica Pier, Sarah was feeling too tired/sick. Amy and I got caricatures drawn of us! Walked to Venice Beach to show them the hippy area, then bussed back. Amy said she really liked the feel/culture and could see herself visiting Venice a lot if she lived there. Picked up Joey and met Winnie in Hollywood to watch Akio's team perform in Comedy Sportz. We all got a real kick out of that, and were quoting from it all week! "You are the most beautiful woman I have ever met!" "Meeeeee?" "Yes, and NOW, you shall DATE me!" :D The girls all said they really liked Akio's facial expressions especially!
Tuesday: Went into work. Sisters came later to join the work posse for lunch at Ackerman. After lunch, left them to wander UCLA campus while I went to THEMIS meeting. They read and relaxed in North campus (Sculpture Garden, Dixon Court, etc.) Afterwards, took them to Diddy Reise~~Mmm! Line was super long, but we got 4 seats inside! It was hot and people were tired so we bussed home after that. Rested, then went to Santa Monica. Started by shopping at Old Navy (they had a Stuff N' Save deal for card holders) then walked 3rd Street. Ate at Joe's Pizza on Broadway, then did the Pier at night. Rode the Scrambler and Ferris Wheel (two things I've not done the entire time I've been here!) Scrambler was awesome for nostalgic reasons~~Amy and I shared so it could be like when we were kids and I sat on the outside so I wouldn't squish her! We rode the Ferris Wheel a very long time because they kept having to stop it for some reason. It was one of the girls' favorite nights. After hanging on the Pier, I took them to get nutella crepes. Mmmm!
Wednesday: I took off to take them to the Aquarium of the Pacific. They LOVE aquariums, so they really enjoyed it! Best t-shirt quote: "Stud-Puffin!" Decided against whale watching due to cost and fear of sickness. Maybe next time. Afterwards, walked to the cute Lighthouse. Since we didn't know anything else to do and people were tired (otherwise would have more heavily pressed the idea of touring the Queen Mary), so drove back home. Went to pick up camping gear from the Chungs, and the girls met them a little more and also Yvonne. Took a bit so we were a little late to Koi cell. Sarah started feeling very sick, so she napped upstairs and Amy talked on the phone while Heidi and I joined the group for dinner and then Bible study. Discussion was on temptation, so instead of normal small groups we split into girls and guys. Heidi also contributed to discussion, and I realized how fun that was to be in a bible study with her and how unfortunate it was that we lived so far away, because I'd really enjoy being in community with her. Sarah was feeling better afterwards, but not good enough to hang out. So I drove her and Amy home, then drove back to join friends for boba. So Heidi tried boba for the 1st time--she loved the milk tea (it was almond) but didn't like the tapioca balls. :P
Thursday: Total stressing out about camping. Made the final decision (or maybe it was Wednesday night) that we wouldn't do Yosemite anymore because it required so much work. (Leaving that day, staying at a hotel outside Yosemite in order to drive in super early to try and claim a spot, etc.) I was a complete stress ball, so Heidi suggested I just go into work, they'd relax at home, and we'd figure something else out. So I went into the office, ended up doing a lot of searching for camping more locally, but apparently it's quite difficult in this state. A lot of places require several days advance notice. Since we weren't leaving anymore, I got a hold of Marissa (just in time!) and Kate to see if they could do dinner, so they, Laura, Michael, and Marissa/Michael's friend Pearl joined us Gabes girls for dinner at Cafe 50s. Amy and Sarah had a chance to talk to Michael and Marissa, and they told me how nice they were! Heidi also said she enjoyed talking with Kate and Laura. (Kate if you're reading this, Amy said she could tell (more from the UCLA visit) that you were the leader of the pack. ;) ) I can't recall right now what we girls did afterwards...Except I know we determined we wouldn't do camping. I had also asked Aaron at work about local hikes he could suggest we check out.
Friday: Beach day! We took the bus down to Venice (I like the beach better down there) and that way Sarah could see the scene. Spent all day there, ate lunch there, swam, played in the waves, checked out hot life guards and then bussed back. Sarah mentioned this was her 1st time using public transportation! So we took pictures to document. ;) Friday night (I think) is when we made Esther's beef and rice. Mmm everyone loved it! We also surprised Heidi with a chocolate birthday cake and icecream and balloons! Winnie had already offered her car if we were to go camping farther away, so she came over to drop it off so we could have it for the morning.
Saturday: Got up "early" to hike Chantry Flats, but didn't make it in time. Got there and the parking situation was already overflowing down the road from the lot...And we didn't know about having to pay until after we parked and started walking up the hill. (Thankfully there were people we encountered whom we could ask BEFORE we got all the way up.) So we went back to the car and drove all the way up to see how far it would be to walk. Since by then it was already upwards of 100F, we decided to screw it and go directly to the Huntington Gardens. (Well we 1st made a detour to get Starbucks frappes!) That was refreshing! It was a good thing we only did the gardens, because it was so hot and intense that I doubt we would have felt like going had we done the flats. The Huntington was hands down Amy's favorite place we went all week, so I'm super happy we went! It was different from when Rachelle and I went in November--some more flowers were blooming, and it was quite pretty even if we were slightly dying in the heat! Thankfully the gardens also have AC buildings with art, so we did that to cool off.
I really wanted to show them the mountains though, especially since Amy had never seen anything close to a mountain before. So we decided just to drive through them. I put Mountain High in the GPS cuz I knew that would take us through some pretty passes, but on the freeway I saw a sign for Mount Baldy and I made the impromptu decision to take it and check it out since it was a LOT closer than going all the way to the pass to Mtn High. Totally glad I did! After an adventure to find gas, we took the road that went up all the way to the ski lift on Mount Baldy. Made a few stops for pictures on the way. The girls were super impressed and excited! We made note that if we WANTED we could drive back the next day to actually hike there. So with that in mind we drove home.
(I just want to say that traffic this entire trip was AMAZING! The only rough patch we had was coming home from the aquarium on the 405.)
We made the CPK frozen pizza for dinner and watched an episode of Babylon 5 together under Sarah's prompting. ;) Then we took all night to decide if we would use our last day together to do the hike or to go to church and do relaxing things. The fear was that since we couldn't think of what to do after church, that we would sit around the house and regret not going hiking. But on the other hand, we (esp. Heidi and I) really wanted to go to church...I've only gone twice since leaving for GEM and coming back, and Heidi's work usually prevents her from being able to attend. There was also something nice sounding about a relaxing last afternoon...But Amy finally was the decisive voice and said she really wanted to climb the mountain!
Sunday: So the next morning, we got up to go. But there was failure after failure on my part. My alarm didn't go off, then when we drove to campus to print our lift tickets I FORGOT the building key at home...Since the total savings would be $20, I drove back to get the key and then back again to print. Then I left the ticket in the office after printing, so after going down to the car I had to run back up to the office...All in all the tickets cost us an extra hour of time. I overly-freaked and stressed about it which was not cool, but it ended up okay. We arrived at the ski lift around 11:30 or so, so we took it up and then had lunch. It was the 1st time any of the girls had ridden one, so that was awesome! There was a cute restaurant up there called the Notch, but we had packed our own lunches.
I didn't think we'd have time to do the whole hike, so I decided to search out the Devil's Backbone to hike. I had heard it was pretty awesome, but usually people take it on the way DOWN. (There is a loop at Baldy you can take.) But I figured we wouldn't have time to summit, so might as well take the awesome, albeit harder, trail to maximize awesome views! We actually should have taken a nicer trail leading up to it, and because we took a really steep grade right at the beginning it killed off a lot of the gusto in our group right away. That was too bad...But the girls kept at it! They made mini goals..."Okay, just make it to the next shady tree!" We made it up a little bit, enough to get some nice overlooks at the desert to the east of us, when we saw some ridge hiking and there was some quaking of the knees. It seemed like we weren't going to do it, but then a young hiker passed us saying, "You're not giving up, are you? You can do it! You'll regret it if you don't." That was enough to light a fire, and Amy said, "I'll make a compromise. I'll go up to those trees, but I can't promise anything after that." But every time we'd make it to a goal, we'd see the next hill and it didn't seem so bad...It seemed doable...So with this mentality of "Just to the next knoll", we ended up climbing much of the way! And then we started encountering people coming down who kept encouraging us..."You're almost to where you can see the summit!" "You can do it, keep going!" "It's hard now but the end is so worth it!" With these words raining on us, we kept at it. While we stopped for Sarah for a sec, Amy determined to continue on at her own pace. By the time we got going again, she was far ahead, just a tiny speck of pink shorts in the distance! This only fueled Sarah even more to catch up to her "mush mush", who had by that time already begun ascending the switch backs.
By the time we caught up, we were all going up the switchbacks that led to the summit, which was now in sight (albeit a good climb up yet). I think it was at this point though, or maybe a little earlier when we saw Amy begin the ascent, that it became clear to us all that we WOULD get to the summit, no matter what! We caught up to the young hiker who had encouraged us before. He told us he was afraid we'd give up, but I explained that his encouragement fueled us to continue! So in exchange for the encouragement, he asked for some sunscreen! haha...Heidi and I continued climbing with him, allowing Amy and Sarah to go at their own pace. It's always fun to meet people on hikes. We were above the tree line and could even play with some snow! Finally we made it to the summit. It was awesome, as you could look in all 360 directions, towards LA in the west and the desert in the east. Mountain ranges north and south, with snow-capped mountains in the southeast. The girls may have been tired, but they were sooo excited to be on the top of a mountain! We didn't plan on being able to do it, but we did! We could only spend ~10-15 minutes or so enjoying it, because we had less than 2 hours to get back to our lift if we wanted a ride down. It had taken us just under 3 hours to summit, so I was fairly sure we could make it in time, but we went down at a goodly pace to make sure. It was so much faster and easier going down (as always). It took us under an hour I think. So we easily caught the lift down, which felt so good to sit and relax! By then it was cooler too. We drove back and stopped at Inn N' Out, since you can't visit California without eating there!
While I dropped the car back off, the girls packed and cleaned the apartment. We watched...one? two? episode(s) of Babylon 5, and then hit the hay. We woke up at 4:15, and then I took them to the airport. Sarah's flight was earlier, but I dropped Amy and Heidi at Southwest since that terminal is a beehive on Monday mornings. I parked to take Sarah in to check in and print her boarding pass, and then saw her off to security. Traffic was surprisingly amazing for a Monday morning at 6am, so I actually had time to go to morning prayer! I really wasn't tired but I didn't want to go straight to work. I'm glad I went--It was nice to pray, and then talk for awhile afterwards with Pastor Soon. Esther had made breakfast, so I ate, then went home to print off thank you pictures (at CVS) and dropped the camping gear off at their place. I did all this and still made it to work by 10. :P
I wasn't tired all day, which was weird to me. I'm exhausted now and will probably regret staying up to write this tomorrow, but if I didn't write now I probably never would. I had a few bouts of sadness, but overall am doing okay. Could be worse. Winnie invited me over which was so sweet, but I just felt like reading from Encountering God and relaxing at home this evening. I had actually been inspired to write about what I'm reading there, but started off with this and now it is an hour later! I will have to share that another time.
Friday night: Picked them up from the airport. Delays, so Amy, Heidi and I sat at a nearby Burger King at midnight to wait for Sarah. Stalked a nice chauffeur who was also waiting because his person was on Sarah's flight. Got back super late and crashed.
Saturday: Went to see the tide pool and cool rock formations at Leo Carillo State Beach. Ate a picnic lunch there, explored, then went to Escondido Falls to hike. The falls were much slower than when I went with Jenni and Marissa in the spring, but the hike was still cool. Poor Amy was quite sick, so she hiked to the 1st falls and then waited while Heidi, Sarah and I hiked to the higher falls. Practiced "I'll Fly Away" at night.
Sunday: Went to church at 9:30 to practice "I'll Fly Away" but Lois was not there. Practiced anyhow--Sang during offertory which was fun not only to sing to God but to "showcase" my sisters. Sarah played guitar, I had a clarinet part. Sarah sang melody, Heidi high harmony, me low harmony. Poor Amy was sick. :( Pastor had a prayer call at the end which I think really meant something to some of my sisters. We all enjoyed the service. :) Ate lunch afterwards and met some friends. Then went to the Getty Center. Girls really liked the gardens. After Getty, drove along Mulholland to try to find Tom Hanks house. Tom Tom led us astray...But we got to see the Beverly Hills ritzy neighborhood!
Went to Hollywood, took pictures at the Chinese Theatre and the Hollywood sign. Skipped ending at Griffith Park, but ended by going to Ruhn Pear in Thai Town. Girls were okay with it but didn't really love it.
Monday: Went into work. Left early to take Amy and Heidi to Santa Monica Pier, Sarah was feeling too tired/sick. Amy and I got caricatures drawn of us! Walked to Venice Beach to show them the hippy area, then bussed back. Amy said she really liked the feel/culture and could see herself visiting Venice a lot if she lived there. Picked up Joey and met Winnie in Hollywood to watch Akio's team perform in Comedy Sportz. We all got a real kick out of that, and were quoting from it all week! "You are the most beautiful woman I have ever met!" "Meeeeee?" "Yes, and NOW, you shall DATE me!" :D The girls all said they really liked Akio's facial expressions especially!
Tuesday: Went into work. Sisters came later to join the work posse for lunch at Ackerman. After lunch, left them to wander UCLA campus while I went to THEMIS meeting. They read and relaxed in North campus (Sculpture Garden, Dixon Court, etc.) Afterwards, took them to Diddy Reise~~Mmm! Line was super long, but we got 4 seats inside! It was hot and people were tired so we bussed home after that. Rested, then went to Santa Monica. Started by shopping at Old Navy (they had a Stuff N' Save deal for card holders) then walked 3rd Street. Ate at Joe's Pizza on Broadway, then did the Pier at night. Rode the Scrambler and Ferris Wheel (two things I've not done the entire time I've been here!) Scrambler was awesome for nostalgic reasons~~Amy and I shared so it could be like when we were kids and I sat on the outside so I wouldn't squish her! We rode the Ferris Wheel a very long time because they kept having to stop it for some reason. It was one of the girls' favorite nights. After hanging on the Pier, I took them to get nutella crepes. Mmmm!
Wednesday: I took off to take them to the Aquarium of the Pacific. They LOVE aquariums, so they really enjoyed it! Best t-shirt quote: "Stud-Puffin!" Decided against whale watching due to cost and fear of sickness. Maybe next time. Afterwards, walked to the cute Lighthouse. Since we didn't know anything else to do and people were tired (otherwise would have more heavily pressed the idea of touring the Queen Mary), so drove back home. Went to pick up camping gear from the Chungs, and the girls met them a little more and also Yvonne. Took a bit so we were a little late to Koi cell. Sarah started feeling very sick, so she napped upstairs and Amy talked on the phone while Heidi and I joined the group for dinner and then Bible study. Discussion was on temptation, so instead of normal small groups we split into girls and guys. Heidi also contributed to discussion, and I realized how fun that was to be in a bible study with her and how unfortunate it was that we lived so far away, because I'd really enjoy being in community with her. Sarah was feeling better afterwards, but not good enough to hang out. So I drove her and Amy home, then drove back to join friends for boba. So Heidi tried boba for the 1st time--she loved the milk tea (it was almond) but didn't like the tapioca balls. :P
Thursday: Total stressing out about camping. Made the final decision (or maybe it was Wednesday night) that we wouldn't do Yosemite anymore because it required so much work. (Leaving that day, staying at a hotel outside Yosemite in order to drive in super early to try and claim a spot, etc.) I was a complete stress ball, so Heidi suggested I just go into work, they'd relax at home, and we'd figure something else out. So I went into the office, ended up doing a lot of searching for camping more locally, but apparently it's quite difficult in this state. A lot of places require several days advance notice. Since we weren't leaving anymore, I got a hold of Marissa (just in time!) and Kate to see if they could do dinner, so they, Laura, Michael, and Marissa/Michael's friend Pearl joined us Gabes girls for dinner at Cafe 50s. Amy and Sarah had a chance to talk to Michael and Marissa, and they told me how nice they were! Heidi also said she enjoyed talking with Kate and Laura. (Kate if you're reading this, Amy said she could tell (more from the UCLA visit) that you were the leader of the pack. ;) ) I can't recall right now what we girls did afterwards...Except I know we determined we wouldn't do camping. I had also asked Aaron at work about local hikes he could suggest we check out.
Friday: Beach day! We took the bus down to Venice (I like the beach better down there) and that way Sarah could see the scene. Spent all day there, ate lunch there, swam, played in the waves, checked out hot life guards and then bussed back. Sarah mentioned this was her 1st time using public transportation! So we took pictures to document. ;) Friday night (I think) is when we made Esther's beef and rice. Mmm everyone loved it! We also surprised Heidi with a chocolate birthday cake and icecream and balloons! Winnie had already offered her car if we were to go camping farther away, so she came over to drop it off so we could have it for the morning.
Saturday: Got up "early" to hike Chantry Flats, but didn't make it in time. Got there and the parking situation was already overflowing down the road from the lot...And we didn't know about having to pay until after we parked and started walking up the hill. (Thankfully there were people we encountered whom we could ask BEFORE we got all the way up.) So we went back to the car and drove all the way up to see how far it would be to walk. Since by then it was already upwards of 100F, we decided to screw it and go directly to the Huntington Gardens. (Well we 1st made a detour to get Starbucks frappes!) That was refreshing! It was a good thing we only did the gardens, because it was so hot and intense that I doubt we would have felt like going had we done the flats. The Huntington was hands down Amy's favorite place we went all week, so I'm super happy we went! It was different from when Rachelle and I went in November--some more flowers were blooming, and it was quite pretty even if we were slightly dying in the heat! Thankfully the gardens also have AC buildings with art, so we did that to cool off.
I really wanted to show them the mountains though, especially since Amy had never seen anything close to a mountain before. So we decided just to drive through them. I put Mountain High in the GPS cuz I knew that would take us through some pretty passes, but on the freeway I saw a sign for Mount Baldy and I made the impromptu decision to take it and check it out since it was a LOT closer than going all the way to the pass to Mtn High. Totally glad I did! After an adventure to find gas, we took the road that went up all the way to the ski lift on Mount Baldy. Made a few stops for pictures on the way. The girls were super impressed and excited! We made note that if we WANTED we could drive back the next day to actually hike there. So with that in mind we drove home.
(I just want to say that traffic this entire trip was AMAZING! The only rough patch we had was coming home from the aquarium on the 405.)
We made the CPK frozen pizza for dinner and watched an episode of Babylon 5 together under Sarah's prompting. ;) Then we took all night to decide if we would use our last day together to do the hike or to go to church and do relaxing things. The fear was that since we couldn't think of what to do after church, that we would sit around the house and regret not going hiking. But on the other hand, we (esp. Heidi and I) really wanted to go to church...I've only gone twice since leaving for GEM and coming back, and Heidi's work usually prevents her from being able to attend. There was also something nice sounding about a relaxing last afternoon...But Amy finally was the decisive voice and said she really wanted to climb the mountain!
Sunday: So the next morning, we got up to go. But there was failure after failure on my part. My alarm didn't go off, then when we drove to campus to print our lift tickets I FORGOT the building key at home...Since the total savings would be $20, I drove back to get the key and then back again to print. Then I left the ticket in the office after printing, so after going down to the car I had to run back up to the office...All in all the tickets cost us an extra hour of time. I overly-freaked and stressed about it which was not cool, but it ended up okay. We arrived at the ski lift around 11:30 or so, so we took it up and then had lunch. It was the 1st time any of the girls had ridden one, so that was awesome! There was a cute restaurant up there called the Notch, but we had packed our own lunches.
I didn't think we'd have time to do the whole hike, so I decided to search out the Devil's Backbone to hike. I had heard it was pretty awesome, but usually people take it on the way DOWN. (There is a loop at Baldy you can take.) But I figured we wouldn't have time to summit, so might as well take the awesome, albeit harder, trail to maximize awesome views! We actually should have taken a nicer trail leading up to it, and because we took a really steep grade right at the beginning it killed off a lot of the gusto in our group right away. That was too bad...But the girls kept at it! They made mini goals..."Okay, just make it to the next shady tree!" We made it up a little bit, enough to get some nice overlooks at the desert to the east of us, when we saw some ridge hiking and there was some quaking of the knees. It seemed like we weren't going to do it, but then a young hiker passed us saying, "You're not giving up, are you? You can do it! You'll regret it if you don't." That was enough to light a fire, and Amy said, "I'll make a compromise. I'll go up to those trees, but I can't promise anything after that." But every time we'd make it to a goal, we'd see the next hill and it didn't seem so bad...It seemed doable...So with this mentality of "Just to the next knoll", we ended up climbing much of the way! And then we started encountering people coming down who kept encouraging us..."You're almost to where you can see the summit!" "You can do it, keep going!" "It's hard now but the end is so worth it!" With these words raining on us, we kept at it. While we stopped for Sarah for a sec, Amy determined to continue on at her own pace. By the time we got going again, she was far ahead, just a tiny speck of pink shorts in the distance! This only fueled Sarah even more to catch up to her "mush mush", who had by that time already begun ascending the switch backs.
By the time we caught up, we were all going up the switchbacks that led to the summit, which was now in sight (albeit a good climb up yet). I think it was at this point though, or maybe a little earlier when we saw Amy begin the ascent, that it became clear to us all that we WOULD get to the summit, no matter what! We caught up to the young hiker who had encouraged us before. He told us he was afraid we'd give up, but I explained that his encouragement fueled us to continue! So in exchange for the encouragement, he asked for some sunscreen! haha...Heidi and I continued climbing with him, allowing Amy and Sarah to go at their own pace. It's always fun to meet people on hikes. We were above the tree line and could even play with some snow! Finally we made it to the summit. It was awesome, as you could look in all 360 directions, towards LA in the west and the desert in the east. Mountain ranges north and south, with snow-capped mountains in the southeast. The girls may have been tired, but they were sooo excited to be on the top of a mountain! We didn't plan on being able to do it, but we did! We could only spend ~10-15 minutes or so enjoying it, because we had less than 2 hours to get back to our lift if we wanted a ride down. It had taken us just under 3 hours to summit, so I was fairly sure we could make it in time, but we went down at a goodly pace to make sure. It was so much faster and easier going down (as always). It took us under an hour I think. So we easily caught the lift down, which felt so good to sit and relax! By then it was cooler too. We drove back and stopped at Inn N' Out, since you can't visit California without eating there!
While I dropped the car back off, the girls packed and cleaned the apartment. We watched...one? two? episode(s) of Babylon 5, and then hit the hay. We woke up at 4:15, and then I took them to the airport. Sarah's flight was earlier, but I dropped Amy and Heidi at Southwest since that terminal is a beehive on Monday mornings. I parked to take Sarah in to check in and print her boarding pass, and then saw her off to security. Traffic was surprisingly amazing for a Monday morning at 6am, so I actually had time to go to morning prayer! I really wasn't tired but I didn't want to go straight to work. I'm glad I went--It was nice to pray, and then talk for awhile afterwards with Pastor Soon. Esther had made breakfast, so I ate, then went home to print off thank you pictures (at CVS) and dropped the camping gear off at their place. I did all this and still made it to work by 10. :P
I wasn't tired all day, which was weird to me. I'm exhausted now and will probably regret staying up to write this tomorrow, but if I didn't write now I probably never would. I had a few bouts of sadness, but overall am doing okay. Could be worse. Winnie invited me over which was so sweet, but I just felt like reading from Encountering God and relaxing at home this evening. I had actually been inspired to write about what I'm reading there, but started off with this and now it is an hour later! I will have to share that another time.