child at heart

this trip has been amazing thus far. here’s a little recap:

Friday: mom and  worked a half day with grafton and then left for Atlanta after we ran a couple errands before the trip. we made good time and made it to atl in about 3 hours, including a gas break, a wrong turn to columbus,ga and and interesting rest stop bathroom break. we got to the hotel and decided to just hang low so we could get some good sleep before the trip started. we ordered in room service: mom got a calzone and i got popcorn shrimp. the showers and the beds = heaven. seriously. besides my shower i honestly don’t think i left this bed once all night. amazing.

saturday: we got up at 5am and went down to wait for the shuttle. not cool. surprisingly the whole day went pretty awesome like. we made it to the airport in about 2 minutes flat and settled into our security routine. we missed all the hype-tsa-full-body-pat-down. i guess we looked good? i don’t know. either way, we made it to our gate and waited until time to board. the flight really wasn’t that bad. we slept a good bit on the flight. our layover in Dallas really wasn’t too bad but the flight itself sucked. i slept a little but the landing was HORRIBLE and i got real sick. at this point we were starting to run into the bad weather here in redlands and it caused the plane to rock back and forth a ton – not cool. mom had to put pressure onto my seabands so it would try to help. it did a bit, but i still could feel a lump rising up into my throat. i thought i was going to loose it. so we finally landed and met up with grandma and grandpa. it was cool. the rain was cool. it was enjoyable. i’m not going to go into other details that were not so cool but hey, that happens. so we went to winchell’s and got some doughnuts because mom swears they are IT. we came back home at this point because the weather was getting worse and mom and i were already getting tired. we hung around at the house. later that night dani and mark came over. my mouth caused an issue (its all good now) and we all just hung around and talked for a good while and got to know each other a bit. it was fun. to end the night we got into our jammies and snuggled into the living room to watch “balistic”. mom and i got about half way through and then crashed and went to bed. you wouldn’t think that 2 hours is this big of a time difference to get used to.

Sunday: today was interesting. we went to church with grandma and grandpa at their Lutheran church. it was different. nothing seriously wrong with it, the service was just not something i was used to… very different from the southern baptist way is all. thankfully i knew a couple of the songs we sang so that i could  follow a little bit. after church we stopped by a nearby grocery store to pick up a couple things and then went back home to put on some more warm clothes. this weather has been crazy since we arrived. cold and rainy. supposed to be some snow on the mountains tomorrow. we hung around the house and grandma made homemade dumplings for lunch. :) before the rain picked back up we all piled into the car and decided to tour around the town a little bit. we saw mom’s old house and school and the church she grew up in. we saw the nunnery across the street and some of the nearby mansions. they are NICE if i can say so. we drove to the top of the hill and looked at the valley from the top of the canyon. the view was breathtaking. rolling hills and mountains everywhere. orchards in rows upon rows. the sun go down into the hills. we then drove to the bottom of the canyon to see the same mountains from a new perspective. that was nice as well. we also drove around town to the new outside mall which is a lot like eastchase. we came back home and mom and i looked through 2 big boxes of old pictures. hilarious. came across lots of pictures of mom and mark as little kids as well as a TON of grandma fran before she passed away. they were precious. i really do wish i would have been able to meet her before she passed. sometime this week the plan is for uncle mark to take us out to her grave. we ate some leftovers and then got into our jammies. we all went into the living room and got some popcorn and started watching “the burbs” before mom and i crashed about 30 minutes before the end of the movie.

Monday: we spent all day with uncle mark and it was pretty much the jam. we started out early this morning by having grandma and grandpa drop us off at his house. we toured his place and then met one of his roommates whom he so colorfully described to us. next we piled into his car and went down to stater brothers to see dani. it was fun to see where she works as well as see her again. she looks great. we went to go pick up bread for the mission this morning and it was cool to see the recovery church in action helping out others in need. next we went out to the church and started getting everything set up to start the mission. i know that’s not what its called but i don’t remember the exact name so mission it will be. mom and i started by packing the food bags and when we started to get a good bit of people i was pulled to check them in and get them their tickets for the food bags. they were able to get a free lunch and a bag of free groceries. they got a box of cereal, a box of crackers, a cup of soup, 2 packs ramen, 1 box cookies, 2 cans tuna, 1 can green beans, 1 can corn, 1 huge can spaghetti sauce, 1 pack noodles, a huge jug of apple sauce, 2 boxes macaroni, 1 container peanut butter and jelly, 1 can chicken noodle soup and 1 can tomato soup. pastor gave a short little devo like sermon and then it was time to hand out the groceries. each family also got this week a free 12 pound turkey and a bag of trimmings: stuffing mix, gravy, cranberry sauce and some bread. it was AWESOME. we gave out 65 bags of groceries and 85 turkeys. how great is that. after everyone left we helped clean up the church. i put up the chairs and tables, and helped take out all the trash.

afterward we went back to uncle marks house where we met his landlords who lived next door and some of his neighbors across the street. he ran some of the extra food he was given to people who needed it and then mom and i treated him out to lunch at pizza chale. we pigged ourselves out but it was nice to just hang and talk. we had the BEST pizza. pepperoni, onions, black olives, extra cheese, bell peppers and cashews. yes, as in the nut. AND it was actually a lot better than i expected it to be. after lunch we went over to his friends house (who had a job for him to do) – David and Diana – and picked up some money so we could go pick up the part he needed to fix their dryer. we came back to the house and mom and i socialized with Diana while uncle Mark worked on the dryer. it really was lots of fun and she had lots of questions about  how we did such and such down south. we exchanged emails so we could share recipes back and forth. i’m so looking forward to it. lastly we took a trip to the .99 cent store since we don’t have anything like that at home. good stuff for under a dollar. it was legit. name brand food and candy. nice dishes. fresh produce, clothes. you name it and it was there. so stinkin awesome. after we hung around for a while uncle Mark drove us back home for the night. like i said, it was nice to hear stories from him and mah about their childhood and see them just hang out together.

also, according to several people i don’t seem to have as much of a southern drawl as mah does. take that or leave it. either these people have never heard someone with a southern drawl or they are basing their ideas of one on movies like deliverance. either way i know i have one and i don’t really mind one way or another.