The travelers return

Emily and I made it home late last night. The trip was wonderful/awful. It was so great to be home, and so heartwrenching to leave everyone behind again. Just as I predicted, Sunday morning was jampacked, with over 400 people. The singing was beyond description. More than once, I was too choked up to sing and just soaked it all in, picking out the voices of those dear to me: Jim, Troy, Grace (the list of dear ones is much longer, but these were the ones sitting close enough for me to hear them). I just know heaven is going to be filled with lots of singing.

I am so glad Emily got to go. She was beyond happy to be with her best friends again, and to see other old friends from camp. She is already making plans to go back next summer for church camp. I really hope we can make it happen.

I was able to spend time with a few people as well. On Friday night, my best friend planned a pizza/game night with 2 other couples. Then on Saturday, she and I went up to the church and sat in on one of the worship sessions with the youth before heading out to lunch at one of my favorite Omaha restaurants (one that doesn't exist out here in California). Then we took in a movie (now that is a subject for another post.... boy, was it not what we expected!). The rest of the evening, I spent visiting with more people at the youth rally and then went out to dinner with Grace at Charleston's (my first time there).

After morning services Sunday, Kayla and I had lunch with more old friends... Troy and Rhonda, their kids (Dillon, Kailey, Shayna... Shayna's boyfriend, Cole), Ronda and her girls, Kailah (there Emily.. I fixed the spelling) and Courtney (Kailah is Emily's friend). Then we spent a leisurely afternoon just hanging out around the house until evening worship. It had been such a whirlwind weekend, and my emotions were just right on the surface. Seeing Emily and her best friend Ali together got me choked up before we even started. (I told her later that since she never cries, I just do it for her.) Emily and I had one last fling with Jim and his wife Martha afterwards, heading to Olive Garden, where we practically closed down the place. OG was Emily's one request for eating out in Omaha, because for some reason, the OG's in Califoreignia don't put much garlic on the breadsticks at all (and isn't the garlic the reason we eat them??)

Of course, Monday was the day we had to leave. Kayla had a MOPS meeting at church, so we went along to that (saw more old friends to say hi/bye to) before leaving a bit early to head to the airport. We had an uneventful trip home (apart from the gate change in Atlanta... after we had arrived at Concourse D and had been waiting a few minutes, the flight was changed to a gate all the way back at Concourse A). Watched The Island on the plane. Brian and the kids picked us up outside the San Jose airport... Noah was the only one still awake at that time (10:00 pm); they'd all been awake since 6:45 am and were pretty tuckered out. By the time we got home a little over an hour later, Noah had joined the other 2 in slumber.

So now it's back to real life. I have a list of things for the kids and I to accomplish today that takes up 2 sides of a sheet of copier paper, so I'd better get off of here and get to it.