This weekend was a freaking blast. Let me just let you in on a little secret...the Turner family is awesome. I love them. Kitty and Howie might be the most awesome friend's parents I know. This camping trip was probably made all the more spectacular though because of the incredible delay that happened from my first invite until the actual coming to fruition of sitting around my first campfire with them. See, I had been invited for the previous five years but something always came up at the last minute...from bachelor parties, to family weddings, to family crises...something always prevented my attending. Perhaps it was because God knew I just wasn't ready yet, perhaps it was because He knew they weren't ready yet. Whatever the reason, it is what it is, for now I have been and have come back alive to tell of it.
We arrived late on Wednesday night, and when I say late I mean around midnight-thirty. Howie and Kitty stayed up for our arrival, but soon after that Howie and the Swartzels crashed while Kitty, Ashley, and myself stayed up for another hour and a half or so enjoying an adult beverage and catching up on life. The next day was filled with an insane amount of food (as was the whole trip really) and spending the day lounging at the beach of Kneff Lake. Great times...floating to the other side on our Cadillacs, beating old men in Washers, throwing small children onto and off of a large inflatable raft, log rolling, and hearing funny stories about Ashley from both Howie and Kitty. Great times. The next day we prepared for and took the epic canoe trip, from which many stories came out of in the past. The big story this year, was perhaps my relegating of Ashley to the front of the canoe and putting her in her place when it came to all of that jazz. Apparently Miss Ashley is not used to not steering and having control of the canoe. Suffice to say, that yours truly did so well that she barely needed to paddle. Count one for the good guys. Saturday consisted of playing lots of games while the foolish ones of the group played something called "golf". Silly rabbits, tricks are for kids.
Overall it was a great weekend, and I count many new friends amongst these people. I would feel comfortable going back and being with them next year, even if Ashley wasn't able to attend. I'm sure the Swartzels will be back as well.
Speaking of Andrew Swartzel...he and I decided something crazy while on the way back from this epic trip. While we were up in town, we saw signs and such for this canoe marathon that people just somehow knew what it was and so there wasn't a whole lot of explanation. Well we investigated it, and found it to be the longest canoe marathon in North America this coming weekend: 120 miles! Talk about epic! Well we started discussing the viability of us attempting the intense physical feat that goes anywhere from 14 to 19 straight hours of paddling. Through a river, dams, ponds, eddys, over a little land, through the night, bugs, wind, rain, whatever Mother Nature would throw at us...we would continue to paddle until it was finished. Now I know what you're thinking: you can't just sign on and do that in one week! You're right, we can't. However a year from now? Yes please.
So that's my weekend and life update-ish. There still is a lot of things that I haven't decided yet when it comes to the next stage of my life and what I am going to be doing next. As of now it's still:
Columbus: work for Max & Erma's as a manager, lead, coach
Raleigh: find a job, help with Church of the Triangle, lead
Blacksburg/Virginia: find a job, lead, unpaid intern training for YL
Orlando: find a job, lead, raise up committee, revitalize First Year Fellowship/New Leader Training and therein the whole leadership/city from a YL perspective
So yeah. I suppose you could throw in there: curveball from God - who knows?
Welp, that's all for now. Wish I had a cool sign off saying, but I don't so I may start trying on various ones.
Word to your mother.
