Jam Packed Week!

I was blessed to go back to Minnesota for seven days. This was great for me, but also involved squeezing many things into each day, and utilizing every minute.

I arrived in St. Paul on Thursday and was greeted by 27˚F temperatures and my wonderful fiancee Adam. I was happy to see both. From the airport we drove straight to Hutchinson, MN to visit Adam's mom and sister. While in Hutchinson we also made the deposit on our block of rooms for the hotel for the wedding, went to the reception hall and spoke with the venue supervisor, and finalized our catering.

The next day we awoke early to meet for coffee with Adam's DCE and talked wedding, marriage, and life in general. From there we left Hutchinson and drove to Gaylord, MN to visit Adam's grandma in the nursing home.

With most of the day shot we drove back to St. Paul just in time for me to get to my friend, Amanda's, Bachelorette  Party. The party was fun as it was comprised of DCE, DCO, and LCT (Lutheran Classroom Teacher) friends from college. It was 80's theme and we enjoyed karaoke songs from the 80's and 90's, as well as the original in the box game "Girl Talk". It was a lot of fun.

Amanda's 80's Batchlorette Party

This pretty much sums it up! Karaoke & Dancing

After a late night at the Bachelorette Party I was up early once again as my family drove to St. Paul to visit. I had not seen my dad, brother or sister, in over 7 months. We went out to lunch and then drove to my brothers house in Wyoming, MN for a day of fun.

My family minus my sister Kayli who is in Germany

The next day we went to church in Lakeville, MN where I did my fieldwork. I love this church so much and the people even remembered me as did some of the youth! At the service I got to speak with special guest Rev. Bill Ney from the Lutheran Assocaition of Missionaries and Pilots (LAMP). Rev. Bill is a pilot who travels to remote areas of Canada to do mission work for the Lutheran Church of Canada. You can see his blog --> here<--

My family headed home after church and I headed off to the mid-year intern retreat which was a busy experience in itself (See previous blog post).

Upon my return on Tuesday Adam and I set out to begin or wedding registry. We decided to register at Target and Bed, Bath, & Beyond and Sears. We had a list of things in mind as we went around with the registry "guns" scanning the things we wanted. Toward the end it was slightly overwhelming as they did not have all that we wanted OR they had too much of an item--like spatulas there was like a dozen different kinds!

As we finished the back aisles of Target I walked past the toys to which Adam convinced me we should walk over to the game section. On our way Adam stopped at the Nerf Guns and begged to put them on the registry. Of course I said yes. Some may call it foolish but I call it love. We can't be serious all the time or we would lose our minds. I shared this with my youngest sister Kayli to which she told us "watch your gonna end up with like 50 of those things you silly love birds" Ah, well they will double as ministry tool and will be a great way to get Adam up and at'em in the morning (Who doesn't love getting pelted with Nerf guns at 6:00am?)

Yup that happened-Nerf Guns at Target

Getting our dishes set at Bed, Bath, and Beyond

From Target we moved to Bed, Bath, and Beyond and after six hours of registering we were BEYOND done! I was exhausted and finished out at Sears the following day.

Adam was mad we didn't play the game "Risk" first.

My final evening in St. Paul, I enjoyed double date with my good friends Amy & Brian. We played "Boxers of Briefs" as Amy & and I wanted to play it and then followed with a game of Risk (for the boys).

What a jam  packed week. I'm still not caught up on sleep nor did I get in everything I wanted to do in the seven days I was in Minnesota. I think Charles Dickens said it best with

“There is never enough time to do or say all the things that we would wish; The thing is to do as much as you can in the time that you have”

...and that I certainly did.