So this week so far has been my favorite. I looooved St. Louis! What a neat city and what a neat church! We started the week by going to a Lutheran service which reminded me a lot of the church I grew up going to, although they did say the Apostle’s Creed slightly different than I was used to… This church was so welcoming, they actually had us come to the front and answer questions about SLC in the middle of service! Afterthe service, they had us stand in a receiving line and we shook everyones hand! So cool!

We ended up staying with the church coordinator as one of our host families and she lived at Concordia Seminary because her husband taught there. They had these really pretty old school houses from the 1920s or so and they had the HUGEST doors I’ve ever seen! I actually had major problems getting in and out of the doors too for whatever reason. I’m used to the cheapy apartment doors, but these were for real, solid oak, you’d have to use a battering ram to break in. They were for sure something out of a C.S. Lewis or J.R.R. Tolkien novel.

One of the nights we were in St. Louis, we went downtown to Union Station which was an old school train station that was basically turned into a shopping complex. It was very pretty inside. We didn’t shop in there much but did see just about the most entertaining fudge show at The Fudgery that I have ever seen. They harmonized with each other and everything! Amazing! After Union Station we walked down to a well known pizza place called Imo’s Pizza. I ordered a Canadian Bacon medium pizza and ate The. Whole. Thing. Speaking of eating, we had ice cream at last count I think 5 times last week. Not just ice cream though, ice cream and custard. For some reason, St. Louis is gaga over custard. One day we even had ice cream in the afternoon and custard at night.

One of my favorite ice cream memories was Kurt, my Area Director coming in with four, count em, four half gallons of ice cream, all based off of flavors he knew we liked, and he had gotten me a Glamour magazine as well. My jaw dropped because this months was quite a flashy cover and I was surprised he’d picked it up and knew what it was lol. SCORE! It was really hard for m to leave my leftover ice cream behind, but I drew the line at bringin it in the car and eating as much of what was left as I could before it melted. Mianly because we did that with leftover pizza lol.


My most/least favorite memory besides eating ice cream too much was visiting the St. Louis Arch. It was so beautiful and simple, I loved it. I could have taken so many neat pictures from so many neat angles, all day long and not gotten tired of it. One thing I did fail to realize however was just how teeny, weeeny, tiny, the inside of that thing would be. I do have diagnosed mild claustrophobia (I say its mild because part of one of my skits is to curl up inside of a trashcan with the lid on and make a lot of noise and that doesn’t bother me), but boy being in a small space with a lot of people, and not a clear exit? That freaks me out. If you’ve never been in it, you go up in these tiny, tiny little pods that fit five people but really should fit only three and you go up in this Willy Wonka type pipe thingie that got suuuuuuper close to the wall at times. You then disembark at the top where they try and fit 500 people in a space that comfortably fits 5. You do get to see pretty sweet views though. My favorite was looking down and seeing my Area Director, Kurt run across the lawn, throw himself to the ground and make grass angels. I videoed him and it was HILARIOUS! Needless to say, I was doing everything short of kissing the ground when we came out of there.


Another super fun activity we got to do in St. Louis was the freeee zoo. In fact, St. Louis has a ton of free things, like a free Science, History and Art museum. The zoo was huge and amazing! They charge for shows which is probably where they make up a lot of their money, but they had a ton of animals. It kind of reminded me of Animal Kingdom, but not as jazzy. Their penguin exhibit was so open you could literally lean down and touch one of the penguins if you had a mind to. My fravorite, fravorite part of the zoo by far was the Insectarium. I spent so much time in there, it was fascinating! I looked at everything! My team was hardcore making fun of me for it, but I didn’t care although I did feel bad that I stayed in there so long that Maggie missed seeing the elephants, but I didn’t do it on purpose, I just lost track of time lol. I went into the butterfly aviary and laughed so hard at this group of African American ladies with their babies who were literally running, screaming and shreiking from these butterflies. One lady used her baby to shield herself from this HUGE blue and black one that was about the size of my head, it was sooo funny I almost peed myself.

We met two different groups of super cool guys on our way up to St. Louis. The first group was two black guys painting the outside of the Fazolis and their names were Larry and Ray. I had had a very discouraging week the week before and was talking to Larry about camp and what we did week to week and out of nowhere Larry starts saying how what we are doing is amazing and how he wanted to encourage us to keep doing it, even though it may be hard and even though we may want to quit because what we are doing is good and the Lord will reward us. He couldn’t have known except for God laying it on his heart, that I needed to hear his exact words of encouragement and it helped a lot knowing that God had heard my prayers and was sending me encouragement through a random angel painting the side of a Fazolis.

The second group of guys we met was Bryan and Josh. They were trying to get to California because they knew people out there who could help them. I was so humbled by these two because they asked if we could give them a ride to which I replied that I couldn’t but could I get them anything inside? Bryan got up and I told him he could get anything he wanted/needed in the store. He came back with a bottle of water. I asked if he wanted to get his friend anything and he meekly replied that one bottle was enough and he would share with his friend. I all about choked. Here I have all my meals and anything I need paid for this summer and I’m coming in all big and bad thinking I’m gonna help this guy and that he’s gonna buy up the place because I’m being so generous and he comes back with water – to share. I changed my tactic and decided to get them meals at the Hardees that was connected to the gas station. I figured I could at least make sure they were eating an actual meal and were full for a little while. He obliged and we were able to get something into their bellies. I talked to him for a little and the guys on my team were able to talk to Josh some outside. I wish I was able to spend more time with him and know him better. The one thing he said that stuck out to me was he wanted to get rich and make money so he could help other people as a way to say thanks to people like me who helped him. And all I did was treat him like the child of God I saw before me and bought him a meal from Hardees and yet to this man, for an hour or so at least, I was a hero.

I was really sad to leave this little church. Our volunteer coaches were so fun and I loved being around them. I especially appreciated the older ones because all of my grandparents have passed away long ago and it was nice to have some again, even if it was only for a week. My little girls (I had a ton of 5 and 6 year olds) loved cheer and I had a blast teaching them new cheers because they picked them up so quickly and all 5 ballet positions. Seeing them do ballet fposition number 5 was priceless I tell you and many of them were really good at it!


I will leave you with a funny story from my Lincoln week which I forgot to put into my blog for that week. So we do a segment with the kids where we dig deep and talk about Jesus dying on the cross and God's grace for our sins. When we finished, the camp coordinator was supposed to come up and give a talk to the kids and basically lay out the plan of salvation for them. Adam and I looked up after our spiel and see the camp coordinator run out of the room. Adam looks at me like “what do we do!” and all I could think of was we need to sing a song! So I start singing “I love you Lord and I lift my voice…” thinking that someone on my team is going to back me up, because I’m singing into a microphone…by myself. And those who know me know the only time I do that is during Karaoke nights and generally I bring a friend with me annnd I have background music and words on the screen lol. Needless to say I flew solo on that one and as I kept singing I definitely had to will myself not to pass out at the fact that I was singing in front of 80 campers and about 20 volunteer coaches. I didn’t win any Grammys for sure, but I did finish the song just in time for the Camp Coordinator to come back. Lol If only it had been videoed, my face was priceless!

Hug someone you love this week and get on the phone, facebook or text or email and tell someone how much they mean to you, it can make your day and their day so much richer!
That’s the true joie de vivre!

In Him and with much love,

Shannon

Slim shady.....

So this week has been so busy, that it is taking me forever to find time to update, but that’s a good thing. :D So we pulled into Lincoln, Nebraska. The three girls, Jacquie, myself and Maggie, were housed in one place with a couple from our church and the boys were housed at the Pastor’s house. Both couples were very nice. Our couple was a little awkward as they weren’t used to having “kids” in the house and they generally went to be by 9:00 to 9:30 and were up by about 6:00. Kris (the wife) said to us many a day, “You girls sure do keep weird hours.” Bless her heart; we had night camps all week so usually we had to be out pretty late.

Both couples had 2 dogs. All four dogs were sooo precious! The couple we stayed with, Kris and Darwin had two Schnauzers called Zephyr and K-9 who were their “children”. Pastor Tim and his wife Karen had two dogs, Lola (who was soooooo cute) and a little poodle something mix and Obadiah who looked like a Collie mix and was so loyal. It was funny because Lola was their 28 year old son’s dog by marriage and you could tell he was still getting used to her lol.

We didn’t do too much site seeing in Lincoln, NE. They had a really neat looking capital building which supposedly looked awesome inside too. They had a neat train downtown and a little park that went with it. They also had a historic square called Haymarket Square which kind of reminded me of Market Square in Knoxville and the Old City. We went to a neat Licorice Shop that had licorice form all over the world and I found these special rose mints from France that I had gotten in Epcot I think as a kid and loved them so much that I saved the tin because it smells like roses. I m pretty sure I still have that tin somewhere too lol. It was heaven to eat them again some 15-17 years later. I felt like that happy little girl again. I remember how much I loved sucking them down to their anise seed center. We also ate at the neatest Paneresque restaurant called The Bread and Cup. Its slogan was something about “simple food” and it was and I loved it. The food was wonderful and fresh and unique. I had a blue cheese and fresh bread and salami plate and loved and ate almost every bit of it.

Speaking of eating, I have never eaten so much in my life and so much of great food. This week alone, I’ve had custard twice and ice cream twice and its only Wednesday lol. The Pastor and his wife cooked for us twice and both times I think I had seconds, which I never do. Friday we hung out at a pretty, local lake and I got to catch up with people on the phone and then we went to a fun little shop called Rocket Fizz which had about a bajillion different soda flavors, candy types and tin signs.

As far as camp went, it was another awesome week. We had twentyish adult and youth volunteers and again, they had such great hearts for the kids. They were up for anything and we did our first Wacky Water World side show experience with them (which is as wet as it sounds) and they all took one for the team and got drenched! We were expecting around 60 kids and ended up with 80 which was soo many, but so amazing! My girls got to perform a sweet little dance for their parents and I was very proud of them, I felt like they did so well.

I got an email this week confirming my worst nightmare, that yes, indeed, as I had feared, that I had left my teddy bear (yes teddy bear) at Kris and Darwin’s house. Imagine how douchy I felt when I told the Camp Coordinator that yes, in fact, the teddy bear was mine. My excuse was and is that it was a graduation bear from UCF and is black and gold and has my graduation year on it and I brought it to remind me of home. I ended up sleeping with it the last night I was there and left it. Lol FAIL! Poor bear. He should now be on route to my PO Box is Knoxville. I was too worried for him to be shipped to an address somewhere around here this summer and risk him being lost lol.

So that’s about it for Lincoln. It was a pretty chill week. This week has been amazing and I am so excited about updating you about it next week. I think so far on this trip I’ve learned a couple things about myself or more else, confirmed a few things about myself, one being that I continue to suck as letting people serve me/be hospitable to me. It makes me feel uncomfortable. I’m so bad at letting other people take care of me and feed me, etc. I don’t know why, I guess I was just brought up to take care of myself then lived by myself for so long that I’m just used to providing for myself. Needless to say it’s been a humbling experience and I’m working on this silly character “flaw”. The second thing is how much I’ve really enjoyed (and needed) to keep up with my friends. I kind of figured that Id talk to everyone maybe once this summer, come back with cool stories, and catch up with people where I left off. (Not so little grasshopper). I’ve actually really wanted to call people and keep up with them and let them keep up with me. I’ve leaned on my friends this summer more than I thought I would and some of them didn’t even know it. Just hearing a familiar voice and knowing I was being thought of, needed, missed or someone was just bored and wanted to talk sometimes was very heartwarming. Sometimes when you miss home, all you need is someone who you know knows you and loves you for who you are (friends and family) to speak to you on the other line and it feels like a little bit of home. I know it sounds mushy and weird, but if you’ve ever been away in weird places every week with people you didn’t know super well and you’d never been gone for more than 2 weeks, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

No funny spider stories from Lincoln. We did leave Slim out in the rain for two days which was a huge fail, but he made it cuz he’s a hearty little fellow. (and by we I pretty much mean I, but nobody bothered to rescue him).
Two words I’ve caught and am saying all the friggin time now is “fail” and “legit”.
Lol man o man.

Keep seeking the Lord, for he is the key to joie de vivre!

In Him,

Shannon