Jesus! Is Caillou on?!

We went to the rain forest today. It was awesome! It takes about an hour to get there, especially if you have to have a few potty emergencies on the way. The rain forest is on a large hill so we spent a great deal of time watching the rain forest from the comfort of the car, which was awesome. We got out and looked at the water fall, met some new friends, and took some great pictures.

Then it was time for a lovely lunch. We had a picnic lunch next to the craziest family ever (“Stop doing that and I’ll buy you whatever you want!”) and watched lizards. After lunch we took more pictures and went to the top of the a pretty cool tower and got some more fantastic pictures. After that, Lisa and I went to the visitor center and I got some AWESOME presents to bring home for some of my favorite kiddos and my favorite man.

We got back and it was time for resting time. Thanks goodness. I stayed up WAY too late last night, so I took a great nap this afternoon and woke up just time time for a delicious dinner of hamburgers and french fries!

After dinner we had a super fun time playing with the kids. It started as a camp out and turned into raspberry central. The little man can blow some serious raspberries! We laughed until we cried and couldn’t breathe. I’m learning so much here about the joys of having children. I’m also learning some sweet recipes, how to cook different things, the importance of family prayer, quality dinner conversation, and that love knows no bounds. (That last one was just something Tom said one day about my crazy life but it made me feel more secure in my crazy decisions!)

It’s hard to believe that my time in paradise is almost over. It’s going to be very strange going to the store and hearing English. It’s going to be very weird having real responsibilities like going to work, school, packing, moving, returning phone calls, etc. This has been a wonderful vacation. It’s also hard to believe how much my life has changed in the past month or so. I’ll return home late on Thursday night, only to have less than a week to prepare for school and pack up my apartment. I leave for New Orleans after classes on the 28th, which is also the first day of school. I return late Monday night in time for school on Tuesday morning. Wednesday I will begin moving my things into Epworth. I will most likely sleep there on Wednesday night so that I can take the DART in on Thursday and eliminate my terrible commute as soon as possible. I’ll finish moving my things in on Friday and move furniture in on the 6th. Then I have a week to clean my old place and officially move everything out before someone else moves in potentially on the 13th. The Breast Cancer 3-day is sneaking up on my very quickly and we have several fundraisers between now and November. I’m also babysitting a few long weekends in October, so that will keep me busy. All of this, of course, will be from a new location of the metroplex that I am not totally familiar with… There is a Kroger nearby, so I’m sure I’ll be right at home. 🙂

I imagine I’ll be making a trip or two to NOLA as well over the semester as well as potentially showing the boy around my section of the world. In addition, I need to graduate. And figure out what I want to get a job in once I have another diploma. I’m pretty sure that I know WHERE I’d like this perfect dream job to be, but I’m not entirely sure what I want to do. I also am pretty convinced that traditional, local church ministry is not for me right now. It’s good to know what you DON’T want sometimes.