What a weekend!
I’m writing this on Tuesday afternoon, because we’ve pretty much had an extended weekend here. Just this morning, John, James, and I dropped off Ashley and Deborah at the airport in order for them to fly back to Detroit. But what a weekend it was…
Some of the highlights from the past few days were when we gathered together and watched Napoleon Dynamite, a movie that I had heard so much about but had never seen. Another highlight was when Emily, Ashley, and Deb accompanied a few of us to our volleyball games on Sunday night. After the games, we headed over to one of the Taco Bells in Belleville and had a fun time there, just sitting and talking for a while.
On Monday afternoon, we dropped Emily off at the bus station. A few hours later, we left with Deb and Ashley to drop them off at the airport… only to pick them up a little while later because they missed their flight! 
While it was a real shame that they missed the Monday evening flight, it was kind of neat because it enabled us to take them along to our Monday night softball game, and after that we had a nice, big bonfire in the back of our property. It was an unusually cool night, so it was the perfect weather to gather around the fire. It was a beautiful night — a full moon out, mist floating above our pond. It was really a great time to be outside. 
The girls’ new flight was set for a little after 8:00 this morning. Instead of shutting things down and trying to get a few hours of sleep, we decided to try to make the most of things. So the wee-morning hours of today were spent mostly in our kitchen and living room, as a few of us (John, James, and I) just hung around with Deb and Ashley and talked for a while. James, Ashley, and I had a real good discussion about God’s mercy and love and how much He wants us to love other people. It was a really great chat, I thought.
Once sunrise rolled around, we loaded up into the van and took off for Lambert Airport in St. Louis. We arrived at the airport around 6:30, and the girls got all of their pre-flight things taken care of. We then went to the Burger King in the airport, ate some breakfast, saw Ashley and Deborah to the security area, and finally said farewell.
John, James, and I finally arrived back home around 9:00. We were all pretty beat from having just pulled an all-nighter, so we were pretty eager to head back to our rooms and get a little bit of sleep. I finally woke up around noon, and here I am.
I think I really only scratched the surface of what happened over the extended weekend, but that’ll just have to do. We had a blast. It was tiring, but in my opinion it’s the kind of situation where it’s well worth it to stay up a little bit later, stretch things a little bit longer. Sleep can be caught up on after it’s all said and done, when everybody is back home.