Perfect weekend

What do you get when you mix together the following in a 4-day span of time..?

• Getting to see my family
• Road trip with Erin
• Getting lost with Erin
• Meeting up with some of my favorite people at Purdue
• Partying at Purdue
• Playing outside with my baby girls
• Candlelight
• Surprising my best friend
• Sleeping in on Labor Day

If you haven't figured it out yet, the answer is this: an absolutely perfect weekend.

I drove up from Evansville on Friday afternoon with my sister Amber's best friend, whose name is also Amber. It was a nice drive; it's always better to have someone with you to make the 3-hour journey a little less boring. It didn't start to get dark until we were about halfway up I-65, at which point we witnessed an amazing sunset from the highway. As my luck would have it, we couldn't catch it on camera. But I did get this shot, which I think is quite pretty.

We made it back to Columbus early Friday evening. I spent that night and most of the next day with my family. I had been gone for less than 2 weeks, but I missed them so much while I was at school! Especially the babies. Seeing their surprised reactions when I walked in the door on Friday evening (I was sneaky and told my family I wouldn't be back until Saturday morning...) just melted my heart.

On Saturday evening, around 6:30, I picked up Erin so we could make the drive up to Purdue together. Seeing as how it's normally a 2-hour drive, we expected to reach West Lafayette by 8:30. Once you take into consideration who was driving (me), however, it should come as no surprise to you that we arrived at Rachael and Mary's apartment shortly after 9:30 p.m.

We got mixed up somewhere around here:

...and found ourselves having gone about 20 miles west on IN-70, when we were supposed to stay north on I-65. We somehow merged off of the Interstate driving through Indy and ultimately ended up parked in the parking garage of the Indianapolis Airport. We were in luck, though- the nice man working the ticket booth at the exit of the garage didn't make us pay after we explained the situation, and he gave us awesome directions to get back on 65.

(Despite his awesome directions, we still managed to get lost one more time.)

The detours took up a little over an hour, but we made it to Purdue safe and sound. I was SO excited to see everyone! Especially Brandon, who is usually stationed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. Erin, Mary, Brandon, and I hung around the apartment for a little while, then hit up a couple of parties. The first was at the Megans' apartment- three girls named Megan, all living together! I fit right in. A couple hours later we met up with everyone else at the boys' apartment.

The whole night was a great mix of old friends and meeting new people. Tons of fun. We ended up back at Mary and Rachael's, watching movies on Comedy Central and ordering pizza at 2 a.m.

That last picture was taken on the steep, pointed rooftop of their apartment building. I was only a little scared of falling off...

We woke up fairly early the next morning, considering how late we'd stayed up. Erin wanted to check out this store called Von's before we left West Laf, so we walked over there around 10 a.m. The store was pretty cool. It was huge and they had everything, from jewelry and beads to comic books and posters to CDs and old vinyl records. Sunglasses, t-shirts, handmade candles, scarves...

...and then there were the books. OH MY GOODNESS. So many books! Downstairs, in the basement, were the used books. To say there were "a ton" would be an understatement. But then I found two whole other rooms (very large rooms) upstairs, filled with aisle after aisle of even more books. New books, old books, antique books, Bibles, textbooks, blank journals... they had everything.

Multiply the images above by 50 and you'll have a good idea of how many books this place had. I was in heaven. My friends literally had to drag me away from the books so we could go get lunch. I will be back, though.

We went to Five Guys Burgers and Fries for lunch... which, in my opinion, should be renamed "Five Guys Burgers and Fries, Fries, and More Fries." I paid almost $9 for the smallest cheeseburger they had, the smallest order of fries, and the smallest drink option. Everything was huge and greasy and they gave me enough fries to  sustain a small country. It tasted okay, I guess, as far as fattening burgers go. But I felt somewhat sick after, even though I could only manage to eat my sandwich and maybe 5 fries.

I'd heard a lot of good things about Five Guys in the past, but my personal review would go something like this: Nice workers. Clean restaurant. Extremely overpriced. Too greasy. WAY TOO LARGE OF PORTIONS. Who can eat that many fries in one sitting, really?!

So after stuffing our faces with unhealthy fast food, it was time to leave Purdue. We said our good-byes and Erin and I hit the road once again... We made it back to Columbus in under 2 hours and didn't get lost once, thank you very much.

I spent the afternoon at home with my baby sisters.  It was such a nice day outside, so we brought their bouncy playpen into the front yard and they played out there for a little while.

Last night was the Candlelight service for this weekend's Chrysalis flight. Chrysalis, in short, is the most amazing youth retreat in the history of all youth retreats. My flight was a couple years ago and I can still honestly say that it was one of the most amazing experiences in my entire life. Don't just take my word for it, though- read more about it here. :)

Anyhoo, the Candlelight service is always something to look forward to for people who have been on a Chrysalis flight (or an Emmaus walk, for the adults) in the past. Being around the local Chrysalis community and laughing and talking and singing and worshiping with them is one of the most uplifting things in the world. Chrysalis events really put everything into perspective for me. Last night's sermon and experience especially gave me a lot to think about.

After the Candlelight service, it was time to put my "surprise the best friend" plan in action. I had been scheming with Kirsten's little sister, Krista, since before I left Evansville and I have to say, it was a success.

Kirsten and I have known each other since kindergarten, and we've been best friends since the 3rd grade. That's over 11 years of best friendship! Never once have we had a big fight or falling out. She is one of the most beautiful girls, inside and out, that I have ever met. She will always be my number one best friend, no matter where life takes us or how old we get.

Since I went off to college, though, we haven't had a whole lot of quality best friend time. Living 3 hours apart, it's really hard to see each other on a regular basis and that definitely puts a strain on our best friendship at times. I knew with everything I had planned for this weekend, I wouldn't get the chance to spend the day with Kirsten, so I wanted to do something special as a reminder of how much she means to me. Hence, the reason why I started planning with Krista this past Thursday...

This is how it played out, in short:

Last night, I showed up at Kirsten's house. (When we talked earlier that day, I told her I was almost back to Evansville, so she didn't even know I was still in town.) I parked by the neighbor's house so she wouldn't notice my car. I hid in the garage and had Mike (her dad) deliver the friendship card I'd written for her. They were all standing in the kitchen, right inside the garage, and the door was cracked so I heard as he gave her the card ("I found this on the front porch, Kirsten...") and she read it and passed it around so everyone else could read it because apparently, she liked it. ;) A few minutes later, Mike asked Kirsten to run up to her room and bring her computer charger back down. As she headed up the stairs, I ran into the house and followed her upstairs. I surprised her in the doorway to her bedroom- she just turned around and POOF, there I was.

She was so surprised! She gave me a million hugs and thank you's and I love you's and then a million more hugs... I believe my plan was a success. We hung out at her house until almost 2 in the morning, when I had to head back home. I wish we could have spent more than a few hours together, but I'm so thankful that we were able to cram some "Megan and Kirsten time" into our jam-packed weekends... I wasn't the only one who was busy- she was winding down from a 44-hour work week at the hospital, on top of going to school full time. Crazy!

All in all, I had an amazing Labor Day weekend. I got to sleep in until almost 11:00 this morning- that hasn't happened in I don't know how long! Now the plan is to spend another hour or so with the family, pack up my car, and head back down to Evansville with Amber.

Oh, and I haven't told you all one of the best parts yet... Kyle is coming to visit this coming weekend! He is one of my best friends and our honorary 5th roommate (well, 4th for now, because it's just the 3 of us in the apartment until we're assigned a 4th official roomie...) and I haven't seen him since the first week of May.

Life is just amazing right now. Thank you, God.

When the sun's shining down on me,

When the world's all as it should be,

Blessed be Your name.