Thanksgiving, a Ball, and a visit to EMU

Life, as usual, has been crazy lately, this past week especially.


Monday was Canadian Thanksgiving. One of the participants is Canadian, and she decided that she would like to make a Thanksgiving dinner for everyone. Since I am in charge of food, I was involved, as well as 3 other girls. We didn't tell anyone what we were doing, and we blocked off the kitchen and dining room as we cooked and decorated. It was crazy - Thanksgiving for a few people is one thing, but when you are doing it for 40 people, which means making between 50-60 servings - that is a different story. We had turkey, gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes, corn, and cranberry sauce. It was a lot of work, but also a lot of fun!


Tuesday night, the guys decided to bless the girls by preparing a really nice meal for us, followed by a little dance party just for the girls. They called it 'The HDC Ball.' We all got dressed up. They called each girl down individually and took a picture of her, and then we were all seated in the dining room, which they had decorated. They served us drinks and a salad, followed by stuffed chicken, asparagus, and garlic bread, and then an ice cream dessert. It was all very good - I told the main chef that he was welcome to take over my job!


This weekend, I visited Allison and a few other friends at EMU. I drove down Friday night, and came back Sunday night. It was been so much fun confusing her friends - we didn't tell anybody that I was coming, except for her roommate. We got a lot of double-takes, and people asking if we're sisters or twins, and people had fun guessing which one is which. I am got the chance to reconnect with four of my friends who were in training with me last year, which was a lot of fun. It's very interesting, because most of our lives, Allison and I have been in the same group of friends. But these past two years, we've developed different groups of friends. She has her college friends, and I have friends from the YES program. It was really fun meeting her friends, and finally be able to put faces with the names of her friends that she's been talking about.


This weekend, the house will be almost empty. The teams are doing either backpacking trips on the Appalation Trail, or they are doing outreaches in different cities. Three of the four volunteer staff will be here, as well as one team of three people for some of the weekend. It will feel very empty here, but I think we are looking forward to it not being quite so crazy around here! Next week will also be interesting, but I will update you on that later...