Monday, June 2, 2008

20 years?!?!? No Way!!



Well, we are back from Jarrod's 20th HS Reunion, and it was a blast!! I worried about my weight for nothing, of course. The only thing all of us cared about was spending time together and laughing...a lot!!
Saturday night was the "adult dinner" at the Olive Tree Bistro. It was such a nice restaurant, and Jarrod, the "natural leader" emceed it. It was great to see his 20 or so classmates relive a lot of great memories and have the bond of Jesus Christ 20 years later! Jarrod and I kept saying to eachother, "Can you believe that we are all grown-ups now, all over the country?" Some have experienced the death of a spouse, fiance, or child; some have stayed in the same town for the past 20 years, others have moved numerous times, or have 5-6 kids...Amazing. I think Jarrod and I DROVE the furthest, although a couple of people flew the furthest.
Sunday afternoon was the family BBQ at a park close to J's hometown. We went from about 30-35 people Saturday night to 80 people on Sunday: yep, the "products" of the class of '88 made up the other 50 people. Everyone had a great time hanging out and, as expected, Jarrod and one of the teens got into a whipped cream fight. Good times!
The biggest part of our trip actually happened 2 hours into our drive TO Kansas. Car trouble. ugh. We had our car in the shop the whole week prior to this trip for a major tune-up, and got it out the night before we left. Then, 2 hours after leaving ABQ we noticed we had no A/C. So when we got to Amarillo we found a repair shop. After about an hour, bad news: the compressor was locked up and the belt is bad... $1300 bad. Well, we don't do credit cards anymore, and we DIDN"T have that kind of money to put into it (nor is the '97 Caravan even worth fixing for that price), so we sat in the van (in the HOT weather) and prayed. Then we rented a car so that we could make it to Kansas without breaking down on I-40 with three kids and a dog.
Yes, all 6 of us piled into an '08 Chevy Impala and drove out of Amarillo 3 hours later. We decided to forget our troubles for a couple of days and just enjoy the Reunion and our friends and family. The kids and Cookie did amazingly well.

We picked up our poor little van in Amarillo on Wednesday morning, in the rain, and began driving (windows down because we have no a/c now). However, there were many prayers being offered up on our behalf, and the Lord kept the weather just perfect- overcast and cool until we drove over the Sandia Mountains and entered ABQ!!!

Now comes the fun part: waiting on God to provide a new van for us. We've committed to not have a car payment, #1-car payments mean more debt, which we are really trying to eliminate, and #2-we couldn't afford a car payment even if we wanted to.
So, the moral of this blog?
Proverbs 3:5-7

Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own
understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take. Don’t be impressed with your own wisdom. Instead, fear the Lord and turn away from evil.








2 comments:

Beth@playinwiththepaulsens! said...

Hey! Looks like fun! and I know one other face in there too! the red head!
I only had one other person in my grad class!
We used to be close....haven't seen him in years now.....

Becky said...

Hey guys!

Sounds like you had a blast at the reunion. I am praying for you with the van situation and your committment to incur any more debt! Kuddos to you as you stay steadfast with this. There have been many times that I have thought of you guys and your resolve when we had the choice to go more into debt or not. Your choices and dependence on the Lord are encouraging to me!