Let the Freak Show Begin...

I had a great weekend. This weekend was the St. Louis youth gathering for Jr. highers. It was an event I had been looking forward to for quite some time. My best friend was speaking. Jacob's Road was the band, which meant not only was there going to be amazing times of worship...but I would get to see Carrie...who totally rocks my face off. I knew some of the area youth leaders bringing their kids...Laura and Aaron were going to speak...and my group was being chaperoned by Aubrey and I. I was going to be surrounded by so many cool people I could hardly stand it.

Things were looking good (except for the fact that I had a couple kids drop out because of illness the day before we left.) Friday morning I picked up the 12 passenger van and drove it over to church. Me driving a 12 passenger van is in itself an event to laugh at. Not to worry...I'm an excellent driver. We loaded up the van and headed to STL. The trip was pretty uneventful. We arrived at the hotel and I got to see friends that I love so dearly...but I also had 4 Jr. highers waiting for me to take them downtown and show them the city. So we went to the arch and saw the new stadium. Things were going great until we got out of the van at the restaurant we were going to eat dinner at and one of my girls told me there was a flat tire on the van. Dangit. So I call the rental agency and they send someone over to fix the tire, only we're in a very crowded parking lot and the simple tire change turns into a major production...at which point my mother saves the day and picks up my youth and brings them to the gathering so they don't miss the beginning.

When I finally arrived at the gathering that night, I felt good...like things were under control...until I realized I hadn't medicated my youth that needed to be medicated. eek. So I had to run to find the appropriate meds and bring them down. The only problem with that is that one of the kids medicine totally knocked him out and he slept through most of the first evening. But we got that all straightened out the next night. It's a good thing I only had 4 to look after this weekend. It was the most stress free gathering I have ever been at. It's not that I didn't have moments of stress...it's just that it was WAY less than any I had ever been on before...probably because there were only 4 kids to keep track of. It was fun to see the kids kind of have mini transformations over the weekend.

Saturday night was Crazy Dress night at the gathering and in preparation for the dance that was about to go down...Aubrey and I pulled out a bag of freak show attire and got the kids, and ourselves ready to impress with our craziness.

It was at this point of the weekend that I realized I really am quite the freak show. With Danielle and Laura to encourage and support me in my freak showness, I think there were moments when it just all came out...crazy...but Danielle said something to me that night that made me realize why it's so good to have friends like that...she said something about making sense when we were together. Like most people look at us like we're weird (probably because we are) but when we're together, it just makes more sense...because we're weird together. It makes me happy to have friends that you can just let the Freak Show out with. It's good stuff people...you should try it.