8.3.04

Beavers and hamsters and guinea pigs... Oh my!

Hey! Well today was pretty uneventful. I went to work then to clogging. Seth couldn't come tonight though. :( He wasn't feeling well. He's been having this stomach thing for a while. Like it'll hurt a few hours then he's fine the whole day. I just hope its nothing too bad or serious. He has to have another test done tomorrow. (His grandma's a doctor so he won't get out of it I don't think. ;)) He hasn't called yet so I may call him in a few minutes to make sure he's feeling ok!

Well I did it! I wrote up the whole week in review of my trip to orlando! So feel free to read it! Or um if you don't want to just scroll to the bottom where I say TTFN! Then its over. Haha. But yea here it is...

Friday:
We left the church at about 8am and drove to Brunswick, GA. The car ride wasn’t too bad. It was long though, we drove about 12 hours. I rode in the van w/Doug and Jenny, Nicole, Amanda, and Andrew. I talked, read, and slept. The hilarious part of the trip down, was when Pastor, who apparently really had to go to the bathroom, stopped at McDonalds and made a beeline to the restroom, and not paying attention went into and used the womens restroom! To make it even funnier, Nicole walked in on him in the ladies room. It was hysterical, and I’m sure he’ll never live that one down. But we got there about 8 in the evening. I called Seth, who was still at home that time, and talked to him for a while, then called my mom.

Saturday
We didn’t leave GA till around noon, so when we got up Nicole, Matthew, Andrew, Sam and I went swimming that morning. Pastor joined us later. That was a lot of fun. Then I showered and we left for Florida. We got there around 4:00 at the Orange County Convention Center. Let me tell you that place is HUGE!!! We got checked in and got these orange backpacks. We were supposed to carry them throughout the week. They had bibles in them and a program book of all the events and speakers and schedules and stuff. The theme for the week was “Beyond Imagination”. Then we went to our hotel. We stayed at the World Center Marriot in Orlando. It was a really nice hotel, the beds were really comfy! There were like 8 pools and glass elevators and yea it was neat. We then went to dinner at Golden Corral I think… then back to the convention center for the starting of the gathering. The theme for that day was Power. We had a bible study, and then this one lady spoke about the power of God’s word, and we also sang and stuff. There was 35,000 Lutheran Missouri Synod Youth. Hard to believe. All in one room, and more people there than in the entire city of Parkersburg. That was about all the excitement for that day.

Sunday
We left the hotel in the morning and went to the convention center. We had a bible study with all 35,000 people that were there. After the bible study we split up into groups and went to different events. Nicole, Megan, and I went to hear this one lady named Gianna Jessen. She was an abortion survivor. Hearing her talk about her experiences almost made me tear up. She was aborted by her mother in the 3rd trimester, and she survived being in a saline solution. She was delivered and to everyone’s surprise was alive. She was only like 2 pounds or something. She stayed with a foster mom and was adopted later at the age of 3. She definitely defied all odds, she has cerebal palsy. But yea she spoke some about abortion, and more about abstinence and purity in relationships. I enjoyed hearing her talk. We met for lunch, ate, then went back to the hotel for a while. We went swimming and came back in the evening for the mass event. The theme for Sunday was Truth. The speaker that day was this guy named Bob. He was a really good speaker, one of the best I thought. His spoke about his sister, who is mentally retarded and how he was ashamed of her when he was younger and how he regrets those things and some other things about being ashamed and not having to be ashamed of the Gospel. But yea he brought his sister up and she sang for everyone. It was really sweet. Anyway, that was about all that day.

Monday
We had the bible study at 10. Afterwards they had the different events. We stayed together mostly that day, and went to the west complex to see what was going on over there. Sam and Andrew played soccer in the sports thing they had there. We also visited all the booths they had set up there. There were things for different Lutheran Organizations and missions and things. Each district also had a booth so we looked at all those. It took basically all morning to see everything there. We left around lunchtime and drove through McDonalds and went back to the hotel. Some went swimming, Amanda and I went down to the hot tub and stayed in there for a while. Then we came back up and got ready and went back to the convention center for the mass event. The theme that day was Love. There was no featured speaker that day, but we sang as always, and there was this play type thing. There was another drama that had been going on at all the mass events at the end. Yea it was really weird. But anyway, after the mass event we went to the Medieval Times dinner theatre with all of the Ohio District. It was really cool. “Our knight” was the red and yellow knight, and he won! It was neat, and I liked it. We didn’t get back to the hotel till around 1 though so needless to say we were a little worn out!

Tuesday
We went to the bible study at 10, then Nicole, Megan, Andrew and I went to go see the Bob guy who spoke at the mass event the other day. He was really great and really funny and entertaining. I don’t remember any specific highlights but I enjoyed hearing him. We met everyone else and ate an expensive lunch at the convention center, then we all went to go see this lady Pam was her first name I can’t remember her last name . She was really good, we as a youth had watched a tape of her speaking before but she was awesome. She spoke all about the physical, emotional, and spiritual consequences of premarital . She used humor and stuff too so she was really fun to hear. She was probably the best speaker out of the ones that I heard. After hearing her, we went back to the hotel for a while. Then we went out to dinner, then back to the convention center for a worship service with holy communion. I liked the service, the only thing I didn’t like is I think some of the kids still thought they were at a concert all the whooping and hollering and stuff… I guess they just weren’t as reverent as our group was. But other than that it was good.

Wednesday
We left in the morning for the bible study and Mass event. Everything was closed out pretty much, it was over at noon. We went back to the hotel for a while and got ready then Jenny and Doug took us all to Cocoa Beach. It was great! I absolutely love the beach! Well I did lose my sunglasses in the ocean, that wasn’t cool, but they were cheapos so it was ok. We left the beach and went back to the hotel and changed and everything then we went to Joe’s Crab Shack for dinner. It was really good! And it was hilarious, haha especially Doug and his “crab balls” (haha don’t ask)

Thursday
We ate breakfast that morning at Denny’s. Then we went shopping at this outlet mall, I didn’t get anything. It didn’t seem like much of an outlet mall to me, everything was still expensive. I didn’t need anything anyway. But it was enjoyable enough. Then we went back to the hotel and then went to Universal Studios. They (meaning Jenny and Doug) decided that it would be better to go to that side of the park than the Islands of Adventure side (with all rollercoasters). A couple of the s were really really upset about that decision. Personally I didn’t care. I mean, I love rollercoasters, and would’ve liked to ride some, but I was just as happy to go to the other side. I had fun anyway, and I wasn’t going to complain about it since I wasn’t paying for it. But it was fun. We got back that night and pretty much went straight to bed because we were all exhausted.

Friday
We left in the morning to start our gradual trek back home. The ride home was fun actually, we sang a lot. We stayed that night in Statesville, NC at this motel that wasn’t that great. Our room smelled of stale cigarette smoke, mildew, and household cleaner. Not pleasant. The beds were uncomfortable and the water pressure was like non existent. I felt like I had to run around in circles in the shower to get wet. But it was just one night and as you can see it didn’t kill me. We had some laughs though. Haha Amanda and I slept in the car that day so we weren’t tired so we stayed up singing Disney songs and other kids songs until Whitney and Nicole got annoyed. It was amusing ;).

Saturday
We left that morning and drove all the way home. I read and talked most of the way. We made it back to Parkersburg around 3:00. It was a great trip overall, I mean we had some things that didn’t go smoothly, and even a few tiffs among us, but I had a lot of fun and I think all of the youth got to know each other better.

Well that was basically the whole week in review! I am really glad to be home though. I missed Seth sooooo much. I missed my family too, and yes even the little hellions at the daycare ;).

Alright well I'm off! TTFN!

~Melissa

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