freak out!

dude, what a night...

so i picked up paul for church around 7... normally it would take me about 20 minutes to get to church from where he lives, but some roads are undergoing major construction which just got majorly worse this week... so it took us 40 minutes and we got there just before the sermon hymn... oops.

pretty much the same maundy thursday order of worship i'm used to. at the end, with the stripping of the altar, bonnie, the team leader for my altar guild team tapped me on the shoulder and told me i could help if i wanted, and so i did.... it's cool to be part of a church family, know people, and be involved rather than just passively present. =) paul plans to come with me to church tomorrow and on sunday too, so i guess that's a good sign that he was cool with the place... from what he's said he comes from a very very conservative lcms congregation back in indiana (near valpo), but has visited many many other kinds of churches, etc. out of curiousity too... it was interesting to chat with him for the drive to and from.

after i dropped paul back off at his place, eric and me ran around for quite some time... first, after mooovie night last saturday we started making a list of mooovies that neither of us have seen (tomorrow night is jerry mcguire night i think), or that one or the other has seen and thinks the other should... we returned last week's mooovie and rented tomorrow's... went to walmart, and played with sunglasses, and sniffed just about every scented candle on the shelves (i bought 3 because i'm down to just one in my room again that has any wick), and then went back to his place to finish homework... after homework, we started preliminarily planning trips for this summer and it's going to be nuts!

so i have a dentist appointment in memphis on july 14th... eric doesn't want to go home in early july, and wants to go farther north to see grandparents, etc., so it doesn't make sense to include memphis on the vegas trip, so the plan is i'll be in memphis from whenever til the 14th, then drive back up to jersey the 15th-16th or 15th-17th depending on how energetic i feel... then... insanity begins!

i booked a flight (for under $150!!!!!!) from newark to vegas for the afternoon of july 18th that's a sunday... we'll be in vegas so i can see all the fun stuff on the 19th, and drive the 45 minutes to the rollercoaster at the NV/CA border just so i can say i was in california too! then east to the grand canyon, and north to stay with one of eric's friends in provo... then north to yellowstone, then east to mount rushmore, then more east to MN, valpo area, detroit (eric's grandma's place), pittsburgh, and back to jersey... we're not sure how many days we'll take, but for sure at least a week, maybe closer to two... and that's what... six?!?! new states? (CA, NV, AZ, UT, WY, and SD)... completely freaking out that this is going to be the coolest road trip ever! i can't wait!!!!) p.s. if you live along this general route (i think mostly I-90 til chicago) anywhere between NV and IN or will be somewhere on this general route in late july, let me know so we can crash at your place ;-P

at any rate, it's freakin 2:15am and i have to be up in 6 hours... maybe it's time to pick the contacts out of my eyes and get some sleep... night y'all!