Sioux Falls

So Andrea and I loaded up into the car at 5:30 a.m. last Friday morning and headed up to Sioux Falls, SD to visit my favorite crew for a pre-SERVE meeting. We were supposed to be there at 11:30, but due to my overestimation on how long it would take to drive, we got there an hour early. (Oops! Lucky for me, Andrea didn't hold it against me that we could have had an extra hour of sleep!)

We met for a pizza lunch (with my all time favorite pizza from Papa Johns) at Troy's church, and it was great to see Troy, Dawn, Luke, Mark, Danny, Ashley, and Kristi again - plus a few new faces. After a very productive meeting where it seemed that SERVE was falling together quite well despite how every meeting consists of constant teasing and howling laughter, Dawn, Mark, Ashley and I headed off to the new Christian school to see where we'd be putting the whole event on. (Andrea headed shopping to spend some of her birthday money.)

The new Christian School seems to be a great facility to host a SERVE, and I even got to visit the science room thanks to Ashely, where I got to see a very defensive plant and watch her put her finger in a sheep's heart. Yeah, just your normal afternoon. Dawn then took us all out to Dairy Queen where Mark led us a in a very philosophical conversation and we laughed more in an hour than I think I'd laughed all month.

Troy and his wonderful wife Janna hosted Mark, Andrea, and I for supper at his new country home, and we had an awesome time feasting on steaks and playing with Alec, Reese, and Sage. Thanks to the Kooima's, Andrea is now extra gung ho about finding our own house. Thanks guys.

Then it was off to the Ramkota Inn where Danny works part time - he pulled a few strings and got us a suite that one of the Oakridge boys had stayed in (as well as South Dakota politico John Thune.) It was a fantastic suite, and many "thank you's" go out to Troy, Danny and the whole Sioux Falls crew for putting us up in such fancy digs for the night. We closed out our evening my favorite way possible - sitting around a living room, eating pizza and donuts, and laughing with Andrea, Danny, Mark and myself.

On Saturday, we hopped out of bed at the last possible second and headed over to the the North American Baptist Seminary for a CORE Youth Specialties event. It was great because we got to spend some more time with Troy, Dawn, and Luke, and I actually took notes during a lecture. I don't think I'd done that since . . . well, I don't know if I've ever done that.

I learned it had been Luke's birthday the day before, unbeknownst to me! I told him I'd make it up to him by treating the next time I saw him like it was his birthday. I'm going to have to get him a new, cool magic trick to make up for it.

After finally departing from our beloved Sioux Falls Crew, we headed home with the plan to stop half way at the home of two of our favorite people - Mike and Susie Rottink.

After a few twists and turns on old highway 3, we came across Goldfield, IA. So I had to stop and take Andrea to the Goldfield Cheese Mart. The Cheese Mart is a place where the Taylor family would always stopped on the annual trip to Okiboji for vacation. Andrea was shocked that I actually wanted to stop at a place with "Cheese" in the title, since I basically hate the stuff, but I assured her they had other things. We tasted some good eats, Andrea bought some cheese curds and crackers, and we got back on the road.

Iowa Falls was great. It was fantastic to see Mike and Susie again. We met their new cats, sampled some of Susie's homemade Crem Bru Lay (SP? Mike and Susie), and ate at the Chinese place. Many more laughs were had, and Mike showed me a great video starring Leonard Nimoy singing about hobbits. We need to get together more often.

We finally rolled back into Pella on Saturday night around 12:30 a.m. after two days and about 11 hours of driving. A good time was had by all.

Things of note from the weekend:
1. Mark and Danny learned my least favorite word in the English language thanks to Andrea, and I'm sure it's going to come back to haunt me.
2. Ashley has no fear of dismembered sheep parts.
3. Luke will wait great lengths of time to "Ping" someone.
4. Mark can do "several hours of work in just a few hours!"
5. Boys and girls are different.

Till next time,

Jason