Bible Camp & Cincinnati Wedding Trip

We have had a whirlwind last week and a half! Last week, we all went with some of our youth from church to a church camp in Missouri called Little Prairie Bible Camp. It was a good week, and the kids had a lot of fun there. Lane was a counselor, and I was one of the camp cooks. I know, very scary! It was pretty hard work, and I have developed a new appreciation for anyone in the food industry, especially cafeteria ladies! Our day in the kitchen started at about 6:30 or 7:00 each morning, and usually ended anywhere from 9:30 to 10:30 each night, non-stop. Needless to say, I was pretty wiped out by the end of the week, but I got to spend a lot of time getting to know Trisha and Donna, my fellow cooks, a lot better, which was great!

Dane and I left Kilgore a day earlier than the rest of the group, so that we could split the 10 hour drive up into two days. We drove to Little Rock and spent the night there and waited on the rest of the group to catch up Saturday to make the rest of the trip. We had a great hotel room with a full kitchen and living area, so it made our time there very nice. Saturday, while we were waiting, I decided to give Dane the kind of vacation that I most enjoy and would have gotten with my parents growing up...a day of history - a trip to the state capitol building and Presidential Library and Museum! Yes, I know that he is not even 2 years old yet, but Lane and I have really worked hard to travel to different states and historical sites with Dane, so that he can say he's been there to all of these places. After this trip, he has traveled to 17 of our great 50 states, so we're sure that he's very proud of this!

The William J. Clinton Presidential Center,

situated on the banks of the Arkansas River in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Anyway, so we're driving up to the Arkansas capitol building, which is beautiful and is a smaller version of the nation's capitol building, and I realized that we have never actually taken Dane to the Texas capitol building yet, so there was no way that Arkansas was going to be the first. So, we just drove away and we'll try to make it back there later. So, we headed to the William J. Clinton Presidential Center for a tour. I've been to the Johnson and Bush libraries, so I wanted to go to this one, too, while I had the time. I'm not a huge fan of Clinton - I just like history. I really was hoping to see more there about his growing up years, but I never saw anything about him before his 1992 presidential campaign. Maybe I just missed that part or something. So, I was pretty disappointed in it, as a whole. Before we met up with the rest of our group, Dane and I dined at our favorite place together - Luby's!

We all made it up to camp, and we had fun and Dane did fantastic! He loved playing with all of the kids and he just made himself right at home!

Dane loved getting to ride his tricycle around, of course, with Mr. Monkey!

Lane, Dane and I left camp early Friday morning and headed to Cincinnati, Ohio, to attend the wedding of our friend, Caleb Miller. Lane was supposed to be an usher, but when we got there, Caleb asked him to be a groomsman, which was pretty cool! Caleb is a linebacker for the Cincinnati Bengals NFL team, so it was neat to get to see some well known people from the team and organization. The wedding was beautiful and was held in a restored cathedral in downtown Cincinnati, called the Verdin Bell. Both the wedding and reception were breathtakingly beautiful and swanky, and it was nice to enjoy the fancy environment for the evening. The reception was held at the "Hall of Mirrors" ballroom in the Hilton Hotel there in downtown "Cincy" as the locals call it. The bride's father, Jeff Ruby, owns several nice restaurants in Cincinnati, so to say the food was great would be an understatement for sure!

The Verdin Bell Cathedral

The Reception

Table Centerpieces at reception

The Cake!

Wearing our party hats at the reception

The Spencers at the reception

Brent & Jill

Me, Jill & Rachel

At the reception dinner, the seating was assigned, and when I went to look for Lane and my table assignment card, I couldn't find it, which I thought was strange. So, I just asked the coordinator with the assignments just to make sure that we were at the same table as Clint & Rachel and Brent & Jill, which we were. When we got to our table, we saw this nice, older couple sitting at our table, too, which we thought was a little strange, seeing as how the rest of us at the table were younger. Well, we introduced ourselves, and Lane turns to me and whispers, "That's the owner of the Cincinnati Bengals, Mike Brown." Finally, later in the evening, after the Browns had already gone home, we realized that they had accidentally picked up our seating card and were actually supposed to be seated at the table with the other Bengals coaches. So, that was cool to meet them. After Lane told me who he was, I recognized him from watching Bengals games on TV when they show him in his private box at the game. Of course, Lane kept talking to him about the possibility of us being related and if he needed any more family to work in the Bengals organization!

Our friends, Brent, Jill, Clint, Rachel and Roselyn came to the wedding, too, so it was nice to spend a long weekend with them. We all arranged to stay at the same hotel together, and the hotel was nice enough to put us in rooms close to each other on the same floor. We also got to go to church together Sunday, which was special.

Dane & Roselyn got lots of good playtime in.

Hanging out with Jill and Rachel in the hotel room

Shopping and relaxing at Newport on the Levee with Rachel & Roselyn and Brent & Jill

Notice Mr. Monkey on Dane's shoulders

The boys all went with Caleb to the Bengals stadium and locker room for a tour Saturday morning. I think that this was the highlight of the trip for Lane. If you don't already know, Lane is a HUGE football fan, so getting to do this was probably one of the most fun things he would want to do. I know that it meant a lot to him to get to take Dane with him, too! They took pictures in front of the players' lockers and tried on several of their shoes and hats! Dane wore the quarterback, Carson Palmer's shoes, as well as the Crocs of the kicker, Shane Graham.

Lane & Dane at the Bengals stadium

Dane and his fairy godfather, Brent, in the security room of the stadium

At Chad Johnson's (Ocho-Cinco's) locker

Dane wearing Carson Palmer's Air Force Ones

Dane wearing Shane Graham's orange Crocs

Lane wearing Reggie McNeal's hat

Rolling around some Bengals dirty laundry!

Lane, Dane, Caden and Caleb at his locker

Lane said that at first when they entered the stadium, Dane kept on saying, "Mavericks Basketball!" over and over, until...they walked out of the players' entrance to the football field, and he said that Dane got SO excited and ran out onto the field and looked up and yelled, "Football! Football! Touchdown Time!" and just started running down the field. Lane said that Dane ran the entire length of the field and back and then proceeded to drink an entire Gatorade! Needless to say, they had a great time and I'm so glad they got to share those fun times together!

Fun on the Field!

Monday morning was definitely the high point of the trip for me. I had my first massage! I had an hour long Swedish massage, and it was absolutely wonderful. After being on my feet all week at camp, it was just what I needed to work out all of those cricks and creeks and sore feet! I would definitely recommend it to anyone!

Monday after lunch, we started the trek back to Texas and drove to Memphis to spend the night. We had planned on going to Graceland, but at $30 each, we decided we really weren't that big of Elvis fans anyway. So, we headed on home to Texas and made it home by 6:00 Tuesday night. Even with all of the fun we had, there's no greater feeling than to sing "Texas, our Texas" as we crossed the state line in Texarkana!

Sweet boy ready for bed

Playing with Daddy at the McDonald's in Hope, AR

We had a great time together, but we're so glad to be home now. We have another big week coming up next week. We're going on a mission trip with the youth group to Pensacola, Florida. We will be working with their inner city ministry and will help do a VBS and some door knocking. Please pray for our safety and that we will all learn a lot from these experiences and that we'll all grow closer to God and to each other. I'll post more when we get back from that trip.