schMORGANsborg

1. Seeing old ladies out working in their yards wearing big ol bonnets. At what age are you allowed to start wearing bonnets again?

2. The sweetness in the air. I don’t know what it is that makes it smell so good, but it’s one of my all favorite smells in the whole world. 

3. Driving with the windows down. Sitting inside with the windows up. Pretty much any scenario that allows me to breath fresh air makes me a happy girl.

4. The anticipation of those delicious summer mater sandwiches. Is there anything better in the world?

5. Teaching a sweet girl the sacred art of blowing dandelions.

Sorry, that was a little heavy, huh?

Here’s some cakes to lighten the mood. Kinda like watching a Disney movie after you watch a scary movie to keep you from being scared to death. Wait, am I the only one who does that?

So we’re all the same. So what? I still don’t want those awful things to keep happening. I still want there to be an end to it.

After my dream I spent days thinking about what could possibly be done to put an end to sex trafficking. I researched all kinds of different organizations that rescue girls, give them job training and try to help them live a normal life. But then it occurred to me…what if we went at this from the other direction?

People get involved in the sex trade industry because they can make money doing it. And as long as there’s money to be made, there will be a constant stream of people willing to sell another human being in hopes of making a buck. So what if we could make that business a lot less profitable? If the money leaves then so will the predators. 

If we could somehow make contact with the ones who are paying for these "services"…somehow offer help. Because here’s the thing…they aren’t happy either. They’re believing lies and, the truth is, they’re a slave as well. And I don’t care how pleasurable that moment of gratification is, it’s still fleeting. And when it’s over the darkness is still there.  

Before you get too worked up know that I am not suggesting that people who participate in this industry should not be held accountable and punished for their actions. They should. But couldn’t we offer healing along with punishment? Truth along with justice? As someone else once said, not just punitive, but purifying.  

I suppose this sounds a little idealistic. And truthfully I have no clue how this would ever happen. I’m sure these people aren’t exactly forthcoming about what they’re doing. How would you even identify them? And once you did how would you convince them to let you help them? And once you did that how in the world would you help them? I don’t know the answer to any of those questions. I guess I was just dreaming about going all Braveheart on the sex trade industry and attacking it from both sides. In hopes of meeting in the middle.  

A while ago I had a dream. And I don’t mean to get all Penecostal on you, but it was one of those dreams that was different from all the rest. Not different in the fact that my sweater wasn’t chasing me through the neighborhood while green bunnies attacked me, although it was that too. But different in a way that’s hard to describe. Where you know it wasn’t just random thoughts running through your subconscious, but something…else. And seeing as how I’ve never been to a Pentecostal church, I’m not very good at articulating just what this something else was. Let’s just say the dream really stuck with me.

The dream was about sex trafficking. I won’t go into detail about it, but from that point on the subject has never been far from my mind. And reading this blog all week has brought it to the forefront of my thoughts again.

A person that would pay money to have sex with another person, particularly a young girl or boy-a child-is beyond my comprehension. It seems so outside the scope of what I’m capable of doing or even imagining. And, quite frankly, it disgusts me. And, so, it is much more comfortable for me to think of those people as monsters. As a different breed of person. Separate from myself.

But the ugly, disgusting truth is that I’m not different from them. At least I wasn’t before. And the only thing that separates us now is the blood of Christ. I know my own depravity all too well. And, left to myself, I’m capable of doing exactly what they do or worse. No matter how much it might pain me to say that. To say that I’m not, to say that there is some degree of goodness in me apart from Christ, would make a mockery of his death. If there were any goodness in me before, then I could have tried to make my way to God on my own. But there wasn’t. He made a way where there was no way. No other way. No other hope.

So, no matter how much I want to separate myself from them, no matter how much I want to think that my sin is much different from theirs, I cannot. In light of that, how will I respond? Will I sit back in my imaginary piety hoping that someone makes those bastards pay? Or will I offer a hand to a fellow monster? And, make no mistake, they will pay. Apart from Christ, we will all pay. Apart from Christ, I would pay. But, praise his name, God, the just, was satisfied to look on him and pardon me.    

My awesome mom took me to get a pedicure last night. We went to a place that we had been once before. This particular shop, like most other nail salons I’ve been in, had religious items all over the place. Toward the back of the room there is, what can only be described as, a shrine. I’m not really sure what it is to tell you the truth. Since last time I was in there I asked the girl who was doing my toes what it was and I’m not sure if she didn’t understand what I was asking or if I had seriously offended her, but she didn’t really answer me. I felt like a jerk so I just kept my mouth shut the rest of the time.

Last night as we were sitting there the lady doing my toes started asking my mom and I about how we were going to celebrate Easter. She asked if we knew of any easter egg hunts going on this weekend and she asked about what kind of food we were going to cook for our family. My mom was doing most of the talking and I’m pretty sure they spent a good five minutes talking about ham. Now, let me preface this by saying that talking to people about Jesus probably ranks first on the list of things that I suck at. But for some reason every time I go into this shop my heart is stirred to tell them about Jesus. And since we’re being honest, on top of the fact that I don’t like talking to strangers period, I feel just a tad bit condescending telling someone about Jesus as they wash my feet. Ironic? Just a little.
So after her and my mom discuss the awesomeness that is honey baked hams the conversation comes to a lull. I’m racking my brain for a non-jerk way of getting her to talk about her beliefs. So I ask if her family does anything to celebrate Easter. Now, I realize that the odds are her and her family don’t do anything to celebrate Easter, but it was the first thing that popped into my head. I told you I suck at this. She nicely told me that traditions are very different in the Vietnamese culture. Which I think was her way of saying "No, you idiot, we don’t celebrate Easter." So at this point I’m thinking "Ok, Lord. That’s all I got. At least I tried right?" But then, much to my surprise, she keeps talking. She tells me that she’s Buddhist and asks me if I’m Catholic or Christian. I answer that I’m a Christian (even though I really wanted to tell her that those two things are the same, but I held my theological tongue). Then she asked me if I knew anything about Buddhism. I thought for a second and realized that I didn’t know a single dad gum thing about it. Well except for the fat belly buddha guy. She kindly informed me that that isn’t really Buddha, that is just something people use for luck. Oh. Thank you very much stupid American who only knows her own religion. But then she said something very interesting. She confessed that she didn’t really know anything about Buddhism either. I thought I had misunderstood her at first, but she went on to say that she’s just Buddhist because her parents are Buddhist. Hmmm…interesting. Next I asked her what they did to worship and she explained that they pray and read their holy book. "Same as you", she said, "All religions are the same. Your Bible and our holy book are basically the same. They both tell us to do good and make less enemies." I realize that she was most likely just trying to make friendly conversation and be agreeable. And maybe I should’ve just smiled and nodded and been agreeable too. But I couldn’t do it.
"No" I said. "My book doesn’t tell me to be good. It tells me that I’ll never be good enough. That’s why we need Jesus. That’s why he came and died on the cross. To make a way for us to get to God. That’s what Easter is." To which she responded, "Oh yeah. We believe that too."
That was pretty much the end of the pedicure and the conversation (anti-climatic much). I wanted to grab her and say "Listen to what I’m saying! Be reconciled to God!" But I’m not really sure physical assault is the most effective evangelism tactic. On the other hand, I might be needing to get this pedi touched-up sooner rather than later:)

ps: you need to click on that link above. not trying to be bossy, but it is gooooood. so do it. k? k.          

Warning: this might be one of the most pointless stories I’ve ever told in my life.

I started doing The Shred a while ago in hopes of "shredding" a few lbs. Unfortunately, the only difference I perceived was in my knees. About a week into doing the video I noticed that my knees would be killing me the next day. Or I would wake up in the middle of the night with pain shooting through my knee caps.
Now, I’ve had bad knees since I was in high school. And, no, it wasn’t due to an old football injury. It was actually an old cheerleading injury. I’m hard core. I know. Some doctor may or may not have told me that I needed surgery. And I may or may not have told him to stick it. So they’ve always kind of bothered me, but never like this. And I’ve always worked out. However, I must confess, that I usually stick to some sort of non-running cardio. Read: walking. Again, hard core.
I began wandering if I had unknowingly injured myself somehow. My mom bought me some kind of vitamin that is supposed to build cartilage in your joints or something like that. I took those for a couple of weeks and then decided that I didn’t like putting that crap in my body. I know it says it’s natural, but I’m just not buying it.
I’ve skipped out on the video for the past couple of weeks and have just been sticking to the treadmill. I can definitely tell a difference in my knees. They still hurt worse than they were before the dang Shred, but not near as bad as they were while I was doing the video.
Moral of the story. I’m friggin’ old.

Aren’t you glad you read this. Me too.

Don’t ask me where that title came from…it’s the first thing that popped into my head. And please don’t hold that against me.

Lately I’ve been thinking about getting a nice camera. Everyone and their brother has one. I mean who isn’t an amateur photographer these days. Not that there’s anything wrong with that…just sayin’. I think all of my good friends have super nice cameras and I love seeing the awesome pics they take.

Here’s the dilemma, though.
A. I don’t have cute kids to take pictures of. Which isn’t a problem in and of itself. I’m just not exactly sure what I would take pictures of. Other people’s kids? You down with O.P.K.?! Sorry, don’t hold that one against me either.
B. Those jokers (the cameras…not the kids) are expensive. Not sure I wanna drop a bunch of cash on a "hobby" that I may or may not like or be any good at.

Hmmm…

I guess it’s just you and me now, huh? That’s ok….I kinda like it that way:)

Someone once told me that if you hear something more than once in a short period of time then the Holy Spirit is trying to tell you something. I don’t know how much validity there is in that statement, but if there’s any at all, then the Holy Spirit is definitely trying to tell me something.

Three times in the past month I’ve encountered the following story from Matthew 8… 
"And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep. And they went and woke him, saying, "Save us, Lord; we are perishing." And he said to them, "Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?" Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. And the men marveled, saying, "What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?"’

Mark and Luke also have a version of the story.

This story stirs up all kinds of questions in me. My initial reaction was why does Jesus tell them they have little faith? I mean, there was a storm raging and they’re about to die so they ask him for help. Seems logical to me. Crap hits the fan=ask Jesus for some help. When Jesus does get up and calm the storm apparently it shocks the daylights out of ‘em. Which begs the question, just what exactly did they expect him to do? Obviously they didn’t think he was going to tell the wind and the waves to settle down, but they must have thought he was going to do something. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have bothered to wake him up, right? Doesn’t that act alone show some kind of faith?  

One explanation I’ve heard is that since Jesus told them to go to the other side, they should’ve had faith that he was going to get them there. This makes sense…I guess. Except that Jesus may have told them to go to the other side, but he didn’t promise they’d get there. Sometimes the boat sinks. And that doesn’t make Jesus bad or unfair or less worthy of our praise. But does it make them faithless to think that it’s a possibility? Or does it make me a debbie downer to look at it that way? 

Here’s where I’ve been hangin’ out. It’s pretty clear that their fear is the source of their faithlessness, but fear of what? The most obvious thing they were afraid of was death. "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?" But I think the fear of death masks a deeper fear….the fear that Jesus wasn’t who he said he was. Surely if he was the Messiah then he wouldn’t let them die like this. Surely if he was the Son of God then he wouldn’t let tragedy befall them. It reminds me of John the Baptist. While sitting in jail he sends some of his followers to ask Jesus if he’s really the One or if they should look for another.  This might seem like a pretty normal question except that not too long before this John baptized Jesus and saw the Holy Spirit descend from heaven in the form of a dove. And he himself proclaimed that Jesus was, indeed, the Son of God. 

So why the messengers? Why the questioning? Well I guess sitting in a prison cell will do that to you. Maybe John was thinking what the disciples on that boat were thinking. Surely this can’t be the plan, Jesus. Surely if you are the Son of God then you would get me out of this cell! But here’s the kicker. Jesus is the Son of God. And he still left John in that cell. Matter of fact, he left John in that cell for the rest of his life until he was beheaded. Does that make God a bad God? I don’t think so, but that’s a whole other theological debate.

So maybe the disciples lack of faith was the same as John’s in that moment. The storm is raging. The ship is going down. They’re staring death in the face. And then it occurs to them. Jesus could do something about this. They had seen him do miracles before. But he wasn’t doing anything about it. And so in that moment they are faced with a question. Is this really the Messiah? Would the Messiah just let us die like this? And if he would then is that a Messiah that I want to follow? Hebrews 2 tell us that Jesus died to destroy the one who has the power of death and to deliver those who through the fear of death were subject to life long slavery. Fear of death is bondage. We fear death when we love our lives too much. When we can’t say with Paul that to die is gain.

I confess that I freak out when the storm blows in. I even start to doubt when I see someone else’s boat taking on water. But I pray that I would never love my life so much that I wouldn’t be willing to lay it down. I pray that I could say with Paul…Let Christ be honored in my body, whether by life or by death.

Wowzers. How’s that for a welcome back blog:)

I think it’s time I let you all in on a little secret of mine. I’m not from here. I’m from outer space.

Ok, not really, but there was a time in my life when I actually believed that was true. And it wasn’t because I was a weird kid who dreamt about flying around in space ships. It was because my loving older brother told me that I was an alien.

I’m sure if you have an older sibling they probably told you at one point or another that you were adopted (back me up here McCall). Well my brother just took it to the next level. He told me that my mom and dad weren’t really my mom and dad. He said that there was a portal to outer space in the back of  his closet. He even pulled back the clothes to reveal a blank wall that magically transformed into a threshold to another world. And I bought it. Hook, line and sinker. He told me that one day an alien mom and dad came through the portal and climbed out of his closet and dropped me off. He never really clarified why my alien mamma and daddy didn’t want me. Or how he went about explaining my presence to my current mom and dad, but it didn’t matter. I believed every word he told me.   

Eventually I realized that he was full of crap and that I was, indeed, my mother and father’s child. I won’t tell you how long it took me to realize that, but I did realize it. Years later when he went off to college I moved into his old room because it was bigger. I wish I could tell you that the first night I slept in that room was a pleasant one. But I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t check out the "portal" in the back of my new closet at least 3 times.

Now that I’m a grown woman and real smart I don’t worry about portals to outer space anymore. Then again….every once in a while…when I least expect it…in some random situation…I’ll find myself thinking…."It’s ok, Morgan. You aint from around here."

Africa from the one who lives it everyday.

calling something part one infers that there will be a part two soon to follow. Sorry ’bout that.  Ok, so where did we leave off….oh yeah…I wanted to take them all home with me.

As the week went on we got to learn more and more about the boys and their individual stories. We realized pretty quickly that the vast majority of the boys were living on the street by their own choice. Generally speaking these boys weren’t orphans and their parents hadn’t thrown them out of the home. Most of them left home on their own accord to came to live in the city. At first it was difficult to understand why they would willing choose a life of sleeping on the street and begging over a life with their families. For the younger ones it’s actually a pretty easy choice, though. They’re cute, therefore, people feel sorry for them and give them money. The older boys can make money by guarding cars or doing things like that. Whatever their initial motivation for coming out there is, I think the reason they stay out there is the illusion of freedom. A lot of them leave home simply because they don’t want to obey their parents. On the street they don’t have anyone to answer to. There is a bit of a hierarchy, with the older boys being at the top and the younger boys at the bottom, but generally speaking they do whatever they want to do. 

By the end of the week my perspective had definitely shifted. My heart still broke for them but for a different reason. I didn’t feel sorry for them because of the immense poverty that they were living in. I no longer wanted to take them out of their world and bring them to my "better" world. My heart ached for them not because they were so much worse off than the boys in America…it ached for them because they were exactly like the boys in America. These boys longed to be men. They desperately wanted to be the men that their souls told them they were created to be, but they have no one to show them how to do that. And so they do what they think real men do. They act tough…they beat each other up…they choose a life on the street rather than have anyone telling them what to do.  

But there is hope. And I promise I’ll continue with that soon. I want to show you some pictures before this post gets too long, though. Don’t you want to meet some of the boys? I thought so:)  

Here’s some of the boys being silly…don’t let the last pic fool you…that’s Felix and he’s a softy:)  

Not even gonna lie…this kid was mean as a snake.

See.

Here’s Felix trying to be tough again…and please notice Nelson and I giving each other the stink eye in the background.

This is Nelson that I mentioned above. He’ll play you like a fiddle if you let him:)

I love these boys. Pray that they would know how great the love is that their Father has for them. 

Lots more pics to come…soon…maybe:)

I’m just gonna break this down and give you the facts. It’s difficult to articulate the experience of being in a third world country so I’ll just give you the itinerary and we’ll go from there. And I know this is turbo late…sorry bout it. 

Day One: (well, day one after a day and a half of traveling) 

We get up and go to Masana (the center where Sarah works with the kids who live on the street). We meet the boys. They usually wash their clothes when they first get there so they were busy doing that. Some of them just stare at the crazy Malungos (white people:)) and some of them run right up to us and start shaking our hands and talking away to us. Of course we have no clue what they’re saying. The national language of Mozambique is Portuguese, but most of the kids also spoke Shongon (no idea how to spell that) which is a dialect that is spoken in the villages. Unfortunately I don’t speak either of those languages so I just smile at them….what else can I do:) Truthfully it is SO frustrating to not be able to communicate with them. I want so much to hear every little thing that want to tell me about themselves, but I guess that’s just part of it.

After a few minutes we head back to the kitchen to help get breakfast ready to serve. They eat the same thing every day…bread with butter on it and hot tea. Mama Julia does all the cooking for Masana and she also makes these things called Bajeas (again, no idea how to spell that). They’re basically like a fried bean dumpling. And let me just tell you…those jokers are delish! The boys can buy those from her in the morning, but she gave us some for free every morning to put on our bread:)

Once everyone finished up eating breakfast we went to church. Which basically means that everyone gathers at one end of the room and Luis (the main teacher/worship leader/father/disciplinary/doer of pretty much everything) leads the boys in some songs. Most of them clap and sing along and have a good time. Some of the older boys are too cool for school, but they still join in occasionally:)

After church was over we walked down to a local school and played soccer on their court. Well the guys played soccer. I stood on the sideline and watched:) Those kids are serious about their soccer. Sarah and I ended up playing some other games with some of the smaller boys…they weren’t good enough to play on the soccer team either:) I learned a game they play with stones that’s similar to tic tac toe.

After a few hours we head back up to Masana to get ready for lunch. The boys have a chance to take a bath before we eat and it’s funny to see how similar we all really are. The little boys don’t like taking baths and have to be forced most of the time…as I suspect is the case in a lot of homes here:) After they clean up we have church again. Luis leads them in some more songs and this time he teaches a lesson at the end. After that lunch is served. Again, they eat pretty much the same thing everyday. Rice with some kind of meat and stew topping. When they get done eating they take their plates and cups back to the kitchen and then start to disperse. This process takes a while as most of them hang out for a good bit before they end up leaving.

Once all the boys are gone we hang out for a bit while we wait on 2 of the boys (Manuel and Nelson) from the orphanage that Sarah used to work at. They are going with us for the afternoon to translate into Shongon. Once everyone is there we all pile into the car and head out to a village just outside the city called Matola. Sarah, Manuel and Nelson go there every week and have children’s church with a lot of the kids in the village. I actually got the chance to teach the lesson on that day which was exciting. It’s always interesting speaking through a translator so who knows what I actually ended up saying:) I brought some paper and glue and popsicle sticks for them to do a craft…which is so American VBS of me:) They seemed to like it though. Even the adults wanted to take part. After we finished up with the craft everyone headed down to the beach and all the kids jumped in the ocean. It was actually really windy and pretty cool down by the water so I was not about to get in. A little girl handed me her baby brother for a minute. I thought she wanted me to hold him so she could go play in the water, but she just hung out beside me for a bit. He started to get fussy and she took him back from me. I guess her arms just needed a break:)  

Once we left Matola we all went out to eat…at a Thai restaurant of all places! It was good and Manuel and Nelson loved it. They had never had Thai food before. They ate their food plus everyone’s leftovers plus dessert:) It was hilarious to watch them. When we were done eating we dropped the boys off and headed back to Sarah’s apartment. When we were almost there she mentioned that we were about to pass by the spot where a lot of the boys from the center sleep. We decided to stop and hang out with them for a bit. 

When we walked up they were so welcoming…offering us seats on cans or mats or whatever they had to sit on. This was definitely a defining moment for me. I knew in my head that these kids slept on the street every night, but here I was face to face with it. As we sat there I watched one of the boys using the top of a soup can to slice onions and tomatoes to make a stew for dinner. As I looked around at them my initial reaction was, "That’s it…I’m taking every one of these kids home with me right now!" as the week went on my perspective would change quite a bit…but I’ll save that for another post:)   

At Matola getting ready to start children’s church.

Hanging out with Juma…one of the boys from the street:) He likes macs too:)

You may or may not know that my mom got really sick about a month ago. I’ll spare you the details…mostly because my mom gets on to me when I tell everyone her business:)…but suffice it to say things got pretty scary for a while there. The following is a small selection from a very long list of things I learned through the whole experience.

1. Unlike most people stress doesn’t make me stop eating and sleeping. It actually has the opposite effect on me.  
2. Any delusions I had of independence are…well…delusions. I’ll go ahead and admit that a lot of my thoughts for those two weeks were about how I couldn’t get by without my mom…about how I needed her…for stupid things…like telling me how to get a stain out of a shirt.  
3. The comforts of this life have a far stronger hold on me than I ever realized.  
4. I don’t want to love my Mom-or anything else-more than I love the will of God. That’s a hard one to swallow.
5. Life is truly a vapor.
6. We cling to the strangest things in the face of tragedy.
7. God doesn’t stop being good just because "bad" things happen.
8. Then again, theology has a tendency to fly out the window in the face of death.
9. I’m really glad my bff decided to be a nurse, but even more glad that she can still sit and cry with me when the occasion calls for it.
10. ER, Grey’s Anatomy, General Hospital, etc….they’re all full of crap. Two weeks in the hospital and I saw zero hot doctors. Notta one.

PS my mom is doing much better now:) If you talk to her don’t tell her I told you that was sick:)

you ate a lil red barn biscuit like I did this morning:)

I have a confession to make. I used to resent people who went to Africa. It seemed so cliché.  Like there was some unwritten rule that in order to be a good Christian you had to go to Africa…or at least want to go to Africa. Of course this was also when I had no inclination whatsoever towards any kind of mission work anywhere. It’s strange to read that sentence back to myself. I can hardly remember feeling that way now. I can barely recall not having this burning deep inside of me to see the glory of God cover the earth as water covers the seas. 

Mercifully, things have changed. And, so, one month from today I will leave for Africa. I wish I was leaving today. I wish I had a one way ticket and not just a 10 day trip planned (don’t tell my mom that…she might cry).

Next month four others and myself will be heading to Mozambique to work with Sarah in her ministry to street children there. I have a number of emotions and thoughts running through my mind right now, but the one that overshadows all the others is fear. I’m not afraid of being in danger there. Of getting sick or being robbed or attacked or anything along those lines. The thing I fear…is being unchanged. I’m afraid of looking those children in the face and being unaffected by it. Of coming back home and returning to my everyday life as if nothing had happened. I’m afraid of forgetting what I haven’t even learned yet.

So today I’m praying. Praying to be changed…affected…moved. Praying to remember.       

making a cake…actually making anything for one of the most important days in someone’s life might be a little more stress than I’m prepared to handle. 

I know I’ve mentioned this a time or two, but my bff and I have known each other our entire lives. This has been a huge blessing through the years; however, it’s also lead to certain events that would be better left forgotten.  But instead of pushing those to the back of my psyche and having them resurface in strange, incoherent dreams; I thought I’d blog about ‘em. 

For those of you that don’t know; my bff is a singer. Not professionally, though she could’ve been if she had wanted to.  She has a beautiful voice and it still pleasantly surprises me every time I hear her sing.  She discovered this talent pretty early on. And like any good parent would do her mother signed her up for voice lessons to hone the new found gift. 

I must preface this by saying that she and I had spent our entire lives up to this point doing the same things. Our parents even dressed us alike for pete’s sake.  And we were all about it. If she got a zip up bikini then I needed one too. If I quit ballet cause I hated everything but the recitals then she was outta there too (by the way, she’s still blames me for ruining her dance career). If she had a bedazzled, LA gear, stone-washed jean jacket then by golly I got one too. That being said, there really is no justifiable excuse for what I am about to reveal…..I, too, signed up for voice lessons. I mean obviously if the bff was a singer than I was too. Right?! And Darlene, being the dotting mother that she is, marched my non-singing little butt up there and took care of business. And so began my journey to unearth the talent that I knew was hiding somewhere deep inside of me.

As it turned out that hidden talent was buried a little too deep and we never did find it.  We did, however, record quite a few lovely tracks. One of those beauties was my rendition of The Wind Beneath My Wings by one Bette Midler. I happen to be just self-deprecating enough to want to share it with you, but I think I lost the tape when I moved.

The whole experience wasn’t a total loss, though. I learned that maybe I didn’t have to do everything the bff did…which came in handy when she started doing big girl pageants that included a swimsuit portion. I also learned that my Mom loves me very much…so much, in fact, that to this day she truly believes that I’m a good singer and has, on occasion, told me to try out for American Idol. Thanks for believing in me Mom! Even if it could’ve turned me into a highlight on the American Idol reject show.     

…to say I told you so.  Cause yall were SO right…I had such a good time at the reunion!  Who knew:)

I would love to say that I took lots of pictures so I could tell yall all about the night…but you know better than that.  I didn’t take a single one.  So I jacked everyone else’s off of facebook:)  

Here we go…CGHS c/o 99 10 year reunion as told through the lense of someone else’s camera (click on any of the pictures to make them bigger).

First came the outfit…of which the highlight were my cute shoes…or so I thought.  So. Much. Pain.  Seriously, my feet are still sore. 

There were two parts to this shindig.  Phase one was at Olde Towne Tavern in Larryville.

Phase two was at Door 44 in Atlanta.  There were a lot of people there that didn’t go to Olde Towne so I was glad I went to both.

So there you have it…our night o’ fun.  It really was great to see so many old friends.  Kinda makes me wanna go to the 20 year reunion…kinda:)