Vacation is here!

I’m back from Minneapolis and what a great time I had!  Mucho thanks goes to Cari for going along on the trip with me.  We had a grand time on the road and in Minneapolis which is a very fine city with tons of things to do.  It will be a great place for a mission experience this summer. I’m still working out a few more details but it all appears to be falling into place.  Cari and I had a sweet little rental car – a gray or blue (depending on which one of us you asked) – Mazda 3.  I loved it.  One of the best features that I must have on any new car I get is the radio controls on the steering wheel. That absolutely rocked.  It was a great ride.  It had great gas mileage too.  Which was a really good thing because somewhere in Iowa Cari asked me how we were doing on gas which was very helpful since I had kind of forgotten about the need to get gas.  So I looked at the panel and we were on E with the light on! 🙂  Fortunate for us, we came up to a little town with a fuel station.  We were having such good conversation and great music that fuel was an afterthought!

In Minneapolis, we had a great meal at a little Italian restaurant in downtown Minneapolis called Buca di Beppo. Great atmosphere and great food.  And I discovered a new store that I love – IKEA.  Very cool, inexpensive and trendy furniture store.  Also saw Bethel Seminary campus which I had looked into once for seminary.  Very beautiful university/seminary campus.  The drive was not bad at all.  9 hours but pretty much a straight shot between here and Minneapolis on I-35. 

Saturday I ran errands and took care of things around here.  Then had a wonderful, leaisurely dinner with friends.  A great Sabbath time and a requirement to truely savor life and relationships.

Today was the official beginning to a week of vacation! YEA! I didn’t go to church today.  I went to the Y and then worked here all day on outside projects -mowing, pulling weeds, burning leaves, etc.  Then dinner in Columbia with a friend.  So – a five-star day indeed!

I head to Springfield the next couple of days to see Kailey and another friend and then back to town to work around the house and to enjoy some sabbath time for the rest of the week. 

Peace – Melissa