Long time.

Since it has been since about May since I have posted on here there should be a lot for me to update you on.

In May my good friend Lauren "Hall" Gaines and her husband Chris came and visited. We did a whirlwind tour of Southwest Philly complete with cheesesteak and water ice
In July three of my Roommates and I rode what is called a casino bus all the way to Atlantic City. The way we heard this was supposed to work was that we payed $30 for the ride and when we got a casino we would be given $30 in casino money that we could cash out whenever we wanted. What really happened though was that we were mislead and that we had to gamble the entire $30, which none of us really wanted to do. We ended up playing the slots and miraculously made enough to pay back the $30 we spent to get there. Other than that Atlantic City was fun. We walked to boardwalk and sat on the beach.

My roommates and I had a lot of good times. One night for our weekly family night I suggested that we do 80's glamour shot night. As you can see it was a big hit. We always found weird ways to entertain ourselves over the course of the year.

For my roommates Lu's birthday we had a banana pudding party and invited all of our neighbors. We made a huge tub of pudding and sat outside all night visiting and eating. It was a lot of fun.

We finished our year well. We spent weeks packing and cleaning out our house. It was bittersweet to pack up our lives and say goodbye to the neighbors that meant so much to us. I really learned to live simply and well this year, and it was hard to close this chapter in my life. We ended the year with a week long retreat with all the other Mission Year teams from our area in the Pocono Mountains. It was relaxing and fun. After that my roommates and I played in Philly for a few days, and I might or might not have gotten a tattoo. Then I came home. I have been in TX for a little over a week. I spend last weekend with Brooke and Averie in the mountains and tomorrow I am heading down to College Station for Brooke and Kelley's graduation. I will start work in Arlington on August 29th. Life is back.

Something else that shaped my year happened in July. My grandma had a staff infection that she got in early June. She was put into long term care and was there about three weeks to control the infection. When she was about to be released in early July she started to get violently ill. Things moved really quickly and they found out that she had another internal infection that had gotten into her bloodstream. She got sick on a Sunday and we pretty much knew by Tuesday that she wasn't going to make it. They moved her into hospice on Wednesday, which is the same day I got in from Philly. She was in hospice a week and it was really hard to watch her die. The bright part of it was the amazing time I got to spend with my family. Literal hours upon hours of togetherness. My grandma was an amazing woman and it was wonderful and bittersweet to celebrate her life with others that loved her.

Rebekah