Short, but cool and hilarious weekend.

So this weekend was pretty fun. It's shorter than my usual 3 day weekends (yes I'm at camp right now and we start tomorrow) but it was chillax and fun. Brett (my world youth day travelling/college campus ministry buddy) picked me up from camp on Friday evening and we drove over to his dad's cabin/mansion/rustic german looking house in Lake Stevens and had a (George Foreman) BBQ with a couple friends of his. His dad was away for the weekend and mom was a little overwhelmed with stuff so he thought it best we stay there. Let me just tell you that this place was incredible. I'm not talking like ritzy and fancy or anything like that, but it's just one of those places you read about in kids books. There's this huge german looking house that his dad built in the woods that has 5 acres surrounding it. There's random rope swings everywhere, a greenhouse, a garden, a firepit with benches, an orchard, a stream with this cool bridge over it, a little cabin that's powered by solar panels, there's a great deck overlooking it all....ah. It was pretty sweet. Basically I want to buy this place from Brett's dad and start a Benedictine Abbey for women there..... So yeah, had a bbq and a few chill drinks on Friday night, woke up to an amazing sunny warm day on Saturday. Went down to the stream and did lauds and just breathed in heavy and deep. It's amazing what doing lauds has done for my morning personality. Anyone who knows me knows I'm a night owl and am a complete zombie in the mornings, but after doing lauds I feel light as air and alert. It's so great. Nothing like a little God to start your day. We had breakfast on the deck in the sunshine, Brett took me on a full tour of the house and property, and then we headed out to see Michael Gunn.

Went to confession, went to dinner at a Mexican restaurant, went to the Five Point in downtown Seattle and caught up with Michael G. and Colleen, and watched a ridiculous Canadian movie starring David Hasselhoff as a former cowboy who lives in Calgary (it was ridiculous, I fell asleep at the end). This morning we went to mass at OLPH which was Brett's home parish growing up and then went out to lunch with his mom. She was really cute. Just chatty and really bubbly and open, I can see where Brett's personality comes from. Anywhoo, after that we went to the Divine Mercy prayers and a bit of adoration at OLPH before he took me back to camp. All in all a refreshing, random, and absolutely hilarious weekend hanging out with Brett and Michael Gunn. Thanks guys.

Tomorrow we start the long string of max capacity sessions. We're going to have over 100 students every week from now until June. Crazy! It should be really fun though. I've decided to start actively placing God in my lessons and in all of my language while teaching all this ecology stuff. It's weird, I always wanted to while I worked at Evans Lake, but it was a secular camp so I couldn't. I volunteered and worked there for 8 years and just got stuck leaving God out. These first few weeks at CYO I've just been teaching the stuff like I always do until my Assistant Director asked me if I had been putting God into my lesson plans.....so which I answered with a surprize "No actually." It was sort of a "Duh! You can do that now!" moment for me. So woohoo!! God and the Environment out in full force! Yesss!!

Also, I've been checked out, I'm not a wacko and can come to visit St. Walburga's for sure. The sisters have given me the best dates to come and told me to start checking travel plans. Woohoo!!! So exciting!!