The Celebration

We went out to dinner last night with Pastor Steve and Barb, Heath and Kristen, and Chris and Rachel (the candidate for the pastor at FBC).  We had a fantastic time.

About halfway through dinner, Steve asked, "So is this going to make the blog?"

"Well, I don't know," I said, "Nothing disastrous has happened yet."  (Because everyone knows that I only blog about disasters.)

Honestly, nothing disastrous did happen.  It was one of the most fortunate outings of my recent existence; I didn't spill anything, trip, run into anyone, get lost...nothing.  It was kind of strange.

(Well, unless you count the fact that I forgot to take my asthma meds before we left and by 9:30 I was coughing and wheezing and had to break out the inhaler.  Classy.)

A few highlights of the event:

• Telling stories on Pops (particularly the one with Ben and balloon of gas that they wrapped Ben's shirt around and threw in the air and then shot a tracer bullet into, causing a large explosion...) 
  
• Steve trying to make everyone eat a lot; Celebration lets you have seconds.  Joey ate seconds and dessert.  He was a happy camper.
• Joey leaning over every 10 minutes after 9:00 and whispering, "Are you OK?  Do we need to go home?"  I am my father's daughter and I usually shut down without warning about 9:45, so we usually don't stay out anywhere past 9ish.  (We didn't even leave Celebration until 10:30.)  It was kind of amazing fortitude on my part; but I have to admit, I didn't get up until 7:10 this morning and was quite late for work.
  
• I will never look at Icy Hot the same way again.
  
• There was no door on the private room we were in and I'm sure we lowered the property value of the restaurant considerably while we were there.  We were so stinkin' loud.  Way, way too much raucous laughing.  It was great.
  
• Oddly enough, all of us seminary couples had vaguely seen each other around before.  Heath and Kristen were "the cute couple with the bike" (Rachel saw them every morning getting Heath's bike out of the car and was always amazed that they got it in there) and Chris turned out to be in one of the videos Joey is editing for the Advancement Department.  About two hours into dinner Joey blurted out to Chris, "Do you wear glasses?" (He does.)  Small world...
  
• Our poor waiter, we stayed another hour and a half after he brought our check.  He started drinking wine about 9:30 and every time he'd come back to check on us, he was considerably happier.  Louder, too.
  

The whole thing was great.  It was like...the next best thing to being at home without actually being at home.  (Probably some of the most hilarious dinner conversation we've had since we got down here, too.)

Thanks Pastor Steve and Barb (and Faith Bible Church) for such a fantastic evening!