Minnesota Day One

I believe many of my readers know that I was recently on a trip to Minnesota; part-pleasure, part-ministry. Last weekend was the annual GEMS Leadership Conference in Minneapolis, MN at Bethel University. My dear friend Tami lives about two hours north of Minneapolis in the “North Woods” of Minnesota. I took the opportunity to finally visit her in her world, which is so very different from my world.

First off, I have to thank my folks for taking care of the girls while I was gone. Ed had to work, so during the week, the girls stayed with my parents. Ed would go there after work, see the girls, eat the dinner and dessert my mother prepared, play a little, and go home and go to bed. Nice life, don’t ya think? He did take them to the church picnic on Thursday evening and then took them home on Friday night and kept them for the weekend. On Saturday they all went to the Logos picnic (and were fed lots of yummy carnival-type food for free all day long) and on Sunday after church, my mother once again fed all of them. He didn’t prepare a single meal while I was gone.

He’s cooking tonight.

Anyhoo, I have a few web albums to hyperlink here:

Pictures from my parents for last Tuesday

Pictures from my parents for last Wednesday

My Minnesota pictures, Day One (Wednesday)

Enjoy the pictures!

Tami’s world is different from mine in so many ways. She lives 2/10 of a mile from her in-laws. She lives in an extremely remote area. She beautifully puts up with some pretty interesting characters. She has to homeschool because there are no other options nearby. She shops almost exclusively at Walmart and the grocery store because that’s all there is. (It’s a nice Walmart, though. I went inside to get some sunglasses since I had forgotten mine. It’s waaaaaay better than the one close to me). I am sure I could not live in the situations she lives in. She has far more grace and contentment than I and I admire and respect her and love her all the more for that. She’s still Tami, and stuff still drives her nuts, but I would have drug my husband and family out of there long ago.