Dear Abby-without-a-last-name,

I’m still trying to figure out which Abby you are, since a quick search of the 3,489 comments on my blog turned up multiple Abby’s. And so, since I don’t know who this specific Abby is, you get a whole post dedicated just to you.

What you probably didn’t know when you placed that order for flowers to be delivered to my office was that they arrived the day after everything ended. All ten weekly programs were done, volunteers released for the semester, leaders free of their responsibilities. Even Allie’s done for the semester, needing to take the rest of this year to get ready to walk down a very important aisle just a few weeks from now.

And so, last Friday, it was just me in the office throughout the day. Just me and a couple of puppies that I brought from home to help make the office a little bit louder.

And there was your box on the front steps.

No one’s ever sent flowers to me to celebrate the end of the semester, Abby. There’s no one in the office with me on my personal Black Friday each semester, the day after everything for everyone else ends. They all leave — as they should! — and I’m left with piles of paperwork and folders and journals on my desk higher than my head.

And so it’s up to me to pick up the leftover wrapping paper and to finish the financial reports and to answer the remaining emails. I’ll be the one to answer the phones and to check the mail and to turn off the lights at night. That Friday is always the defining moment of the semester, when everyone leaves.

Except me.

But this year, Abby, before I touched the paperwork, before I began cleaning up the kitchen and even before I turned on the computer, I sat on our couch in the lobby and opened up your box of flowers, your gift sent to me to acknowledge a very long semester of programs come to an end.

And somehow, with them sitting here on my desk, the office doesn’t seem so lonely anymore.

Thank you, Abby-without-a-last-name.

Love,

Amy Beth

If you’re just showing up today, I’ve posted five installments complete with pictures and videos from this past weekend’s Christmas ‘O Fun with my Starlite leaders. To help you keep the story straight, here’s the order you should read them in:

First, read about our trip to Chuck E. Cheese where my girls went wild over some pizza and tokens.

We then headed to Steak ‘n Shake where I fought off temptation in the form of a chocolate milkshake.

Next, it was time to burn those calories at Pump It Up, an indoor inflatable arena we visited.

After we changed into pajamas, our girls opened their gifts from blog readers just like you.

Finally, to end the perfect weekend, we shared some Sunday Chicken at CB.

And yes, I’m still trying to get caught up on sleep.

When we woke up on Sunday morning, the girls were treated to a really good breakfast courtesy of blog reader and real-life friend, Dana. Not only did Dana (pictured below with her cute baby!) bring the girls chocolate milk and doughnuts, but she also brought them chicken biscuits.

Note: the rest of this post is mainly about the word “chicken.” Fair warning.

We were invited to a Sunday School class in which my girls behaved beautifully (they’re cracking up as they read that since I was the only one out of 20 that had to get up to go to the bathroom). We then went to what I like to call “big church” where Ryan (yes, Allie’s soon-to-be-husband) helped lead worship from stage.

We were conveniently seated on the second and third rows which allowed him to see all of the girls whispering and pointing at him from his place behind the guitar. Nothing like feeling 40 eyes focused on you as you start the first worship song.

After church ended, we loaded up and headed to the fifth and final surprise which, in all honesty, should come as no surprise to faithful blog readers: I took my girls to Cracker Barrel for some Sunday Chicken.

Now, granted, I didn’t force them to order Sunday Chicken (for those of you who don’t frequent CB, Sunday Chicken is a particular type of fried chicken that they only serve on, um, Sunday). But my girls know good food when they see it and I am happy — nay, PROUD — to report that 16 our of the 21 people at our table (we let Ryan tag along) ordered themselves a plate of Sunday Chicken. You may observe this phenomenon below as I documented but a few of the plates so beautifully displaying Sunday Chicken.

And that, my lovely blog readers, is how our happy 20 hours together came to an end.

You’re reading Part 5 in a series of posts about our surprise weekend for our Starlite leaders.  To read all the posts — and in the correct order! — go here.

After we left Pump It Up, we headed to one of our partner churches to spend the night. We connected with this church a couple of years ago and, since then, I have grown to love this particular church more each time I’ve visited. They hosted us for the night in their youth area which, in other words, means that half of us had couches to sleep on while the other half took air mattresses!

Listen, when you’re trying to sleep 20 people and 50% of them get couches, it’s definitely cause for celebration.

Once we got all of our stuff inside the church, I told the girls to change into their pajamas and meet me in a particular room within 5 minutes. Because I am bossy like that, yo.

When they returned, Allie and I made them cover their eyes with their hands (the power we hold is obviously getting a bit out of control) while we placed a gift in each of their laps.

Let me pause in the story to explain the gifts to those of you who didn’t participate: back when I asked for help from Christmas elves, I ended up having enough people that wanted to “adopt” each of my girls to ensure they got a gift. These blog readers not only shopped for a gift for “their girl” but also wrapped it and mailed it to the Starlite office over the past few weeks where I’ve hiding them ’til this event.

We are sneaky like that.

Once we let the girls open their eyes, they went crazy, again. I explained how the gifts came to be and I think they just were in complete shock. We spent a lot of time opening the gifts, going from one girl to another as the whole group watched to see what she got. As we went around, I tried to tell them as much as I knew about their particular “adoptee.”

The most amazing part of watching them open their gifts was seeing how perfect the gifts were for each of them. My latte drinking girls got Starbucks gift cards, my cold natured girls got scarves and, in what may go down as the loudest scream of the night, our sweet Disney-Princess-Obsessed-Jenelle got a bag FULL of Disney princess items. I know this will sound trite, but I would rather get to watch them open those gifts all over again than open any gifts myself this Christmas.

Unless someone wrapped up a large case of Sunny Delight and slipped it under the tree for me. Because, please, let’s not be ridiculous… it’s not like I’m going to turn that junk down.

Mom? Did you see that hint? SUNNY DELIGHT. CASE. UNDER THE TREE.

After we opened the gifts, we had Sappy Girl Time where we went around the circle telling each of our favorite memories from Starlite this semester. I then took a few minutes to thank them profusely for their work this semester before telling them to hurry and get in bed because we had church the next morning.

Listen, someone’s gotta be the bad girl.

It wasn’t too hard to get them to go to sleep, however, since the final surprise wasn’t taking place until the next day…

You’re reading Part 4 in a series of posts about our surprise weekend for our Starlite leaders.  To read all the posts — and in the correct order! — go here.

Once we got to Pump It Up and the girls saw the two arenas full of various inflatables, they went crazy. The minute we got in the room, they were pulling off coats, mittens and shoes and literally throwing themselves onto the inflatables.

Okay, I was one of the first ones out there. What can I say? I wanted to test everything out to make sure the girls wouldn’t get hurt.

Just takin’ one for the team, as usual.

Within about 7 minutes, we were flat on our backs, absolutely exhausted. We quickly recovered and headed back for round two, which lucky for you, I caught on video.

Before you view this short (short!!!) video, I would just like to say that I can’t be held responsible for the bad videotaping skills that you’re about to see. You try holding a camera while climbing a huge slide and then holding onto it while you launch yourself to the earth.

There is a great shot of my very frightened face in it though, right before I go down the slide on my side. If you blink, you’ll miss it:

Once we had completely worn ourselves out, we all crawled into the largest inflatable (the girls thought we were going to play a game). Allie and I had a little trick up our sleeves, however, thanks to about 20 of you that sent in Christmas cards for each and every last one of our girls:

There were quite a few tears as those cards were read, just so you know. I was crying, too, but just because I was already sore from my attempt at total domination in the jousting inflatable.

Some skills just have to be learned over time, I suppose.

You’re reading Part 3 in a series of posts about our surprise weekend for our Starlite leaders.  To read all the posts — and in the correct order! — go here.

And the surprises continue!

After finishing up at Chuck E. Cheese, we surprised the girls with a trip to Steak ‘n Shake for some milkshake goodness in whatever flavor their little hearts desired. The funniest part was when everyone’s milkshake arrived — except mine! Perhaps a divine nudge in honor of the (Not So) Little Black Dress fiasco I find myself in?

But then my milkshake arrived and I took two sips of it before the guilt hit and I threw it away. I’ve got a lot of things that shake already, so I think I can do without dessert that shakes, too.

At this point in the evening, the girls had been told that their weekend ‘o fun was being brought to them courtesy of donations from blog readers (which, frankly, blew their minds). They didn’t know everything that you all had done for them yet, but more on that in later surprises.

The reality of you all loving on them in this way really hit home when the lovely Leslie Ruth (a longtime blog reader who has just moved here recently) showed up to spend some time sharing with them on behalf of all of you that helped make this weekend happen. I loved watching the girls’ faces as they listened to someone they had never met before thank them for what they do in Starlite.

And then, it was time to reveal the next surprise. They again received gift bags containing a clue… except this time, they couldn’t easily figure it out so Allie and I had to explain. At one point in the video (short! I promise!), I start moving the camera around a little too fast because I’m so excited. Try to ignore that and make it to the end of the video because? Becky’s reaction at the very end?

Priceless.

And a few pictures, too!

You’re reading Part 2 in a series of posts about our surprise weekend for our Starlite leaders.  To read all the posts — and in the correct order! — go here.

I know you all have been waiting on pins and needles to find out exactly what we surprised our college girls with this past weekend and who am I to keep the goodness from you?

And trust me, it was good.

In order to cover everything, I’ll be putting five (FIVE!) different posts up today, each labeled with a different surprise. I think you’ll like getting to see what we did for the girls — it was one of the best weekends of my life.

The fun started on Saturday evening when we loaded them into cars and drove to Chattanooga. We had them pull over in an empty Sears Tire parking lot (we needed the light for the video) and open up their first gift bag which just so happened to contain a MAJOR clue about where we were going first.

The lighting is bad, but here is a very (very!) short video clip of them opening their gift bags:

That’s right — we had packaged Chuck E. Cheese tokens for them! They didn’t know it, but Chuck E. Cheese was right around the corner from where they were standing at the time. I had driven to Chattanooga earlier in the week and pre-paid for everything, so the pizza was ready on our reserved tables when we walked in! We ate (quite a bit, actually) and then attacked the games with a vengeance that, truth be told, seemed to scare a lot of kids around us.

We had enough tokens for each of them to last about an hour. I spent a lot of that time walking around taking pictures of them having fun — I have never seen college girls enjoy Chuck E. Cheese like my girls did. They were literally running from machine to machine, especially the Skee Ball ones.

I’m still having trouble posting pictures, but if you’ll click on the small thumbnails below, you can see larger images of them going wild in Chuck’s hood.

And remember, this was only the first of five different surprises. I’ll be posting the next four over the next few hours!

You’re reading Part 1 in a series of posts about our surprise weekend for our Starlite leaders.  To read all the posts — and in the correct order! — go here.

This is a really, really important question to me and I’d honestly like to know your answer.

I think most of us that read the blog that are Christians would agree that the most important decision you make in life is accepting Christ into your heart. Agreed. Done. Finished.

But what’s the next most important decision?

Is it who you marry?

Is it what career you have?

Is it the choice to have kids?

My 24 year old mind thinks the answer is marriage since that can influence everything else. Am I right? Or have you found that there’s something else more important?

You’re older than me (I’m sorry, but it’s true). You’re wiser than me (I’m not sorry, and that’s true, too). And I need to know what you think.

Please?

Earlier today, I found myself walking across the college campus in our town where our volunteers and leaders go to school. As I watched their cute 19 year old selves flounce around, I suddenly felt a little pride in my outfit for the day, a black dress with jean jacket, cute black heels and some reach-the-heavens-high hair. I’m as cute as them even if I’m not in college anymore, I thought to myself.

And that’s when a sweet freshman girl walked right up to me and said “Ma’am? Your dress? Um, it’s tucked into your panties.”

And that, ladies and… well, ladies, is how God keeps me humble.

Last night, 7:13 p.m.

Me: “Katie? Are you at home?”

Katie: “No, I’m at dinner with some friends… but what’s wrong?”

Me: “I… I… {sob} justneedtotaaaaaaalk.”

Katie: “Go directly to my house.  The door is unlocked.  Go to my bedroom, get in my bed and I’ll be right there.”

Me: {sob, sob, sniffle} 

Ten minutes later, Katie enters her bedroom to find me under the covers in, um, her bed.

Katie: “I got my food to go so I could be here faster.”

Me: “You left Cracker Barrel for me?”

Katie: “Yes.  Now, speak.”

You know it’s real friendship when they’re willing to leave the endless supply of biscuits and cornbread to come listen to you cry in their bed.