Shortly after my 22nd birthday, I headed to England for Christmas with my parents. After my tramatic first visit, I was scared to death of England so that trip was really great for me to see that England is actually an amazing place. They were living in the north in New Castle and I quickly fell in love with the English country side and with shopping at H & M. As a pre-teen we had watched the Christy movies and I had fallen in love with the Scottish doctor and his accent. Then while living on the ship whenever a Scottish person would come onboard, I LOVED sitting and listening to them talk so it was also nice being friends with Rachel and her family who were Scottish. I had always wanted to go to Scotland and my family said for years that I needed to marry a Scottish man. Well my mom surprised me on that visit with train tickets up to Edinburgh for the day. We ate cotton candy, explored the city, took pics with every statue, and had one of the best days ever! Dan and Martha were also there for Christmas and then Jill came a day later. I loved being together with the whole family.
When I got back to TX, I started thinking seriously about moving to PA, but wanted a sign that it was a good idea. Within a week of deciding that, Jill called me and said she had some funny news. Her and Micah had gone house hunting and bought a house... in PA! I contacted Crissy and Selena and told them of my plans to move.
That Spring was a fun one. Jessica would come over and watch reality tv with me and knit. She had started making Jared a throw blanket for Jared which turned into like a king sized quilt. I made about 25 scarves. Having a boy join our group was fun too. We became alittle family. We taught Ryan about women and he loved giving us insights into the male brain. We all looked out for each other. I remember one day I was going to drive to Dallas and Jess and Ryan came outside, checked my cars fluids, kept reminding me to be safe and waved as I drove away. I did actually get in my first car accident that day in Dallas and when I opened my wallet, realized that my friend Andy had thought it would be a funny joke to switch our license. Try explaining to a lady who speaks no English why my license had a picture of a 24 year old male on it. For Ryan's 21st birthday, his girlfriend hadn't done anything fun for him so Jessica, Jared, and I took him out for drinks. Then we went mini golfing and then decided to get real crazy and went bowling too in the same night. : ) I did find out the hard way that drinks and bowling should not be mixed and ended up with the mother of all bruises on my leg. Ryan was the sweetest friend and would make me communicate when I was upset and when I would cry, he would bring me little gifts to cheer me up. There was a lady who worked with me who was in her 50s and she would always say, "He likes you, you know. You really need to date." And I would remind her that he had a girlfriend, but then he would come in with another little present for me and she would give me that, "I'm right" look. We just remained sweet friends though.
Rachel had been telling me for awhile about her friend Lane who had seen pictures of me from our road trip to Houston and had told Rachel he had to meet me. Then we would end up telling her about all the same music and movies she had to check out and it was decided that we had to meet. I got a call from Lane one day and he invited me to drive up and stay with them for a weekend and then be his date to their spring formal dance. I drove up to College of the Ozarks and the first night he took me out to a show. I was in love with someone else at the time, but we became fast friends. A few weeks later Rachel came home for the summer and Lane, Dave, and some of her other friends drove her down and they all stayed at my house. We had so much fun playing sardines at the base and hanging out in Dallas. Rachel's parent's were in Scotland that summer, but Rachel had to take a class so Rachel and I spent the summer cooking our dinners together, swimming almost everyday, and being each other's family. She had a wedding that she really wanted to go to up in MO so against her dad's advice, we drove up to AR to Lane's house and then Lane drove us the rest of the way. One of the funniest things about Rachel is that she freaks out whenever she wakes up. Lane would come into our room in the mornings to wake us up and I would peacefully open my eyes, and then Rachel would wake up and gasp or yell and it would make me freak out each time and Lane would just stand there laughing. We had such a wonderful time with Lane, but then we left his house to head home and got stuck in a traffic jam on a bridge in Little Rock, AR which was halfway between Lane's and home. All of a sudden Rachel said, "Is that smoke coming from our hood?" We pulled over and got some coolant to pour in, but Rachel figured out it was the wrong kind. After we had poured it in. It was Sunday so garages were closed and we got to a Walmart, but the guys at the tire and lube department wouldn't help us because of the liability issues. Both of our dads were out of the country and we were getting followed around by scary guys. Both our phones were dying and we were trying to figure out if we should call Ryan or Lane with what little battery we still had to come rescue us. We called Lane and when he heard he wanted to jump in his car and come get us, but we knew there wasn't much he could do. We were strong for alittle while, but it got to be too much and we both started bawling. The guys working in the tire and lube couldn't handle how pathetic we looked sitting there bawling our eyes out so one came out and checked the car, helped us put more coolant in and told us we would be fine to drive the rest of the way home.
Selena found me an apartment and a job in PA so I planned to move to PA the end of July. Ryan had this girlfriend who Jess and I were not big fans of because she wasn't very nice to Ryan, but he was loyal to her and would sometimes flake on us to hang out with her. Well one day Ryan said to me that he had some boxes at his apartment for me for packing up my stuff. I was over at Jessica's and Ryan called me and started acting like he was going to flake on me because he knew how mad I would get. Well I needed boxes and couldn't believe he was flaking and I got furious! I rushed over to his apartment and started pounding on his door SO angry. He opened the door with a super mischievious smile on his face and I stormed in so worked up that when I saw a few of my friends in there it didn't even register why they were there. All of a sudden I realized that ALL of my friends were there and then I realized it was a surprise going away party for me and he knew me so well that he had thrown me so well off track that I didn't suspect at all. The next day Jill flew into DFW and Rachel, Jess and Ryan came to the airport with me to pick her up and before hand we had one last dinner together talking about our hopes and dreams for the future.
Jill and I had a fun road trip up to PA. My parents had taken a road trip up North a few months earlier so had taken most of my stuff up to Micah and Jill's for me. I remember thinking that I almost hoped the van would get stolen because I was overwhelmed with how much stuff I had. I moved into a town house with Melanie and April and I remember them being so shocked how many shoes I had. The first night I was unpacking and feeling alittle minute of remorse and wondering if I had done the right thing in moving. I had almost started to cry and Melanie walked into my room with a scary night gown and a pair of HUGE thick glasses on and said, "Sometimes when I feel sad, I put these on and remember how much worse it could get." From that moment on we were kindred spirits! I loved living in PA, loved living with Mel and April, loved helping Crissy with her wedding, loved that I arrived just in time for Selena to give birth to Jadon. The church had a camping trip shortly after I started working there and it was a wonderful way to get to know people!
Jessica came to visit a few weeks after I moved there. It was fun having her meet people and introducing her to Sherah since they were both leaving for their DTS that fall.
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