Time in PA

Having a great time here at Katie's house in Pennsylvania!!!
The flights were uneventful. I tried to sleep on the flight from DC to PA because I had room to stretch out a bit.
We started out the visit by going to Katie's church where I was excited to discover that she is using the same elementary curriculum that we are using at my church!!
That night we ate at a Chinese Buffet in her town of Bellefonte. It was awesome!! I wasn't sure that I would find enough to eat, but being that it was a buffet, I felt free to try some new things. YUM!! The best part of the meal was when I realized that they had ice cream for dessert!! I had a scoop of chocolate and a scoop of peanut butter - YUM! YUM!!
Sunday morning we went to church and Katie and I led the elementary worship. It was fun. I would have been interested in staying downstairs with the kids to do a little more research on how they do their lessons, but I went upstairs to worship with my sister instead.
We spent Sunday afternoon unpacking and decorating Katie's new old home. It was built in the 1860s! It was SO fun to hang stuff on the walls, move furniture around, and set up little knick knacks here and there. It reminded me how much I would love to do that as a job. I would espcecially love to do it for historic homes, like Katies, but there isn't a big market for that in Huntersville,
Sunday evening Katie's small group came over for dinner. Katie made chicken chili and we had pulled pork sandwiches. The other couples brought veggies, corn bread, and dessert. Two of the women brought their newborns - one boy and one girl. I didn't get to hold either one, but it was nice to look at them!! When everyone left, Katie and I searched YouTube for funny videos. The best ones were Japanese practical jokes.Try searching for them.
Monday morning we dyed our hair!!! You can definitely tell a difference in Katie's hair, but not so much in mine, I wanted to go lighter than we did, but Katie convinced me not to. Maybe next time.... I think my hair is a tiny bit more brown and less black. It is defnitely a little shinier!!
After that we went shopping - everywhere!! It was fun. I bought PSU t-shirts for the whole family - even JR!!! I think that was the first thing I bought him!! Each person's t-shirt is a different color. I wanted one too, but the one I liked was too much $$$!! Katie bought it for me as a surprise!! Nice...
We picked Cameron up from school and then headed to Mama Lucrezia's pizza, YUM AGAIN!!! Eric joined us there and we loved making him laugh. He has a really cute laugh that makes his shoulders shake.
This morning we headed out to the school were Katie teaches English to Russian students at a charter school. Her students are in 6th and 7th grade and are really cool. We started out with an auction for the kids to "spend" the points they had earned this quarter. Then we met with a couple of the children one-on-one. While Katie is tutoring some of them, I am emailing and blogging.
Soon we will be leaving to head to lunch. Lunch will be at the DQ in historic Bellefonte. It is the coolest DQ I have ever seen because it is in a really, old building. I think I will move here and work there.... okay... not really... Being with Katie here at the school makes me want to tutor or teach. Hmmmm..... the world is my oyster, right?
Might hit a few antique shops this afternoon. I have to be at the airport to catch a 7:25 flight to DC. From there I will head to Charlotte and arrive there at 11:22pm. I then have to take the shuttle to long term parking and pick up my car. I should be home by midnight!!
I really wish I could stay a few days longer. I want to help Katie decorate two more walls in her house - Cameron's room and then the "family picture" wall. We also didn't get to do any scrapbooking. I brought some stuff from home to re-do Rachel's baby albumn. The original has 8x10 pages and the binding fell apart. I'm going to switch to a 12 x 12 albumn and use the Creative Memories Binding that my girlfriends in Ohio gave me when Rachel was born - what a novel idea!! Katie is a Creative Memories consultant so I am going to buy some things from her - pages, markers, etc. I already picked out the albumn I want to use for JRs baby albumn. He will also get a video from Holt that will showcase his first few weeks of life (at the transition center in Addis Abba). For more info. visit my adoption website www.waitingtowelcome.blogspot.com.

Thanks for reading!!