The awesome culmination of a great year

Okay, so I finally got back to Brookings Sunday night around 7:30 in the evening. I had quite an eventful weekend. ;)

Thursday evening we went to the new Star Wars movie. It was awesome! Because some people don’t like spoilers, and because I’m too lazy to spend too much time on this one subject, I won’t go into much detail. Let me just say that, in spite of some incredibly cheesy lines and questionable acting, I loved this movie. It got under my skin. The whole time, you know what’s going to happen, that Anakin is going to turn to the dark side. But at the same time, you want only the best things for these characters you’ve come to love. So I was torn--I wanted to change what was happening, but obviously there was nothing anyone could do. I will say this, parts of the movie made me cry. And I almost never cry, let alone at movies.

Moving on to Friday. Friday morning Jesse helped me move the rest of my stuff over to grandma’s house, where it would stay for a few days. Then I had my last final, in Intro to Christian Thought. I know Bender is supposed to be the hard teacher, but I like him a lot and this test was really easy. So easy, in fact, that I finished in 20 minutes and was the first to leave the classroom. I started singing as I walked down the Glidden fire escape, I was so happy to be done with all tests. Then I got to 409 pretty much my whole room so that I could check out. And since I no longer lived in GI, I spent the next two hours in the caf, hanging out with random different friends. Then, when Dianna was finally ready, we set out for Windom, MN for a party. At the party we played random games such as ping-pong and Frisbee, and then after dark we lit a fire. For further details, see Dianna’s blog. Then Jesse showed up with his Chevelle, pretty much the coolest car I have ever seen, and took us for a ride. (That reminds me, I wanted to get a picture of you by that car, Jesse. Maybe you could get something digital and e-mail it to me?) Yes, we went very fast. Yes, it was insanely fun. It was pretty much the highlight of my evening. Well, that and playing with the swords Casey’s family has hanging on their living room wall. Sting, Glamdring, Anduril, Excaliber, to name a few.

So, yeah, we came back to Sioux Falls Saturday morning. Dianna went home to unpack, and Jesse and I crashed at my grandma’s house. Before dinner we taught Jesse to play Mexican Train Dominoes, and he beat us soundly. I declare a rematch in the fall. ;) The weather was great, so after grandma took us to see the new sculpture walk downtown, Jesse and I went on a walk around the bike path and didn’t get back until about two hours later when it was starting to get dark. It was a lot of fun. We saw a deer lying down in a tiny grove, and we saw what we think was a fox, we saw a goose right up next to the trail, and we saw some ducks fly over us when we stood on a bridge over the river. And no, I did not get lost. I knew basically where we were the entire time. ;)

Now for Sunday. Grandma’s church’s men’s group was serving breakfast, so we went up there for that and stayed for church to hear grandma sing in the choir. In the afternoon it was USF graduation. I actually got paid for playing in the band for that, which I hadn’t known before. I will say this: I’m glad our school is relatively small. Even so, we had to play the march six or seven times before everyone was in their seats. Honestly, do they have to stop and talk to the faculty while we’re playing? Oh well, at least there were a few measures where the choir sang without the band so I could rest. My left arm is actually sore today from that. I suppose I’m just weak from being away from marching band. Anyways, after graduation we got to try to fit the rest of my stuff into our minivan, and it all actually fit, amazingly enough. And before we left town my mom wanted to visit Coldstone just to say she’d been there, so we all got ice cream.

I still have yet to unpack the vast majority of my stuff. That’s on the schedule for later today. In just a little bit I’m heading out to hit the pavement and find myself a summer job. Pray it goes well.

God bless.
-Kim