Under the Shadow of Glory: Lifest 2012

I spent last week with one of our family's oldest friends. He and my dad have known each other for 30 years, as they each got married and had kids, we've stayed close with them. On Tuesday, Uncle Ben and myself joined a few other friends and went to Oshkosh to set up camp for the youth group we were taking to Lifest the next day. We had three vehicles driving up, each pulling a camper, and once there, we set up the several canopies, and a total of four campers. We had three electrical sites, and then 16 'primitive' sites for all the students to camp on.

Sunset on our way home, Tues. night

After setting up, several of us stopped for dinner at Golden Corral, then finished the journey home. We got home about 2200, and settled in for the night. We had already arranged for me to stay the night at their house, since I live an hour south of them. When we walked in, U. Ben's oldest son, Coy, was sitting on the couch playing Skyrim. He turned, shocked that I was there with his dad, and U. Ben goes, "Oh, hey, I forgot to mention that Jacki's staying the night.....and she's sleeping on that couch." And then he walks off. :) Yeah. Awkward.

Anyway, Coy and I sat and talked on the couch for a while, munching on fresh-baked cookies and milk. Sometime, probably around 11, we went out and he showed me his truck (a very awesome vehicle!) and then we took it for a quick spin...driving 'around the block,' listening to the radio and catching up on the past five years. He had been away at college for a while, and then home but busy with work and had missed most of my cancer saga, so I filled him in on some of the details, and then he filled me in on his college experience. After we got back, we went back to Skyrim - him playing, and me watching while we talked. We stayed up until 0300...er...maybe 0330. ;)

Coy and Tank, hanging out late Tues. night...or maybe Wed. morning!

Oh yeah, that dog? That's Tank. He's Coy's buddy. He's about 5years old, and ever since he was born, he and Coy have been virtually inseparable. Tank and I get along great, too, though...which was nice. :)

Then next morning, Colton, U. Ben's youngest, left about 0515 to go to the gym.........aaaaaand, he forgot I was sleeping on the couch. Yup. Not even two hours later, I'm awake again. I rolled over and tried to go back to sleep, but U. Ben was already up and getting ready to leave to go fix the brakes on his Suburban before we left again for Oshkosh. I ended up getting up and talking to him and helping him get ready, since I couldn't sleep anyway. He left about 0615, and I curled back up on the couch to try and get a little more sleep before my alarm went off at 0730. About 0645, I heard someone else puttering around the kitchen, and fifteen minutes later, Miss Kayla (mom and wife) walked through and left for work. I put a pillow over my head and tried to sleep, but gave up around 0715 and started getting ready to go.

When I got up, I had a voicemail from U. Ben, asking me to get Coy up and have him help me find a few things, but that didn't go so well. Apparently, Coy slept much better that night than I did!!! Lol! So, I dug around and found the X-Box controllers, and a game for U. Ben, then packed lunches for him, Colton and myself. Even with all the searching, I left right on time and made it to the church by 0830.

They were already loading bikes, food, firewood and other things, so I jumped in and helped pack things into the vehicles. Students started arriving about 9, and loaded all of their luggage into the cargo bays of the bus. We left about 15min early, and were on our way to Oshkosh! Since we left early, we were able to get everything set up in time for everyone to attend the first concert of the night. (Usually, they're still setting up when the music starts!)

The rest of the week, I made it to.....well, less concerts than I normally go to. But, it was all good. I hung out with Colton, and his friends Ryan, Devin, Payton and Luke. We had almost 70students up there this year, so there were plenty of people to hang out with. I didn't sleep well all week - I went to bed around 0100 or so each night, and was cold most of the night, but then started sweating by 0600, so I signed up for breakfast prep every morning.....at least that way I had something legit to do while I wasn't sleeping! It was actually pretty fun!

My favorite part of the week was easily the time I got to spend with U. Ben. He's been like a second dad to me for years, but we don't really get to spend a lot of time together, as he's the youth director at his church, and the father of two. He came and visited me in the hospital this spring, Sunday night when I first went in, but I wasn't really up for a lot of hanging out right away that night, if you can imagine! So this past week was a huge blessing!

Saturday I spent most of the day sitting on the bleachers on the black-top near the food court, watching the boys play their 3-on-3 Basketball Tournament. It was a tough competition, but in the end, they won! We were all so proud of them! After the tournament, they boys wanted to shower before the Thousand Foot Krutch concert that they wanted to attend, so I ended up with Ryan's phone, running all over the Lifest grounds looking for someone to give the team photo to, in order to get it on the daily recap video. Thanks to the connections of one of our leaders, who was also the Volunteer coordinator at Lifest, we were able to meet with the Director of Photography and get the picture on the video!

Left to Right: Ryan H, Devin Q, Colton S, Payton S

We didn't end up making it to any of the concerts we planned on attending that night, because after we ate dinner, we ran into some of the other students from our group who were doing a flash-mob type thing. We hung with them for a while, then Colton and I broke away to go to the Stephen Curtis Chapman concert.

That's about all I have to say about the week....there was just too much awesomeness to try and describe it to you, so...here's some pics for ya!!