Two trips

Did I ever mention I left my phone on my bumper and backed over it? It was awesome. It happened the morning Jake was leaving on a writing retreat. Advertisement for the Otterbox- phone still works, just got a new screen. Advertisement for Jake Gross: his name is synonymous with grace and forgiveness. 

 So Jake has a great coworker who provided her home in Amelia Island for Jake to go hole up and write for almost a week. He is defending his dissertation this fall, and in a home full of four women all desiring his attention simultaneously, it's pretty helpful to have focused time away to be productive. Since his writing time just happened to overlap our 8th anniversary and it's probably against the rules somewhere to be at the beach without your spouse on your anniversary, Jake flew me down for the last two days of his trip. He still had to do a lot of writing, so I was horribly burdened to read and relax and have no responsibility for any other human beings for two days. It was hard work.

Bonus: the picture above and below were both taken with the phone pictured at top- in the same shape as pictured at top. Thus the hold-out-the-arm picture. Can't ask someone to take your picture with a phone as ghetto as that. That's also why our one photo together from the trip is a little blurry. Cracked glass does that. Highlight of trip, other than being with my best friend at the beach: getting more time on our paddleboard in the ocean. We had some good times and good laughs in the post-Ttropical Storm Debbie swell.

 A few weeks later was the annual roommate weekend. This year we had one lady on bedrest and one lady nursing a six-month-old, so we were required to do a whole lot of nothing. It was AWESOME and gave us great time for talking and laughing all weekend, which we happen to be fantastic at doing after years of practice. These girls bless my heart, refresh my soul, and I am so thankful to the Lord for allowing them to be a part of my life. I cannot fathom having a better experience at Auburn than I did, and I cannot fathom these ladies being anything other than an integral blessing in those years and, by God's grace, the years beyond.