Chillin in the DC Metro Area...

I got into Dulles Airport Friday night at 10 pm (east coast time). It was raining and muggy...which was not a good start to the trip. I was excited to see Jenn, who was waiting out on the street for me. Now, what you all need to know is that when Jenn and I get together, something always happens, and there is always a lot of laughing. It was no different this time.

Jenn called me right after I got off the plane. She let me know she was at door 3 at the departure area...and her gas light came on. Now Dulles is kind of in the middle of nowhere, so this presented an interesting obstacle. I told her there was never a dull moment and she agreed. I walked down to baggage...and as I was picking up my luggage, I received another call. A cop had told her she couldn't stay there, so she had to start moving...and she did...at 2 mph. I grabbed my bag and hustled to the street. I saw her a few doors down...literally going 2 mph, breaking every second or so. I was on the phone with her, telling her to stop moving, laughing hysterically. She finally stopped and I was able to get in the car.

The next obstacle we had to face was finding a gas station. We were on the freeway, and she took some random exit, with no gas station in sight. We drove around a little bit before I reminded her she had a GPS that would tell us where the nearest station was. We pulled out the GPS and found a gas station right before we ran out of gas. She filled up the car with gas and now it was time to get me some food.

Airlines no longer give you food on the flight. American Airlines doesn't even give you pretzels! I couldn't believe it. It was close to 11 now, but in my mind it was only 8. I grabbed her GPS and looked at food places. We decided to stop at a KFC (since they do chicken right!) which was about 2 miles away. We followed the directions the lady gave us in the machine, but what the GPS doesn't take into account is road construction. Somehow we ended up going on some random freeway, in no way the correct direction to her house. The KFC was now going to be 5 miles away, and since we were coming up on a McDonalds, I decided that was as good as anything at this point. We pulled up and could barely understand the gentlemen helping us. We decided to order a 20 piece chicken nugget (Jenn said she wasn't hungry but I convinced her to eat with me) and a large fry. With more effort than it should have taken, we took off about 10 minutes later. I was hungry and didn't want to wait to eat at her house, since she said we were about 30 min away. I gave her a chicken nugget without any sauce...mine tasted fine but apparently hers tasted like cinnamon. We got the sauce out immediately after that (good ol' sweet and sour).

We ate, we laughed, she convinced my mom to buy us John Mayer tickets for June 6th, we laughed some more, we listened to some ghetto music...it seemed like we were driving forever. Dulles is in Virginia and she lives in southern Maryland...Dunkirk to be exact. (see map for distance) Dunkirk, I soon realized, is kind of out in the middle of nowhere. I kept asking her if we were almost there, like I was a little kid on a road trip. We finally made it to her house...at 12:30.

We decided to watch a movie. I am not sure why, since we were both exhausted. In the room downstairs, they use the playstation 2 as a dvd player. We put the dvd in, put couldn't get it to start. She had a remote for the cable and a remote for the tv, but no remote for the playstation (they do make a dvd remote for the playstation). After trying many different methods, we grabbed the wireless game remotes. We were both standing in front of the tv, each with a different remote, and we began pushing all of the buttons. After about 10 seconds of this, we looked at each other and started busting up laughing. I asked her how many college graduates does it take to figure out how to work the dvd player? She said apparently more than 2. Low and behold my education at Fresno State beat out her education at the University of Maryland because I figured out how to work it. There are sensors that have to be plugged in so the wireless remotes can work...duh!

After about 15 min of the movie, Jenn was out cold. I decided to try to watch it for a little bit longer, but soon decided it was time to hit the hay.

Day 2 with Jenn consisted of more laughs before she dropped me off at Lesley's place. Once I got to Lesley's, Lesley and I had a chance to hang out and catch up on each others lives, and take my boxes to Fed Ex (I will have my stuff in Fresno next Monday April 2...yay!). I went to a fucntion at our church (Mclean Bible Church or Frontline) regarding the children in Burundi. This was put on by the International Poverty and Justice Mission chapter of Frontline. There will be a blog later about all that I learned (I know you can't wait!)

Today, I went to brunch with Lesley, Jenn, and Natalia. We had a really great time. We went to a restaurant call Eggspectations. Once again, the conversatin left all of us laughing hysterically. One such conversation consisted of Jenn telling us she doesn't put lotion on because it takes 10 minutes....who in their right mind thinks it takes 10 minutes to put lotion on their arms and legs? Lesley and I were cracking up. When Natalia came back, she agreed with Jenn on the length of time. We had Jenn show us how she would put lotion on her arms...and the way she was doing it would take way more than ten minutes. To settle how long it takes, the two of them (Jenn and Natalia) are suppose to time themsleves Monday morning to see how long it takes and then let us know. The crazy things we talk about. I promise we do have intelligent conversations...sometimes. :)

By the time brunch was over, it was nap time for me. I crashed for 2 hours, and could have slept longer but Lesley woke me up. We went to Panera so she could do some homework and I read my bible and journaled some. Before we knew it was time to go to church...Frontline.

I was so excited to be able to worship there and to hear Todd speak. Right away, everything felt right. It was so good to be back worshipping in such a familiar setting. The message was great, as always. After church, I had the chance to hang out with my friend Linda. Lesley, Linda and I went and ate at Panera. We were able to catch up on our lives...jobs, missions, trips, boys...it was so good to talk with Linda. After dinner I went with Linda to get a few more of my boxes. We hung out for a bit at her place and talked some more. Then off to Fed Ex we went (again).

I have enjoyed being back here so much. Seeing all of my friends back here and catching up has been great. I forgot how much I loved this place, the people, the church. I haven't been to Downtown DC yet. That is the plan for tomorrow and Tuesday. I am looking forward to riding the Metro (yay for public transportation), walking around, people watching at the National Mall, going into my old place of work...and just being for a few days. I love Downtown DC!

Being back here has also made me excited for what God has next in my life. I know that what comes next is in Fresno, or at least California, but after that, only God knows, and that makes me really excited.