sheep in the city

Branson and back again...

Many of you may know that I was raised in a little town called Branson, Missouri. Well, this past weekend, I had the opportunity to return and visit with a huge group of people that were gathered to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the ministry that my Dad started, Doulos Ministries. It was a great time of hanging out, telling stories, laughing, eating, and oh yeah, a little bit of knitting!

The people that I was most looking forward to seeing were the girls that I met while I was working at Shelterwood, a residential facilty for at risk teenagers, in Branson. I lived there from August of 2000 to August of 2001. It was one of the hardest, and yet most rewarding years of my life. The girls pictured below are a few of the women that I worked along side there:

I visited my favorite chinese restaurant, Hong King Buffet, with a group of girlfriends. That's Jill, Amy, Stephany, Julie, and RayLynn. As usual, my eyes are bigger than my stomach, and even though I didn't order the buffet, I still ate too much. But it was well worth it. Here in Denver every once in a while I get a craving for Hong Kong Buffets General chicken and crab cheese wontons. Mmmm...crab cheese wontons. Of course I had to take the opportunity to have some while I was in town!!

My friend Stephany finally was ready to learn to knit while I was in town. We headed to the local WalMart (horror of horrors, Branson has no yarn store!!) and grabbed some needles and yarn for her to learn with. It was fun to pass along something that I enjoy so much to my friend. Thanks Steph for being patient and for laughing through the learning process:)

It took a trip all the way to Missouri to be able to see my friend RayLynn who lives about 30 miles from my house. Sadly we've both been really busy the last few months. So of course I had to get in some good RayLynn hanging-out time on this trip. When you get so busy with life, it's easy to overlook how important spending quality time with your close friends is.

Over the course of the weekend, there were many late night gatherings. This picture is from one of those nights. That's my friend Julie sitting on my lap in a recliner. (do not try this at home folks) We almost tipped the whole chair over...which of course lead to much hysterical laughing and then tons of picture taking. Overall, I didn't get as much knitting done as I thought that I would. Thirteen hour car trips seem like the perfect time to knit, but believe it or not, and I may get kicked out of the knitters circle for this, but I kinda got bored with it. Is that blasphemy? Did I just say that I got bored with my knitting? What is wrong with me? It was fun seeing old friends, but it sure is nice to know that I'm home, and I'm not going anywhere anytime soon.

I received my needle exchange package today...so I'll be taking pictures soon!! And I should have some sock photos too:)

Posted by Stacey at September 28, 2005 11:58 PM