Maine

Hello from Maine, my friends!! Yesterday morning Holly and I arrived at the Portland airport with about 3-ish hours of sleep between us (we had a red-eye flight from Sac to NYC). We were pretty tired, but we had missed enough sleep that our minds were still totally alert. You know those nights when you get less than 4 hours of sleep and you're wide awake the next day? (Oh, maybe you don't. I wasn't familiar with them 'til college.) Well, that's how it was. Which was good, because we had a pretty busy day!

Our older sister Sarah picked us up at the airport and was waiting when we arrived. We walked down to baggage where Scott* who now works for TSA came to say hi. He'd arrived an hour or so early for his shift to meet up with us and then grab some coffee before heading to work. We got our bags pretty quickly and loaded up Sarah's car (with the help of Scott) and headed for home, where we were greeted by Chynna and two very excited little pups. Well, the dogs aren't really very little - Heidi's a medium-sized dog but Lindy is just huge - but they're the cutest sweetest things so it's okay to call them little. Our mom got home from church about 5 minutes later and then James got home a few minutes after that, so we were all reunited!

Then I came upstairs and saw Holly had a bag of clothes on her bed that she was trying to get rid of. So I looked through her clothes and grabbed a bunch of them. Woohoo! Free clothes! Is it normal to get hand-me-downs from your little sister?

Anyway, the afternoon was filled with food, hanging out, unsuccessful napping attempts, and changing out of jeans because, boy, was it HOT! Then later in the afternoon and evening was the super fun part - we had a bunch of friends over for a cookout. There were lots of people and tons of delicious, mouthwatering foods. People played horseshoes and kanjam, which was definitely the hit. Kanjam is a four person game with two people per team who are on opposite sides of the little field thing (kind of like in horseshoes). But you throw a frisbee into a little garbage can looking plastic thing, with one on each end. You throw it and get points if it goes in or if you hit it, but your partner also tries to knock it in the thing or hit the side with it, all resulting in different amounts of points. There's little slots in the front of the can, and if you throw the frisbee in there you automatically win. People played game after game of it, and it was amusing just to watch. After dinner the tone was a bit quieter with the kids watching a movie in the living room and the adults sitting by the fire or talking inside. It was a lot of fun, but I must confess that I did take a little pre-dinner snooze while people were here.

Anyway, it being a school night everyone left around 9, so I got ready for bed and stayed up reading or playing games and talking with my (temporary, sadface) roomie Chynna before heading to bed. It was such a great first day at home! But since I'm still tired and I have what my mom thinks is a sinus infection, I'm looking forward to today being a little lowkey.

*Scott and his daughter Chynna (pronounced like "China") have been living with us for about a year. Scott retired from the Air Force last year, and Chynna graduated high school. They were living in Kentucky, but knew us and other Mainers, so Scott told Chynna that if she came to college in Maine, they'd move here. So they did, but while Scott searched for a job and home, they've been staying with us. They leave in a few short days and it'll be sad to see them go! Though they'll still be pretty close.