Procession to Paradise...

Well, I did it, I used our ticket, and I'm in Hawaii, sitting in Mandy and Scott's fabulous house! And when I say fabulous, I mean amazing, incredible, ridiculously wonderful! I'll give you a virtual tour one of these days, but first I wanted to tell you a little about my jaunt out here...

When I first book my ticket, I was a little disappointed because however I looked at it, I was going to get two layovers on my way out. As
I looked at my options, I noticed one included Salt Lake City (like this sweet shot from the plane?) for two whole hours!! Yeah, Patricks, here I come! Let me give you some history...

When I first started my job with Lakeview Covenant Church in Duluth, one of my first major assignments would be to go on a week-long journey to Tennessee with a bunch of the high-schoolers as a chaperone. We had a good number of students going so we needed a good number of adults as well. Even before I started on staff I went to one of our adult meetings, and there I met Amy Johnson. Amy is cute, beautiful rather, spunky, blonde, energetic, and at first notice, I thought, a little high-strung. We still laugh to this day about those initial observations. Amy, especially over the course of that trip and in the years to follow in ministry and friendship, has proven to be one of my most loyal, challenging, hilarious, loveable, compassionate, and dear friends I may ever have the honor of calling my kindred spirit. She knows when I'm not be entirely truthful, she knows when all I need is silence and a good hard backrub, she askes the hard questions and expects, nay demands me to be vulnerable and honest.

And she recently married a Salt Lake Citian, the marvelous Jim, and they became the Patricks. I was able, in the midst of what I thought might be an annoyance, to be blessed beyond words with 120 minutes with this amazing couple. Maybe should've been a little less, had to run thru security, and the guy at the gate said, "Megan, where have you been?" But it was worth it, and then some. Here are some pictures in their beautiful new home with their beloved Duke in Utah. If you'd like to hear more about Amy, click on the link on the side of this page talking about the organic-pan blog... Yeah, okay that's kind of a funny story, so maybe I should explain that too while I'm at it.

Shortly before Amy got married and moved far, far away, she moved in with Mike and I in our little home in Duluth for a couple of months. She frequently shared her room with Sally and Linus, and she and Mike's favorite past time was to bicker about the benefits of organic foods verses their costs, the dangers of teflon, and the cleaning it takes to shine a stainless steel frying pan. Mike, very affectionately, just lumps all of Amy's ideas into her one "organic pan." We miss sharing a space with you, AmyJ, but I'm glad we're still close, regardless of the miles!