February 12 – “Late night shenanigans”

I was kind of worried that I would have nothing much to write about this morning.  We spent most of the day yesterday hanging out with the Wilson family and checking out the church where the memorial service will be held.  Very nice facility.  Reminded me of a Target store I saw one time.  I did get to see Mark's wife and two of his little girls.  I had met her once before back when we were evacuated for Hurricane Rita (yep.  That was before Ike).  We had a big fish fry of the fillets we evacuated with, and they came.  She was quite cordial.   The Wilsons were worried about the upcoming interactions between Matt's friends and the "seminary crowd."  He knew a lot of non-Christians, and many of them are somewhat hostile toward anything that has any connection with the church.  Other than the fact that Matt knew me pretty well and respected me and liked me, that's why they ended up asking me to lead the service.  They figured if anyone could handle the tense situation, I could.  No pressure, right?   Josh and Christi and their boys got in last night, so we met them all at CiCi's for supper.  Then we went over to the Winkle's house to chill with the gang for awhile.  It was great to wrestle with the boys and toss them in blankets and even sit with them when they started a movie to calm them down for bed.  Horton Hears a Who.  Classic.   We were excited to be in the seminary hotel rather than a regular one.  Figured we could get sleep without worrying about craziness outside.  Wrong.  We got back to our room around 9:30.  And around 10 it started.  Some other people had checked in for a weekend conference or something.  The ones we saw looked to be in their 60's or 70's.  I don't know if that's who had the room next to ours or not, but if so, they are my new late-night heroes.  I used to think the only ones who could do that were the kids we used to take to the National Homeschool Basketball Tournament.  But they were young.  And we could threaten them with decreased playing time.   Our neighbors and their friends were apparently playing some kind of game next door.  A game that involved banging on something, making some kind of solemn pronouncement, then laughing uproariously.  It was kind of funny for awhile.  By about midnight it didn't seem do funny any more.  They finally settled down sometime near 5 a.m.  Chris said she didn't sleep much at all.  I got in several hours for sure.  They were only able to crack through my deafness-induced stupor with the intermittent really loud outbursts of laughter.  I suggested turning on the TV really loud this morning – just to help them get up in time for their conference, of course - but Chris wouldn't let me. Their alarms started going off a little before 9, though.  Hope they can stay awake today.  Hope I can.   Psalms 144:3-4 says, "O Lord, what is man that you care for him, the son of man that you think of him?   Man is like a breath; his days are like a fleeting shadow."   Father, take control of this service today.  You can bring order to any chaos.  Amen.