there ain't no place like home

This is what I've eaten today: 4 pieces of French toast, a chocolate milkshake, some leftover fries, and a piece of brownie cake. Oh, and some caramel fudge at 4:30 in the morning. I feel grrrrrrrrrreat. (That is a rhetorical device called sarcasm. I actually feel like crap. I am super tired and I have lost my voice, partially because of some virus and partially because of my non-stop screaming on roller coasters yesterday.)

But anyway, I'm home. I just got back from camp in Florida, which I attended with a group from my church. We drove about 24 hours through five states to get there. I got to check Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama off my lists of states I've been to (although I slept through both drives through the latter so not sure if that really counts). We went to the beach on Sunday and I got terrifically sunburned. Monday through Thursday was spent doing work -- my group was volunteering at a local Boys and Girls Club. Other groups were doing stuff like painting and yard work, so I felt pretty lucky to get to work with kids. In the evenings we'd gather back at camp for dinner and free time and things like dance parties. It's my second time doing this -- I went to one in my hometown two summers ago -- and I think I enjoyed myself more this time. I still get the quintessential "you seem pretty quiet" thing but at least this time I opened up a little more and had people to hang out with. That really makes all the difference.

All in all, it was a good week full of getting to know new people and trying new things. There were lots of random little moments that made it enjoyable: getting hugs from the kids, everybody dancing to "Call Me Maybe" on the bus, watching the sun set over the water, hiding from the rain in Honeydukes (it rained almost every single day we were there, not even joking, and it's raining right here now, too), waving glowsticks, stumbling into a rest stop in the middle of the night and seeing the numb/exhausted looks on everyone's faces, being told by a little girl that I "don't sound Texan" ("What do Texans sound like, then?" "Like they're from the country." "Well, I'm from the city." "I didn't know they had cities in Texas!"), watching Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Mean Girls, and, it has to be said, all that junk food.

I'm glad to be home, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a teeny bit sad to leave.

Friday (yesterday) was my favorite day because it was our "free day" so we went to Universal Studios a.k.a. home of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter! I took lots of pictures which I'll post at a later time.

In the mean time, here is a gratuitous picture of myself in front of the Hulk ride which I definitely did not ride but I sat in front of it waiting for other people to ride it twice so yeah.

I'm really tired so I'm going to go to bed. Tomorrow I am going to just watch TV all day and no one is going to stop me.

AMEN.