Bittersweetness

My weekend started with a very bitter-sweet Saturday. In case you were wondering, my weekend's always begin on Saturday because I work on Friday nights. Don't let the sound of it fool you... I love Friday nights! This is when I get to hang out with all the tweens that come to TGIF (Tweens Getting Into Fellowship) and we play games, do a skit, have a teaching, and hang out. Anyway, let me get back to my bitter-sweet Saturday. Some of you may have already guessed the bitter part. Well, as a very dedicated Sooner fan I decided to get my behind out of bed at the crack of dawn to watch the OU/TX game, which in central time started at 11am, but in Hawaii time started at 6am (okay, I missed kick-off and the first quarter b/c I didn't get up until 7:15)! So I watched and was sorely disappointed to see the Sooners lose the game AND lose their #1 ranking in the polls. Boo. Well, moving on. When I say there was a sweet part to my Saturday I mean it quite literally. Kim invited me to join her and the high school girls on a trip to the lavender fields in upcountry Maui.  Basically you get there and it immediately smells of lavender (duh) and there are flowers everywhere. It is very girly. And then there's this little store where you can buy all things lavender. They have lavender everything! Fragrance, shampoo, spices, tea, chocolate, lotion... not to mention there are a thousand different kinds of lavender. Who knew. We walked around for a while amongst the flowers and in the field where the tufts of lavender were. Or at least they look like "tufts" to me. I'm not sure I know what that means... but my favorite thing about the whole day was (actually there are two things) that the weather was perfect (cool with a breeze, perfect for jeans or a long-sleeved tee) and that on the way there we saw a pumpkin patch! Apparently, they don't ever really have those here so it was a fun surprise for all of us. It gave me a little taste of Fall, which doesn't happen often here in Hawaii! Going upcountry, which is when you go up on the mountain/crater, it gets much cooler b/c of the higher elevation. Some of my very favorite things in the world are Fall, cool weather, and pumpkins!! And, yes, I definitely plan on going back up to that random little pumpkin patch to pick out the perfect pumpkin. :)

The rest of the weekend remained on the sweet side. Sunday we had an amazing Prayer and Praise night at the church and Monday was Columbus Day, which meant we didn't have to work. I love holidays!

Random fact of day: In honor of Columbus and the day dedicated to him that got me out of working... did you know that the first recorded Columbus Day celebration took place on October 12, 1792 (300th anniversary of Columbus' discovery of the New World). And the Pledge of Allegiance was recited for the first time publicly at the 400th anniversary Columbus Day in 1892! Cool, huh?