Long time, no see

Hello once again. I have been away from my computer for almost a month now. I will try to catch you up to speed...

On July 22nd-24th I attended Mortar Board's national conference in Columbus, Ohio. It was my first time to fly by myself...without any family members, namely mom or dad. I had a wonderful trip, although the conference was very fast paced. We were in meetings all day. I met people my age from all over the U.S. We shared ideas, and had fun getting to know one another in the short time period that we had. I also saw The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy that weekend. I laughed the entire time.

On Monday, July 25th, my grandfather Kitchens took a turn for the worse, and on Tuesday, July 26th, he passed away. He had been suffering for a long time (he had been in the hospital since early June, and before then he was in the hospital for long periods at a time), and in his last days he just wanted to go home...home to Jesus. It was sad to lose him, for he brought much laughter to everyone he met, but we also rejoiced in knowing that he was completely healed and praising Jesus. I could never thank everyone enough for all their prayers and visits...I love each of you.

The next week my family went on vacation, taking my grandmother Kitchens with us. We just loaded up, and hoped for a vacancy in Destin, Florida. We were blessed to have no trouble getting a room, and we even received a bottom level room. After all the hurricanes, the railings on the bottom floors don't exist any more, and the dunes have disappeared, so our condo opened right out to the beach. Since we saw very little sun the whole week, it was nice to be able to sit on the porch and be within inches of the beach. Our vacation was comprised of sleeping, sitting and resting, reading, and eating. We did very little more than that. It was wonderfully relaxing. I got a great start on The Lord of the Rings, and I bought The Screwtape Letters and The Complete Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy, six stories in one. I'm expecting it to be very funny. When I return home for the weekend, I'll try to remember to quote the bit about "towels" for you. :-)

I have now returned to Tuscaloosa, and school starts next week. Whew. How did I cram so much into one summer?