A Whirlwind of a Weekend

This weekend was fast and furious! Friday night I had dinner with my old boss...just to catch up on Haiti, the ministry and other stuff. It was good to see him and I'm glad things were not awkward. I was a little bit worried about that. I went home after and went to bed pretty early.

I got up Saturday morning and met Kendra and Linkon at McDonald's for lunch. Linkon played on the playplace while K and I caught up on life. I looking forward to moving back to Smyrna so I can spend more time with them. I love the Parker family so much and I'm definitely going to have to be around more when little Eli is born in May! :)

After lunch I went over to my mom and dad's. No one was home, so I called and they were at an appliance store picking up a new fridge. Their's went out. So after that whole ordeal, Dad and I start looking at my car to see if we could fix the A/C. It turned out to be a somewhat expensive part and it would take a good bit of work to get it fixed. I had been looking to get a new car in the next couple of weeks, so dad and I decided that we'd go up to Nashville and take a test drive.

Long story short, I now own a 2007 Hyundai Sonata!! 8-D Big Cheesy grin on my face!! It's the first time I've bought a new new car. It had 15 miles on it when I did my test drive. It turned out that I had built some good credit, so I didn't have to get a co-signer. (made me feel good) So...she's beautiful. The car that is. White powder pearl, I think I'll name her "pearl" or "minnie" can't decide yet. So in actuality, it's a white car with sparklely paint. Leather interior, sunroof, 6 disc changer, with a huge sound system, etc. etc. Pretty much loaded. Dad and I figured...why not...it'll up the resale value!!

So...Saturday ended on a high note! :)

Sunday...was a LONG LONG LONG DAY!

Kirk and I left my apartment around 9:30 am to go to East TN. I drove, of course, because you can't buy a car one day and then sit all day the next in someone else's car. It's like getting married and then going on the honeymoon with another person! (ok...bad analogy, but that's all I got). As we drove, we kept saying to each other, "I can't believe I'm driving 5 hours for this." The purpose of our trip was to be part of a surprise party for Crystal & Brandon. I'll have to write about their story later. It's beautiful. But to make all this make sense, I have to tell you that they got engaged this weekend. He took her on a surprise trip to NYC and then they came back to Charlotte. Then drove 3 hours to the Johnson City, where we were all going to be to surprise her at an engagement party. So, of course, Brandon asked Kirk and I to come and of course we said yes. But we were stupid and left Sunday morning to go and come back Sunday night.

As we passed through Knoxville, we stopped and ate at a Cracker Barrel. We walked in and were greeted by lots of people wearing Bristol Motor Speedway shirts. As we sat down Kirk and I put two and two together. We asked our lovely waitress Christina to confirm and we were right. The Bristol Motor speedway (whose race sells out years in advance) was host to that afternoon's race. AHHHH!! We thought...maybe it's a night race?? NOPE! It's scheduled to end just around 6 pm. Kirk and I had planned to leave around 7, because Crystal and Brandon were going to be at the party around 5:30. (enter in a black cloud and a bad attitude for Mel!!)

And if you think about it....Bristol is Brandon and Crystal's names together. Hmm....isn't that cute. Thorn in my side if you ask me!!!

So...we were able to stay and hug and kiss our friends. We congratulated them and then we hit the road. The ride home seemed longer, but we actually made better time. It's easier to speed, when you're ready to be home. Luckily, we only hit a little bit of traffic before Knoxville. The 160,000 racefans were just starting to get on the road, so we beat most of them.

I got home at 10:30 and was asleep before midnight. So I'm a little tired today, but not as bad as I thought I would be. I was really glad I got to see Crystal. She was glowing. I heard some of the story of what they did over the weekend, but I'll have to get details later. She did call me on Friday after he proposed and asked me to be her maid of honor. YEAH!! :)

So....needless to say...I'll be in the bed early tonight!