| Brace yourselves. NOTE: IF YOU KNOW ME PERSONALLY, I WOULD REALLY APPRECIATE IT IF YOU WOULD READ ALL OF THIS. I KNOW IT'S A LOT, BUT I'D LIKE YOU TO KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON WITH ME, EVEN IF ALL OF IT DOESN'T HAVE TO DO WITH WHAT'S MAINLY GOING ON WITH ME. JUST BEAR WITH ME. I'D ALSO APPRECIATE YOUR PRAYER. THANKS. .....So I got back yesterday. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, I went to New Mexico to visit my family for several days- it was the 25th anniversary of my aunt and uncle's church. I'll tell you this much......it was without a doubt the best trip I've ever been on. ....I'm not kidding. It was absolutely amazing. Completely fulfilling. I've been to New Mexico every year since I was born, and I've never had so much trouble leaving. Well, I've never actually had trouble leaving. Sure, I've always been a bit sad after leaving my family and having such a good time, but this time........it was different. Something happened to me. I'm not sure what. Can't really put my finger on it. But God moved in me. I cried for quite awhile when we got in the car and headed back for Texas. I felt like I was leaving my home. I missed everyone so badly the second I left them. *sigh* I'm serious. I felt like a child who had lost her mother. I was completely broken up....and I can't figure out why. Am I being called there? .....God knows. I just have to pray and wait on Him to move- wherever that may be. This is kind of a scary place to be in cuz I'm not sure what's going on with me. You know? But it's also great. "The best is yet to come." That's the theme for my uncle's church's 25th anniversary. And it's so true. He's doing amazing things in that place. I'm so proud to be a part of it. So, as I was saying- it was an amazing week. So many things happened. We left last Wednesday night and drove all the way to Amarillo, Texas. When we got there, we stopped at this old hotel to take a rest. Hehe. It was interesting. I mean it wasn't bad....just interesting. Hehehe. So we got a good night's rest- and by that I mean we woke up at 6. Who knows why we left at a quarter to nine, then? Of course, this doesn't affect me cuz I'm stretched out on a bed in the back, sleeping. ;) Heehee. I get to be comfortable. You can tell when you're almost in Albuquerque because the mountains come into view and you begin driving through hills and cliffs. Oh, it's so beautiful out there. Perfect weather. It was so funny because all my family was complaining about the "hot weather" and the "terrible rains." I just smiled and shook my head because it was normal thunderstorms for Texas and it was like 80 something degrees. Haha. It hit 99 for them last week, which was record-breaking and really hot for them. I just had to say “you don't know what hot is." In New Mexico, the weather is great year-round. There's never any humidity- which is great for people like me with allergies. It's dry and comfortable. Plus, when winter rolls around, you get great snow. And I mean, come on, it's one of the most artistic cities in the country. Everywhere you look, you see art. And I don't mean a painting or a sculpture, although those are everywhere. I mean they decorate everything. It's all fun to look at. The city is one giant art piece. And the mountains. It's gorgeous. Ah, I love it so much. When we got there, we went straight to the church to see everyone. My cousin Carrie saw my dad walking through the hall and screamed. My mom and I were in the bathroom when we heard her. Everyone just started laughing. Then we saw my cousin, her husband, Jeremy. Then my cousin Joy. And for the first time, I saw her 3 kids. I had seen one of them before, but she was only 2- and that was over 6 years ago. I never knew her. Now I got to see all 3. My dad and I were afraid that they would shy away from us, not knowing who we were and would ignore us or something, but no. Mathew, the middle child at 6 years old runs up to my dad, looks up at him and says with a serious face "Are you Uncle Jeff!?" My dad said yes and he just clamped onto my dad. He is so adorable. Mikaela came up next and she just jumped into my dad's arms. And guess what? My dad started to cry. Yup. If you know my dad, you know this isn't unusual. My dad has been like a second father to all of the girls in the family. Uncle Jeff has always been the hero. Sadly, he hasn't been able to feel like that in a long time because all of his "babies" are grown up. Mikaela gave him another chance at that. She immediately clamped onto him and he lost it. He has a new baby girl to spoil- and he already has begun the spoiling. I gained 3 new admirers. Maegann is the youngest at 2 years old, and she is without a doubt the cutest baby I've ever seen in my life. Blonde hair, blue eyes, great smile and adorable voice. She may only be 2 years old, but this girl is a future model. She is incredibly photogenic. The pictures taken of me and her and my cousin Carrie and her look like they belong in a magazine. I'm not kidding. She's amazing. Anyway, Mikaela follows me around everywhere when she isn't in my dad's lap. She loves to dance with me and hear me sing songs from Beauty and the Beast. All the kids call me Belle. It was so cute when I first met them. Their mom goes "that's the girl who played Belle" and they all ran up to me and hugged me. It was sooo sweet. I'm Mathew's favorite person in the world now. He constantly comes up to me saying "I love you." Oh gosh, it melts your heart. I love it. And Meagann- well, at first she was very shy to me and my family, but she seriously warmed up to me later. I heard her crying one day, so I went to get her out of her crib. She clung to me like noboby's business- and when my dad tried to take her away from me, she squeezed my neck as tight as she could. She did not want to let go of me. Now that made me feel special. She just laid in my arms for the longest time. It was an amazing feeling for me. The minute we got into town, we found out some bad news. My aunt Debbie had gone into the hospital. Gallstones. She was going to have surgery to have her gallbladder removed. I felt so bad for her. Her family had come into town, and she'd be stuck in a hospital room. We went to see her before she would go into surgery. More bad news. The woman had to wait till the next day to have the surgery. But at least it's behind her now and she is without that pain for the rest of her life. She said it was worse than childbirth. .......Ouch. That night, the whole family, save my aunt Debbie and cousin Jonathan (like you know who these people are), went to Village Pizza- a really good little pizza place in the heart of Corrales, where my aunt Angel lives. It's such a quaint part of town- the expensive part, though. It's so beautiful. So that was fun. Then I had to ride to my aunt Angel's house in the trunk of a van. Haha. It was fun. The whole fam went over to her house for awhile to visit, and then I went back to my cousin Carrie's house. I stayed with her the whole trip. I'm so glad I got to. I haven't got to spend time with her since I was a little girl. She's my favorite cousin- that one that you look up to with all your heart. She and Jeremy moved back out to Albuquerque to be with the family and now they're the youth pastors at the church. Those two are absolutely a-mazing. I love her house. She lives out by the petroglyphs national monument- you know, all the volcanoes. It's so beautiful out by her house. And I finally got to properly meet Jeremy and spend time with him. All I can say is I gained a new brother and mentor. Carrie got soooo blessed by God to have Jeremy for a husband. He has a servant's heart if I've ever seen one, so sweet, absolutely hilarious, on fire for God, and a voice that would blow your mind. I've never been so touched by any other person's voice than his. He can get way up there and belt it like the house needs to come down. And Carrie, needless to say, has the voice of an angel to match his. I love those two so much. They made me cry when I heard them sing. Gave me peoplebumps. Haha. The next day, Carrie, Jeremy and I went up to the church to do some video editing. She and Jeremy have worked their butts off for a year trying to make this 25th anniversary special for their parents. They arranged for so many special guests to come out. Some big names in the ministry. After that, Carrie and I went to pick up my cousin Jonathan and go out to eat with my mom, dad and aunt Pam. We went to the famous Route 66 diner. It was very good- amazing shakes. Except for one thing- you look at the outside, then you look at the inside, and you see nothing but a diner. Then you get the bill and you wonder what happened. Hahaha. My dad freaked out when he got the bill. It just doesn't seem like the kind of place to charge $100 for some burgers and shakes for 6 people. You know? Haha. It was funny though. We all got a good laugh out of it. We had so much fun that lunch. We were laughing the entire time. .......My dad actually squirted shake out of his nose. My cousin Jonathan had just said something hilarious, as he usually does, and out it came. It was sooooo funny. That night, Carrie took me along to youth group. I really didn't want to go that much. Let's just say, if I hadn't, I would've missed out on the best thing of my life. Youth group was fantastic- to say the least. From the moment I walked in there (thinking I would be out of place and feeling awkward), all the members of the youth group greeted me with open arms and treated me like I knew them for years. Caleb, the drummer in the band played a song for me. A guy I met named Thomas started making up a song for me. It was so cute. I felt like I had been there forever...like I truly belonged there. It blew my mind. Then we played a game. Thomas grabbed me immediately as his partner. Carrie, Caleb and I made really long ropes out of twizzler candy. The game involved 2 people on each end of the rope, and you had to eat your way to the middle. Sounds interesting, huh? Haha. When we got down to the middle of the rope, Tom yanked the twizzler out of my mouth and it flew everywhere. It was so gross, but so funny. Hey, we got second place and won candy bars. Plus, Jeremy gave me Carrie's KitKat in the middle of the service. Just threw it at me. Haha. He makes fun of me all the time. Loves to pick on me. It's just cuz he loves me. :) On top of that, Carrie actually came up and announced that my dad had brought me a Cinnabon. Hahaha. I made everyone laugh when I freaked out. It was a night of sweetness. The worship was incredibly anointed. Carrie and Jeremy, as I said, made me cry when they sang. They have unbelievable talent. The Lord was in that place. That’s for sure. It was amazing. I know I keep saying that, but it’s all I know to say to describe what happened…what I felt. I can’t get over it. Something happened in me, in those moments. God’s moving in me. Like I said earlier, I can’t put my finger on it, but something’s going to happen. I’m headed somewhere with this. After the service, we all just kind of hung out for awhile, playing around. The plan was to go to Chili’s this week, but we ended up not leaving the building until after 11:30 or so. I’m not sure. We lost all sense of time. Something came up. Carrie ended up having to help a drunk woman outside the building. She spent the waiting time ministering to her. It was pretty cool, actually. So while Carrie was ministering and trying to talk to the lady, I just ended up talking with Thomas on the curb the whole time. And the light outside the building kept going on and off! It was soooo annoying!!! But whatever. After we found a ride for the lady, I went back to Carrie’s. Something random: The bed in the guest room at Carrie’s is a queen-size air mattress. It’s tall off the ground. I didn’t realize that until I tried to get on it. I put my knee up on the bed and the whole bed leaned toward me. I felt so stupid. And later I got too close to one end of the bed and rolled off…which made me feel even more stupid. The next morning, my mom and dad came over to Carrie’s for breakfast. They had been staying at my aunt Pam’s- and so was my dog, Joshua. J Oh, speaking of dogs- I finally got to meet Carrie’s dog, Stanley. The whole family always talked about him, but I never got to see him. He’s a Rhodesian ridgeback. They’re African hunting dogs, and they’re just about the calmest breed out there. Stanley is so quiet and so sweet. His eyes look like little sad puppy eyes all the time. It’s so cute. If you stare at him a long time, it makes him nervous and he’ll look up at the ceiling to avoid looking at you. Then he’ll silently woof. It’s adorable. Anyway- I’ll stop now. Haha. Breakfast. It was nice to relax and talk a bit. After that, I went to the Cottonwood mall with my mom and dad so I could get some time in with them. We just shopped around awhile. Bought everything at the Disney store. J My favorite store in the world. I got a new purse. Woohoo!!! It’s a PotC purse and it’s o-some. Hehe. Of course, we bought presents for the kids. After our shopping was the Hay family party. My aunt Debbie’s and aunt Angel’s birthdays are in July and my aunt Pam’s and dad’s birthdays are in August- so we had one big birthday party for all of them at my aunt Angel’s house. It was fun. Debbie and Jonathan actually got to be with us, even though she had surgery the day before. She was doing pretty well. Jonathan, of course, had the whole family cracking up with his impressions. And I had to play Sleeping Beauty with my little cousins. Except Mathew got it a little confused. He thought Spiderman was supposed to save the princess. It was a good time. The next morning, I had to wake up at 5:45. Haha, oh how wonderful that was. I had to get ready for church- the 25th anniversary celebration was starting that day. Carrie and Jeremy had to be up at the church by 7…ish. Haha. I was a VIP that day and sat up in the reserved front row seating, and sat through both services. All of our old lifetime friends kept coming up to me and hugging me saying “oh my gosh, you’re so grown up.” It was great to see them all again. Both services were fantastic. Pat Harrison of FCF flew all the way out there to speak, and her message was definitely for me. I love it when that happens. The 25th anniversary video Carrie and Jeremy spent so much time getting together turned out so well. Everyone was laughing and crying. And I realized something. In one of the pictures, I saw my aunt Angel at a really young age. She looked exactly like me! I have a twin! It’s crazy. I have looked into the mirror sometimes and seen her, but now I know for sure that I look like her. I even laugh like her. Hey, I’m proud to carry the spirit of my aunt Angel on. J Carrie and I were up front dancing around together during worship. We were cracking up my family. I love Carrie so much. I can relate to her more than any of my family. She’s a lot like me. She’s truly my mentor. And she knows how to laugh and have a good time. Oh, if you only knew her- you’d love her. She’s crazy. Since she was a baby, my dad has called her “big bird.” When I was born, I became “little bird.” We both always go “tweet tweet” to each other. After the services, Carrie took me to get a Blake’s Lottaburger- Albuquerque’s best burger, they say. And I’ll say this much- it is! I liked it better than In ‘n Out Burger. I’m not kidding. It was sooooo good. There are those who would kill me for saying that, but whatever. I know what I like. Then we went back to the house to rest before the big dinner. Sunday was the big day for my family. The church had reservations for 350+ at Garduno’s on the Green, a famous Mexican restaurant in New Mexico. It was good. Family got first dibs at food. It was nice. We didn’t have to wait behind 300 people. A really good mariachi band played almost the whole time. After awhile, a lot of people went outside to mingle or hit some golf balls on the green. The kids came out to play with me. Here’s one of the main highlights of my trip. Maegann, the baby of Joy’s kids had been warming up to me as I said before, but she hardly expressed herself to me or spoke. When we went out to play on the green, I called to her “Elmo!” (I nicknamed her Elmo because she loves Elmo so much) and she came running down the hill with the biggest smile on her face and she called out “Juwia!” I couldn’t believe it. I melted into a million pieces. It made my year. No, it made my decade. It was so precious. For me, it seemed like a once in a lifetime thing. It was just that special to me. “She’s my baby now,” I told Joy. I grabbed her when she ran to me and pulled her up in the air and she gave me the cutest smile/giggle. Oh, I loved it so much. She didn’t say my mom’s name. She didn’t say my dad’s. She didn’t even say Jonathan’s or Debbie’s- or even Aunt Pam’s! She said mine! I’m happy for life now. I love that child. After spending some time with the kids, I went and hung out with Thomas and Caleb and the youth boys. They are so much fun to be around. They’re crazy. One of them, Josh, looks like a cross between Napoleon Dynamite and Austin Powers. He’s hilarious. Thomas nicknamed me “Xena” after the warrior princess TV show because he asked what my full name meant and I told him “youthful/beautiful, over comer, warrior”, so he said my nickname should be Xena. I just shook my head and laughed. Whatever. We played around awhile, and the kids came in and joined in the fun. I was so sad when I had to leave. It was the best day of my life. I didn’t want to say goodbye to anyone. At least they gave me their email addresses and numbers so I could keep in touch. Near the end of the party, lightning and thunder was coming in over the mountains. We got rain for a few days while there. It’s so beautiful over the mountains. I love it! After Garduno’s, the whole fam went to Aunt Angel’s again. It was our goodbye time. We actually weren’t going to go. Then it turned into “we’ll just be there for a few minutes to say goodbye.” Well, that changed. I rode over with Caremy (that’s the nickname the family’s given to Jeremy and Carrie J ) and we stopped at Satellite coffee first. Jer bought me a really good drink with lots of chocolate. Of course, since I don’t drink coffee and I’m not used to it, it had a funny effect on me. J My uncle Terry came in later and ended up just singing and playing his guitar. I’m not even really sure how it got started, but we all ended up joining in and making requests from his albums. My uncle’s been a singer his whole life, and was actually in a popular rock band in the 70’s, but the Lord led him to the ministry and he’s released many albums/cd’s since. Anyway, we ended up worshipping in the Spirit for who knows how long. It was amazing. I wouldn’t have missed a second of it. I had never seen the whole family sing together like that, going wherever the Spirit takes them. It was beautiful. My dad says they used to do it all the time, a long time ago. It was such a special thing. The entire Hay family can sing, that’s for sure. Oh, I wish I could go through all of this again! I miss it all- everyone- so much. It hurts. It really does. Something is going on. It’s okay, though. I just gotta earnestly seek and pray. The Lord will reveal to me what He’s doing in His own good time. I’m excited for whatever’s coming. My cousin Carrie actually texted me this morning and said “God shared something with me before you got here that I will pray about sharing with you. It is good and floored me. Your life is in God’s hands…I know your life will impact our world.” I started to cry the instant I read it. I got chills all over. I couldn’t believe it. I told you- something’s happening. *sigh* Be patient. Be patient. Bottom line: I had the trip of my life and I can’t wait till Christmas so I can have a better one- and see everyone again. RECENT EXCITING UPDATE: My cousin Rayne is getting married!!!!!!!!!!! We had just gotten home from New Mexico yesterday when she came up to the door and put out her hand, showing us her gorgeous engagement ring! I can't believe it! My Rayne is getting married!!!!!!!! For those of you who know who I'm talking about, she's marrying Roby (the Elijah Wood-looking guy she's been with forever). I get a new cousin. Yay. :) Thanks for putting up with me and reading all this. It was reeeeeally long. Sorry. But I wrote it so I could remember everything. You know how it goes. As I said, your prayers would be appreciated. I love you, my friends. Have a great week and a good night’s sleep. Until we meet again |
