A visitor from the Midwest.

This weekend was great, and long. Saturday started with a birthday party for one of the high school students. That was a fun time. Water balloons and lots o' cake make for a good time. The highlight of the weekend was, however, Rondel, my youth ministry professor, coming to visit.
Rondel got in a little later than expected because of a storm in Detroit. I picked him up from the Jetport and began the short tour of the Greater Portland Area. It started at the Portland Head Light. Unfortunately, it was a foggy, foggy day. You couldn't see very far out into the ocean, or the lighthouse from far away. It was cool though. It's always great to get out and see nature and lighthouses. From there we made our way farther down the coast to the Lobster Shack at the Two Lights Lighthouse. It was a real taste of sea food and New England culture, though I hear its a little more touristy than a local favorite. Still, it's good food, it's right on the ocean, and is next to a lighthouse. We had a great time there and got a really good chance to talk about how my internship was going.
From there we drove through the Old Port in Portland. This is a really cool area that I'd like to go back and see in the daylight. It's one of the older parts of Portland and some of the streets still have the cobble stone streets. There's old buildings and cool architecture. Though, it's kind of like the French Quarter of New Orleans, a lot of bars. It's not a place you want to walk around at night.
Sunday morning we had church, and I had my first experience working in E-kids. It was a good experience, the kids were, for the most part well behaved, and I really didn't have to do a whole lot. I was just a glorified helper. From there I went to second service and then to the parents luncheon for the youth ministry parents. Unfortunately, the Dominoes guy was 15 minutes late. We still got our food though. It was good meeting and nice chance to get to know some of the parents.
After that, Rondel and I made a sprint up to Freeport to see L.L. Bean. We perused the selection, and then decided that the "outlet" was a better idea than the "retail" store because of the lower prices. And, when he asked the cashier why the prices were lower at this store as opposed to the store less than 100 yds away, she said, "because we're the outlet store and not the retail store." After that, we made a mad dash back to ECC to get ready for Fusion.
Fusion went really well, though while teaching the Middle School students, it looked like some of them had slipped into a coma. I think they were really listening though. It was a great night, and Middle school students are definitely more fun to play games with. We ended the night at D'Angelos sandwich shop and then I took Rondel to the airport at 4:30am.

It was a long, but good weekend. I can't wait for more people to come visit.