A Story of Hugs, Hives and Pickles...

Sorry, still haven't had the time to upload my pictures to the computer, but I'm promising a marathon in a few days.

Day two of the family vacation brought us to our reunion destination. Beautiful place called Carson Springs. It is a Baptist conference center. As we walked through the front doors I was immediately greeted by old missionaries who knew me as a young girl...in fact the very age my daughter is now. Although, many of the missionary kids, who were my friends, were unable to come, it was still great to be able to talk to my "aunts and uncles" and find out about my long lost MK cousins.

Then the bad news came...we discovered that there is no television, the swimming pool is under construction and the activity center is reserved for another group staying at the center. Panic mode as we realize that we have five kids to keep busy, while a bunch of old folks talking about their Bangladesh days. Enter nice receptionist, who offers suggestions of activities in a town nearby. Who knows what the dads and the kids will get into tomorrow.

Come seven o'clock and we had our first meeting of the reunion. Enter panic... If you have read my post for a while then you know I have this terrible fear. It is called public speaking. I start to turn beet red and hive up like I've had an allergic reaction to something. Hey! I am queen of allergies...can a person be allergic to public speaking? Anyway, they had us play a "game." The point of the game was that you were given a Bengali word and you had to find someone who knew what the word meant, then you would share the word and definition with the whole group. You would also have to tell who you were, and how you first heard of Bangladesh. Easy enough, right? Not for a girl with a fear like mine, especially when I didn't know many in the group. I felt the panic coming on. When I had finally calmed myself down and decided I could do it, I had hived up so bad I think my sister was about ready to take me to the ER.

Truth is, I think very few people realized what I was going through and I pulled it off, talking into the microphone and everything. I'm thinking I deserve a gold star or something.

After the meeting, our family gathered in one of the rooms and played games. We had a lot of fun. Ever played "In a Pickle?" Too fun!!! Or maybe I was too tired. Either way it was a good hour of laughs. Thanks Amb and Kirk! I needed it.

So in summery... I'm staying at a beautiful place, seen some special people from my childhood that I haven't seen in a long while, survived a "fear" moment and shared some laughs with the fam. Overall a nice day.

Wonder what tomorrow holds...