Back and able to speak!

[Elassa]

The mime tour went awesome! For those of you who would like to learn more about it, check out the site. I'll post the link at the end of this paragraph. For pictures, go to Media on the top toolbar and then click on the square that says, "Picture Center". Please note that the new vids are not up yet.

www.mimes.org

The pics of the team are under the members bar on the toolbar. I think there's even a blog recording our progress. I haven't read any of them. If you'd like to know more about it, just ask me. I'll be more than happy to share!!

[Child of Immanuel]

Welcome back!

[twyrch]

Welcome back!! I'm glad your tour went well.

[Elassa]

I MISS YOU GUYSSS!!!!

*cries* I miss you all!

[Dred]

*hugs*

I'm so glad you're back with us again.

I hope you had a blast on tour.

[Elassa]

We found out halfway through the tour that my right leg is sexy. It even said so. Yeah....Sharpies....

We went to the National Oklahoma City Memorial. If any of you remember the bombing from '96, I think it was. Yeah....that was an experience so intense there are no words. All you have to do is walk into the building. From the Survivor Tree, you're standing literally across the street from where the truck sat when it blew up, taking several federal workers and children with it. I think they said there are 19 chairs as graves for the children alone. The entire stretch of the building is now a field of empty chairs. The chairs are the graves. It was....intense.

We also stopped by the World's Largest Cross in Texas. Another intense moment. I cried. For over an hour. I felt sick when I stopped by each station. I felt like the crowd... Then there was the Mercy Fountain. That's what did it for me. That's when I started bawling. The abortion memorial station hit hard....made a tear slip. But it was the fountain of mercy that got me.

I went there to have some alone time with God. After a while, I started to get annoyed with all of the people coming to the fountain. How dare they interrupt my alone time with God. How dare they be a distraction. How dare they.... Then He hit me. He very plainly and very clearly told me, "Everyone is welcome at my fountain." Talk about a God burn. The tears flowed even harder then.

I'll save the funnies for another post...

[Dred]

Oh wow. That does sound very intense. It's strange to say but just reading your post gives me the shivers. The energy coming from your words is just amazing.

*hugs*

I'm really impressed and in awe.

[Elassa]

A lot of fun stuff happened. We had jokes like, "Someone hand me a four-year-old!" That was spawned from a miscommunication. I wanted the eye liner and they were talking about four-year-olds. We named one boy on the tour Flamer. The jokes just kept growing from that. A joke got started that Phillip and I had kids...not going into that one. It's funnier when you know the story behind it, though. We annoyed P-Rob, too. Umm...lots of fun stuff.

In Oklahoma, on our way back, we met this little girl named Rachel. She was creepy. She was adorable and loving, but very, very creepy. After only five minutes with her, everyone was freaked out. She was only ten years old, but she talked like an adult. She always wanted to play Ring Around The Rosy. Everyone agreed that it seemed like she shouldn't be there. It honestly felt like she shouldn't exist. She was disturbing on more than one level. Mrs. T wanted to find a way to get her to say Jesus' name. She wanted to make sure Rachel wasn't possessed. So we sang, "Jesus Loves Me". Yeah....that was creepier than it could've ever been. When she said his name, I literally felt the breath being sucked from my body. It was strange. We just loved on her constantly until her dad came to take her back to their RV. She didn't want to let go of Kelsey or me. She was precious....but....strange.

It almost makes my heart break, thinking back on it.

[Dred]

Wow. A mixture of strange and fun. Not to surprising I guess but I'm glad you had fun. It's always amazing how there can be so many different people out there. Some of them really do come across as being more than a little odd.

Perhaps it was her upbringing. Hard to say for certain.

[Elassa]

Everyone could just feel something wrong with her. It was strange.

Okay, and for the fun parts. Mary and I had the Cali kids convinced we were lesbians. Something about holding hands in L.A. and Mary suddenly grabbing me tightly and shouting, "Back off my life partner!" gave them the idea that we were lesbians. Of course, when everyone kept saying Phillip and I had two kids...their image of me didn't do much for me.

My youth pastor is a homophobe....so we got Flamer to joke with him. Mary and I liked to bother P-Rob by petting his arms and saying, "Loooovvveee" in a creepy voice. Well, Flamer jumps up out of nowhere and pets P-Rob's arm and says, "Hey big boy. How you doin'?" P-Rob freaked out and almost flailed. Yeah...fun stuff.

We had spit-wad wars, fell asleep on each other(literally), rode horses, got sand all over the place and had a miracle happen. Well, we call it a miracle. On our way back through Texas, we stopped in Amarillo at a KOA for the night. Well, the wind was far too strong for us to get the tents up at all, so we would've had to get a hotel for the night. We didn't have the money in the budget and Mrs. T was freakin' out. This lady who worked at the KOA said she went to an AG church in the area and called the pastor. The pastor said we could have the entire youth BUILDING for the night. He said as long as we didn't damage anything and left it the way we found it, we could spend the night there. SO WE DID!!! It was amazing!!!!! That was the first time in the whole two weeks that I had the chance to actually dance. I comandeered the gym and an iPod.

[Dred]

That sounds like a blast. Did you dance for a long time?

[Elassa]

I repeated a song about four times and even went on to other songs. It was very releasing.

Oh, and the night we did spend in a hotel was...interesting, to say the least. The girls had a room across the hall from the guys, so we were having fun with it. We were calling the next room and making them dance down the hall or open the door just as we were throwing pens at it. I started dancin' around the hall and stopped when I saw a couple leaving their room. At that exact moment, Kelsey (who was on the phone to the boys' room) shouts, "Andrew said he's not wearing pants!" The man in the hall looked at me like I was gonna do something dirty and told me, "That's good to know." It was awkward.

We also learned the world's most addictive card game!!!! It's called Nutsy. Yeah....fun. Like you wouldn't believe.

[Dred]

lol

That sounds like a lot of fun. Games being played back and forth between rooms. I've gotten those looks before from people. Had to think quick to come up with some excuse which I'm sure they didn't believe.

I would like to hear more details of this card game you've learned. I've played a game called Nuts or Peanuts which is basically like speed solitaire but nothing called Nutsy.

[Elassa]

The game you play...does everyone have their own special deck of cards and everyone can play off of anyone's deck when a card is placed in the middle? That's what Nutsy does. Everyone has a deck of cards with a unique backing. They set up their deck like solitaire and put a nutsy pile of ten cards to the side of it. Then they just play like solitaire...only they can play off of any card placed in the middle. The cards placed in the middle start at Aces and work their way to Kings. Once a person loses all of the cards in their nutsy pile, they call Nutsy and the game is over. The cards in the middle are sorted out into the different decks, then added up separately. The person with the most in the middle, wins. Nutsy cards count against you.

[Dred]

Yep. That's pretty much the same game I've played. I've played it with thirteen cards in the Nutsy pile and any cards left in your Nutsy pile after some goes out count double against you. You play to 100 and there are four piles from which you can build off of right in front of you instead of the 6/7 used in solitaire.

This can also be played using partners where one person plays the flip pile and the other uses the Nutsy pile and then alternate after each hand is played.

It's a lot of fun. I've played when there were ten decks being used at the same time. I started back when I was about seven or eight years old.