Bell Family Vacation - part one!

Yes... I know it has been awhile. So sorry. I did not have internet access whilst I was lounging on the beach. (sigh) I wish I were still there. But alas, my pirate did not locate me and sweep me off my feet to his 85 foot yacht. I did not stand on the bow and wave goodbye to the cruel world of the work force. No. I returned to work like the good girl I am.

The Bell family arrived at various times through the weekend to the beach. I left town on Friday, so I could visit with the Dean family for a few days before hooking up with my blood relatives. My car was LOADED down too! You see... the parental units were taking their van but also had a sister-in-law and teenage niece in tow. This meant six pieces of luggage in their minivan. SIX!!! Apparently Allison is following in Kristin's footsteps and must pack every item of clothing she owns. So I had to drop the back seat of my car to carry my luggage, my parents' luggage, enough snack food to feed the Bell Army and games and prizes galore! (more about that later)

The Mom and Dad left with the Sisinlaw and Niece at 6:00 a.m. on Saturday. The baby brother and his brood didn't leave until after lunch on Saturday... because they were not as prepared as I and had to get oil changes, tires rotated, new tire because of a nail, etc. before they could hit the road to fun and frivolity.

Due to circumstances beyond my control (the death of BFF Mary's grandmother) I was a little late getting out of dodge myself... which meant I hit Friday afternoon rush hour in Birmingham. It is not as bad as Nashville traffic... but I was still stuck for over an hour. Not fun. I didn't get to the Dean house before 11:30pm, but the early birds were kind enough to have waited up for me.We had a wonderfully relaxing time there on Saturday. The Deans are in great form... my childrens are all growing so tall and are looking less and less like childrens all the time. But they still like to snuggle on the couch and that is just fine by me!

The newest member of the family... Corban... is quite his own little man. He is well loved (of course) and has many helpers in the house when he has a need. I told C&A that he really has his own style, look, etc., which is amazing since you would think he'd resemble at least ONE of his siblings. Alas... he's just another handsome Dean young'un.

We grilled out by the pool on Saturday and really just lounged about. Watched "Night at the Museum" and got to bed early so as to wake up early for church the next morning. Church at Rocky Bayou is wonderful. A great worship leader (yes, I'm biased there) and a strong pastor. I loved it.

Of course, my worship leader friend asked if I wanted to sing with the choir... told me I would know the songs... and I figured that it would be simple to do, if I rehearsed it once before the service. We did run both of the choir numbers... and I was confident that with the words provided on the big screen at the back of the church, I would do fine.

We march out like good little worship leaders and I look up to see announcements running on the big screen at the back of the auditorium. Carey gets up to start the call to worship and the screen goes black. The production manager that is dormant in me wanted to run up and find out what the problem was. I looked at the other choir members to see if they were as panic-stricken as I. Everyone appeared to be very calm. Everyone but me.

Realization slowly dawned on me... they don't have words to their choir songs on the back of the auditorium. I am about to sing down the rafters by repeating "watermelon, watermelon" for the next three minutes. Thankfully it was not that difficult and I made my way through the call to worship making mental notes to smack my worship leader friend at my earliest convenience for "forgetting" to mention this minor detail.

We had a lovely lunch at the Dean homestead (Amy wins best friend award for grilling a piece of chicken for my lunch, since I am not eating red meat and she had a roast on the table) and at 2:00pm, I received a call from Katy Bell asking me when I was going to arrive at the beach, as they were all anxiously awaiting my appearance.

I said cheerful goodbyes to the Deans and began my trek to PCBeach...

... to be continued...