I'm going to attempt to catch up on this blog. I have had several life changes recently including... moving to Colorado! I will be starting graduate school at Denver Seminary to work on a Master of Arts degree in Leadership with a concentration in Outdoor Leadership. What does that mean? It means I will be learning how to structure and build leadership for churches and organizations and will be speciliazing in outdoor ministries like wilderness education and camping & retreat ministries.

I left Nashville a little later than expected; I am always running behind when it comes to travelling it seems. I was supposed to meet my dad for his lunch break, but I was delayed while getting my oil change, so I didn't get to spend as much time with him as I would like. After turning around once or twice for things I forgot, I finally started on my drive.

The drive to Kansas City is fairly familiar to me since I have driven that route several times while heading to and from the Tetons. This time I had a friend to visit in Alton, IL which is just across the river from St. Louis. My good friend from college, Sarah, lives there.

Sarah and I were neighbors our freshman and sophomore years. She is one of the few friends who I started college with and stayed close to throughout. She, Tracy, and I had lots of fun times with the awesome girls in our wing, many of whom transferred school or didn't return after our first year. Sarah has a really unique combination of traits that I really love and visiting her home town in 2003 brought clarity to who she is. She is super creative and funky, yet she also loves tradition. The first apartment of hers that I visited was part of the underground railroad. The streets of downtown Alton are cobblestone and lined with neat shops, restaurants, spas, coffee shops, and art galleries.

I arrived in Alton around 7:30pm and Sarah took me to an Italian restaurant down by the river. It was a gorgeous evening and a lovely way to catch up. Afterward we went back to her house, and Sarah found a bunch of fun pictures from our Lambuth Singers trip to Chicago and posted them to Facebook. It's so fun to see old friends!