Bendixens + Tour Group + Us = ... Exactly

This Summer, Katie will be singing in a tour group as she travels across the Northeastern United States going church-to-church. Though it isn't Summer yet, they were singing at a church in our town. We couldn't let an opportunity like this go to waste! We had a mission. A mission we titled Bendixens. :P

I'll begin several days before the weekend. We did a lot of work. We even redid our dining room (using the same paint color yet a different wallpaper). We've had that wallpaper since we moved into the house, and I'll really miss it... a lot. :P Well, I suppose I'll eventually get over it, but I hate changing things. :)

What the wallpaper looked like before we redid it. Goodbye, and I'll remember you forever. :P

Saturday
On Saturday, the Bendixens arrived bright and early... Levi even woke me out of bed! While all the other Bendixens went to someone's house to fix a furnace, Andrew decided to give Levi a haircut. Yes, I said, "Andrew gave Levi a haircut." :P

Andrew destroying Levi's hair:


Levi screamed the whole time! :P


In the afternoon, Ele, Andrew and Levi took Katie to Adrian, Michigan to join her tour group. I couldn't go, as I had to do my paper route yet. Jeriah volunteered (yay for Jeriah, my name-twin! :P) to help me. Sadly, I didn't get a single picture/video from it at all. While I was half-way done, the paper owner was watching me! As I walked past her, she stopped me and talked to me! Ahh! (I did everything alright, I think. :P )

At around 5pm, we went ice skating with Katie's tour group, and a whole church youth group! I didn't fall down onto the ice a single time. That is, until they did a race! It was a four-team race, with five players on each time. When it came time for me to speed around the rink, I blazed off like... a Bendixen! As I was rounding the first corner, with our team in second-or-third place, I wiped out and fell to the ground. Uh-oh.

I did get back up quickly, but that wasn't the point – I fell. :P Our team ended up finishing in third place, and I don't believe it was because of me. We continued to skate for awhile, and it was a lot of fun.

Myself, Plyllissa and Levi:


Jemima, Grace, Andrew, Myself, Katie:


Ele and Grace:


After skating, the camera went dead. We went to CiCi's Pizza, and had a really good time there. Lots of laughs. :) We did much work that night, up until around midnight. At that time we began watching a movie... a very long one. It was an old movie titled The Borrowers, and it turned out to be three hours long!

Watching the movie:


So we watched... and watched... and watched. The movie dragged on for so long, we couldn't believe our eyes. When it finally seemed to be ending, it ended up only being half way through. We laughed so hard through it all... though it wasn't even funny. We didn't finished the movie until after 3am. :P

Sunday
On Sunday morning, we woke up and went to Loomis for church, with the Bendixens. Afterwards, we returned home and cleaned up the house one final time. At around three in the afternoon, Katie's tour group arrived! We sat in the living room for much of the afternoon, introducing ourselves, and each other. We had such a great time of laughter! It was awesome.

Sitting around in the living room:


Having lunch:


A video of us all singing:



After only an hour or two, the group had to leave to go sing at a church. Shortly thereafter, we all loaded up into the vans and drove to church. The service was two hours long, and a great time! The message was very moving and the tour group's singing was beautiful. Afterwards, everyone stayed and we had a great time of fellowship.

On our way to church:


The tour group (stolen from Ele):

All in all, I could hardly imagine the weekend being much better (although, if we're on the subject, I could come up with some ideas :P ). It was... hard to explain. I suppose I've run out of ways to explain it. Just envision this: the Bendixens + Tour Group + Us = ... Exactly. :)

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God bless, J.J.