Yet Another Crazy Time At The Bendixens

For my parents' 25th wedding anniversary, my siblings and I decided to send them on a "Honeymoon", which took place last weekend. This, of course, is a perfect opportunity to go to the Bendixens! We did just that. I stayed with the Bendixens from Wednesday–Monday, while my younger sisters stayed at Barak & Amanda's house. Here's everything that I remember happening:

First of all, here's a picture of my parents on their "Honeymoon":



Wednesday
In the late afternoon, my Mom drove us down to Barak and Amanda's apartment, where we were soon joined by all the Bendixen family. I didn't have the camera all weekend, but I managed to collect these photos (and any more in this post) from other peoples' cameras.

Levi and I, at Bear & Manda's apartment, the first night:


Surrounding the cell-phone's wonderful glow. :P


Surrounding the computer's wonderful glow. :P


Couches sure do fit a lot of people. :)


Thursday
Thursday and Friday were very similar days. Both days we Levi and I up at around 7am. Both days we went to the fair. Both days we attempted to witness to people. But the two days had one substantial difference. You see, at the fair, they had a "bottomless" cup of chocolate milk. You simply gave them back the cup and they'd refill it for you. The one difference between the two days, as I found out, was that on Thursday I had 6 refills, but on Friday I only had 5. :P

In reality, the two days were very similar, at least at the fair. Thursday was a good day, but I can't remember much of anything to mention. :D

Myself, Susanna and Plyllissa:


Friday
As I said, Friday was nearly the same as the previous day had been. The fair went very well, and I was able to witness to around five people (whereas only about two on Thursday). Levi had been asked if he would play his accordion at a dinner event. Afterwards, the lady who had asked him to do it, who we learned was something like the fair Secretary, asked if he would also play the National Anthem for the Monster Truck Rally that night!

We had already planned to go to a friends' birthday partly after the fair, so he wasn't able to do it, but she told him he might be able to do it Saturday night. We left and went to the Rothenhauser's house for dinner and games. We played several games of the Name Game, and then Bible trivia. I met some new friends, and we had a very, very fun time.

The girls stayed at Bear & Manda's apartment all weekend. Here are some pictures they took:

Eating breakfast, or maybe lunch, or perhaps dinner. Who knows? :D


Amanda by the pool:


Bear, Susanna and Phyllissa swimming:


Susanna and Phyllissa playing in the blankets. ;)


Saturday
Late Saturday morning, Mr. Bendixen took Levi and I to a music store for us to pick up sheet music for the National Anthem. He practiced that from that point on, until we prepared to leave for the fair at around 1pm.

The day went along as the previous two days had done; hundreds of little kids heard the Gospel! Levi had kept practicing his song throughout the day. Not only did the lady say he was going to be playing, Levi asked if all of us could get into the Figure 8 Race. She said yes, and offered to drive us all into it on her golf cart.

Levi played The Star Spangled Banner in front of up to 2,000 people! It was so nerve-racking. I 100% enjoyed watching the race. NASCAR, in my opinion, is so boring because you just wait and wait for your favorite car to come into view, 300+ times. In these races, you got to watch the cars slam into each other and fight for the win. :D

The next four pictures are used on behalf of James Johnson. :D

Jeriah at the race! :P


The group sitting on the grass:


This crash got the whole crowd laughing. Two cars had died next to each other, with a car-wide gap in between. Another car tried to squeeze in between them, but he was stuck as well! The other two cars took turns ramming into them, trying to break a way to finish the race. :P


Sunday
While driving us to the Coopers' house on Sunday morning for church, we were fairly early and decided to stop at Lake Huron and walk along the beach. I was somewhat disappointed because the Cooper family basically lives in the middle of nowhere, so we wouldn't be able to go witnessing with the other Home Church teens. I had promised God that I would go witnessing every day in July, unless I absolutely could not, and I had kept it until that date. But, God gave me the perfect opportunity, as there was a guy sitting down with his dog at the beach! I gave him the Gospel, and it put me in a great mood for the rest of the day!

We, even though we stopped at the beach, arrived before everyone else. During church, Mr. Bendixen told us that we should be searching for two main things when we read the Bible: Jesus, and love. That began some very good spiritual discussions, which I really enjoyed. After church, we didn't have a volleyball net, and I'm glad we didn't. For the rest of the day, I did two main things; play ultimately girls' football, and play with the younger kids.

As far as girls' football goes, I enjoyed it more than any other games of it I've played. But that's because I stayed on defense the whole game, so I'd intercept any long throws they made. (And I don't understand why they kept throwing them; I caught/deflected every one! :D) Plus, the other team never put a defender on me, so from time to time I would run to the other end zone, being wide open, and caught a touchdown pass. It was a good time. :D

But my person highlights of the day was playing with all the church kids! They are just so awesome. They tickled me, I pushed Lem and Luke around on the cars, I played catch with them, and I believe I spent more than half of the day with them. :D Us teens also did human pyramids, and that too was a pretty good time! God is so awesome; He blessed us with an amazing day! On the way home, we picked up some White Castle burgers, and I had my first ever. As soon as we returned home (about 8:45pm), Levi and I went witnessing, and he had a really good talk with a couple.

Joe, Ryan C., Levi and Ethan doing a group push-up (thanks to Leah):


Monday
On Sunday, Levi and I woke up at 8am and were called into devotions. That entire time, I couldn't keep my eyes open. I had one objective once we were through with prayer; that was to charge into Levi's bed. To my surprise, Levi was laying in his couch next to the bed cuddled into his blanet. "I'm pulling a J.J.", he said. :P We went back to sleep, and didn't get up until a little after noon. :D

We awoke, and soon found ourselves cleaning out their van, which took just under an hour to do. We then biked to , and I was able to share the Gospel with Chad, although I sped through it too much. We needed to return to the Bendixens then, because Barak and Amanda were wanting to leave. On the way home, I began reading One Thing You Can't Do In Heaven, which is a great book. I'm really starting to like 1 Corinthians 9:16:

For though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of: for necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel!

Barak and Amanda decided to spend the night at our house! The only significant even I remember happening is a great game of Balderdash. I'm beginning to love the game; not because I get last place every time, but because it makes you laugh so much! :D We all went to bed, and I can't remember anything special happening the next morning. They left in the late afternoon.

There I go again. I did an entire post solely on facts. I said, "We did this, then did that," and "We went here, then went there." Yes, the things we did, the people who heard the Gospel, the places we went, and so on, but I didn't do a very good job of explaining the actual experiences, and how it felt. It was just amazing. Phenomenal. Astounding. Something I'll never forget...

...enough of the sappiness. It was a good time. :P