Family Weekend!

Things here at HDC are continuing to go smoothly, but they also remain busy and intense. A great break was this weekend when my father, mother, and sister came for family weekend. They arrived Friday evening and stayed at my Uncle Dave and Aunt Bonnie's home in Mechanicsburg (just outside of Harrisburg). Saturday morning they arrived in S. Allison Hill Harrisburg for the day.

The day started with me giving them a brief personal tour of the training facilities and then proceeded with presentation from each team to the parents - the presentations varied from personal and get-to-know you information to information about the country to which each team was going. To save time, we split into two sets of teams and my set consisted of my Honduras team, the Venezuela and Hong-Kong teams, along with the Missions Interns that train with us.

Our STEP team used a Jeopardy game to present information about us and Honduras - I thought it was pretty clever and worked out well, but that's just one man's opinion. After lunch (which was much better than usual- obviously), I took my family on a tour of the Beef house (where I live a few blocks away) and for a walk around the city that their legs won't soon forget. We parked by the state museum and toured it for part of the early afternoon. We then walked around the capital building which is absolutely beautiful - and as far as I know, one of the most decorated and ornate capital complexes in the states. After that I took them to city island and then we headed back - all in all we walked most of the afternoon and were very relieved to make it back to the van.

For dinner we went to my Uncle Dave's and Aunt Bonnie's home - and it was AMAZING! We had my family, my Mailloux cousins (Matt was up from Virginia and Kelsey was home from Niagara while Phil was home from college!), and nine others from HDC - it's a good thing my uncle had just purchased a new grill earlier in the week (see the pic and be amazed!). Apparently, the 22 total people at there house was a new record for them.

After that truly refreshing evening and getting to watch Ohio State football, I returned to HDC and got to talk on the phone to Joel, my brother, which was also another great part of the day. The next morning I went to church with my family at McBIC (Mechanicsburg Brethren in Christ) where my Uncle Dave is the worship pastor. After church we had a great Irish meal in downtown Harrisburg and then my family left to return to Ohio.

Thanks for reading this, but a special thanks to Dave and Bonnie for their hospitality and thanks to my family for coming out and making this an amazing weekend as well.