- We had only been here about a month or so and Morgan & I busted out the Spartan cheerleaders. And the last time we did it Morgan was pregnant with Libby. THAT was funny!
- The early days of Survive - riding in the van with the seniors. 8 solid hours of craziness. (Especially with Aubrey Dakin in the van!) And at Survive, physically pounding everyone into the ground, watching them give more than they ever thought they had in them. I would say those first years were pretty intense.
- Beach Reach. Brandon Hainke seeing the ocean for the first time! Keith's horrible sunburn (that looked like a topographical map). The original Hunnicutts rockin out under the pavilion in the monsoon. Carolyn flicking Ranch dressing on me and telling me it was a seagull. S.W. Swink as our bus driver, coming down to the beach with us - coolest bus driver ever! DW McCraskey hitting me in the face with the frisbee and giving me the best black eye I've ever had. Dave McKinney's snoring (and that would cover every trip to Mission Arlington as well). Liz & Ashley "witnessing" to the life guards. Courtney & Brooke having to sit on the front row and watch the other church's interpretive dancing - HA! So many good times!
- The greatest "Prank Gone Bad" of all time. Men's Weekend, Dakin Farm, Brent Carleton goes missing. He's found face down in the ditch by the road. Kenneth Applegate somehow gets a cell phone and calls 911 - I take the phone, hang it up. Chuck Pauler thinks I'm the cruelest youth pastor in the world. Kenneth then informs us that Brent's heart is beating 180 bpm. When Brent finally gets rolled over he lays there for about 10 seconds...and then smiles. Devin Martinez didn't talk to anyone the rest of the night. He thought his Bible Study teacher was dead! And all of this happened b/c the guys who planned the prank were late. Figures.
- I remember me & Walker having to break up the big party at Hainke's house. What most people didn't know was that Gary & Shareen knew about it and wanted ME to bust it instead of them. It was a big setup. I will never forget some of the faces when I walked in the back door. And of course Drew Mountain was the only one that got away. Sneaky! At that point, that was possibly the worst night of my life. I can laugh about now though. Really hard!
- Honduras & Bahamas. Amazing mission trips. Such memories - I can't begin to list them all. Countless laughs!
- The old days of re-painting The Cave every year. What a mess! And some of the nasty colors and things that were painted. Aubrey & Elaine were always trying to find some excuse to paint their handprints on the wall. AHHH! The Cave has come a long way!
- Making videos. Crocodile Hunter. All of our silent movies. Music videos. Matt wearing a dress for the Matchbox 20 video. For more to to www.youtube.com/bigostudents
- Rob & Karen went to Turkey. Morgan and I moved in with the Dakin's for 9 days. Do I need to explain anymore than this?
- Allison Moffitt's 16th birthday. She talked about it for 4-5 months before it came. Josh Dakin & I were at the entrance of Maize HS that day by 6:45, dressed up in costumes & holding up signs that said, "Allison Moffitt is 13" and "Honk if you love Allison Moffitt". When she got near the school and saw us she about had a heart attack. And then, some ignoramous girl was driving in and paying so much attention to us that she rear-ended someone. By that afternoon the rumor around the school was that Josh & I got taken to jail. Hilarious.
- Summer nights.
- Baptizing so many of you in the Moffitt's pool at the end of the summer. What an amazing celebration that was. And I remember baptizing Cliff Wolgamott. I've never had to "use my legs" baptizing before! It was like doing squats.
- Landon & Kelly. You left us much too early. We weren't really ready for it. I guess we never really are. Such great memories with both of you!
- Road trip with the Carleton's to Colorado. Again...do I need to say more?
- Oh Matt. Matt decided to pose for a picture at Survive. He pulled his shirt down over his shorts and it looked like he had no pants on. So we made posters - BIG posters - with Matt's beautiful pants-less picture that said, "HAVE YOU SEEN MY PANTS?". Matt's cell phone # was right on the bottom. We hung them up all over west Wichita, including in the kitchen of Timberline where he worked. He got a call in the middle of the night from a drunk woman saying, "I've got your pants baby! Come and get'em!" Thank you Elaine & Allison.
Again, there are way too many memories to even attempt to list here. I'm hoping you might be able to add some or fill in the blanks. No embellishing or exaggerating. We don't do that here! I love all of you and wouldn't trade these memories for anything!
1 comment:
Congrats on 10 years Brian. You're a monster of stability and endurance. So much has changed - but probably just as much remains...
Glad I got to be there for so many of the fun times! But I didn't need to be reminded of the sunburn...
Don't forget setting up Ron's office like a funeral - was that for his birthday?
Oh! And don't forget Tom Huffman falling off the stage into the stairwell at Easter - bruised and bleeding in the dark. I still use your "Dude! You've gotta move!" line.
So many great memories...
Congrats again!
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