In three sleeps (the way we count down around here) we will be leaving for Spirit West Coast.   This is our third year going and the kids are excited to go and so are Walter and I. 

Today has been a big day of preparing the food.   Walter and I do the cooking for the event and this year we are cooking for about 30 people.  We cooked 10 lbs of ground beef for spaghetti sauce which we will eat on Wednesday night.   We’ve also cooked about 30 lbs of ground beef that needed to be cooked and frozen to use at a later date or it would go bad and just need to be thrown away.   Tomorrow morning we will be cooking about more ground beef for taco salads which we will eat on Friday afternoon. 

Tonight I was getting ready to do some griping.  But I had to take a step back and realize who we are doing this for.   There’s a little bit of doing it for ourselves, a little bit of pride that we have to keep pushing down because we’ve got cooking for a group down to a pretty good science.   We are doing it for the kids, because on they are a great group of kids and I enjoy getting to know them.   We are doing it be able to go see David Crowder Band,  Brandon Heath , Mercy Me and of course everyone in the family is excited to see Toby Mac.  But really the real reason we are doing this is to serve the Lord. 

We will be a little sad to leave Echo for a few days, but we know she will be taken good care of by Jackie.

Each year gets a little bit easier to go.  The kids are older so they are less work.  We know what to expect, unlike that very first year.  That first night as we were trying to go to sleep I told Walter that we were getting a hotel room the rest of the weekend because I just couldn’t handle it.  Now we know what to expect and pack accordingly. 

Just a few more things to get done.  We need to get ID bracelets for the kids in case anything happens and finish packing clothes for everyone. 

Monterey here we come!