Now it’s time to share about my time in Sedalia, Missouri :D.But we have to begin with Conway, Arkansas clouds. Lol. The reason why is because my parents drove me to our friends Jeff and Letha Johnson’s house (which is 3 1/2 hours from us) so I could ride up with them and some other friends to Missouri the next day :D.

And here is the girl part of the caravanning group :D. First there’s Katie McBride, Letha Johnson, Megen Lagree, Mrs. Anna Ree Barr, me :D, and Susie Lemoine. (Letha and Susie are Mrs. Anna Ree’s daughters). Man, I had SO much fun with these ladies!! I hadn’t had this much time with them in a while and it was wonderful 😀

And here are the leaders of the trip: Jeff Johnson and Calvin Barr (Calvin is Letha and Susie’s brother, Mrs. Anna Ree’s son). They’re fun too :D.

The whole trip up was a blast :D. And some pretty hilarious memories were made, like coming close to ramming the back of a horse drawn wagon in the Ozarks, driving 90 miles an hour to catch up to our caravan, and the gps taking us to the wrong house. Hahaha.

Now let’s skip to the next day. I’ve already told y’all about the wedding in this post, but here’s a picture I snapped of the front of the old movie theater where the reception was :D. Isn’t the “movie title” clever?! Love it :D.

Now on to Sunday. Here is part of my breakfast :). I had never eaten a kiwi with a spoon before. lol.

And here are some of my awesome friends at Highway M Chapel :D. Angela Leiter, Angela Rages, Regan Noe, and Elizabeth Blum (whom y’all should recognize from her portraits I took :D). And in the bottom picture of this collage is Sarah Champagne and Abby Hargrave (I took her senior portraits!). They’re just so great :D.

After a exceptionally blessed service, lunch, fellowship, and volleyball, it was about time to go. But I did snap these few shots. Here’s Stephen Gates just bein’ himself :).

And here is Abby with her older brother Dan; I like this one of them :).

After we left, Elizabeth, Rebekah, and I went back to Elizabeth and Angela Leiter’s duplex to change into our swimsuits to go swimming with some friends at an elderly couple’s house! When we got there, the couple was cleaning the pool out for us! They were so sweet and kind :D. After having fun in the pool for about an hour (like making a whirlpool; hadn’t done that in YEARS!), we went back to the house. Then Elizabeth and I left again to go clean up the church building and stop by Sonic (that’s where we are in this picture) to see…

…our car hop friend, John Hargrave! (He’s another older brother of Abby’s).

“I love looking into the sun”-John. Haha, sorry, John!

So, I moved him to better lighting :).

The inside of Elizabeth’s car :). Dontcha like her key chain? :D.

Then, THEN it was party time with as many Sedalia and people-here-for-the-wedding as we could get! 😀 Here’s Angela with her younger brother Tony. They’re like best friends; it’s great :D. THEY’RE great as all of the Sedalia people are :D.

First we watched some people play the gamecube. Lol.

Love these girls :).

Fun people :D…

…and more fun people :D.

Here’s James Champagne with some gluten free cookies his future sister-in-law JJ Massey made for him and his brothers :D.

Then of course we had to play Ninja! :D.

But then our dear, one in a million, crazy awesome, loveable friend Rebekah Gates had to head back to her summer internship home, so…

…we had to take some pictures with her :).

Beautiful girls :).

Then Elizabeth had the great idea of taking pictures of the “trio” in the field :D.

I was barefoot in the grass; it was fun :D.

Goodbye hugs :'(.

I wanted a picture with her, so Elizabeth took one. Elizabeth, it’s ok that the sun flare is right over my face; it’s a moment captured. Hehe :D.

Then we walked back through the neighborhood. It was so lovely and warm and sunny. I loved it :).

Back at the party, Jesse Champagne (he’s the one in the yellow) shared his and JJ’s story of meeting, getting to know each-other, and engagement story :D. They’re getting married next May :D.

Hey, you see those two flower pictures on the wall? I took those about two years ago. Haha :D.

Regan gave me a great back rub :D.

Then we played Taboo! Jesse and JJ’s expressions are great :D.

Oh, and just to reassure y’all, in the bottom right picture, that is not John’s normal look. lol.

Monday was just a nice relaxing day with Elizabeth :). When she got home from work (I spent most of the morning working on pictures and stuff), we talked, watched a little tv, rode bikes, ate food, went to the store, and watched a movie. It was nice to wind down from the exciting wedding weekend :).Tuesday was the day I took portraits of her :D. Besides that, I did lots of needful laundry, we watched a little tv again, talked, rode bikes again, got some pizza, and another movie! :).

Then Wednesday after Elizabeth got home from work, she got a text from Tony saying “I have a surprise for you. I’m about to bring it over.” I said “I bet he cooked something.” I guessed that because Tony is a chef at “Colton’s Steakhouse” and he LOVES to cook! Turns out I was right and he got out of his car with home-made caramel apples! One for all of us: Angela, Elizabeth, himself, and myself. I had never had them before, so it was a fun experience for me :D.

Later that afternoon, my sweet friend Evangeline Jennings came by after class and picked me up, so I could hang out with her and her family at her house before the Wednesday night meeting :D. I had a really nice time with her and her family at the dinner table and then she and I went on a walk down their driveway; we had a good time talking…at the table and on the walk :D. This was a flower Evangeline pick on the walk; Black Eyed Susans are some of her favorites :).

And this beautiful clematis was growing by the house!. Looove that purple.

That night after the meeting, Angela, Elizabeth, Tony, and I went to Taco Bell then Angela, Tony, and I went to their house and hung out; they’re so cool :). I’d never really hung out with them much before; I’m glad I did :D. Then Tony took us back to the duplex.Thursday, Mrs. Kelly Hargrave, Luke Hargrave, and Abby picked me up and brought me to their house so Abby could do my hair, pick out an outfit for me, and take portraits of me! And then I took her senior pictures, but y’all already knew both of those things from this post :). After that, I went to dinner with these sweet people! Marcus Schultz, Tony, Elizabeth, and Angela Schultz :D. We ate at the steakhouse Tony works at, so he was able to tell us about everybody. lol. We had a lot of fun :D. And since Abby and I had already gotten Chinese food earlier, I just got some super delicious raspberry cheesecake, which turned out to be a HUGE piece, so I shared it with everybody :D. After dinner, Elizabeth and I discovered that Marcus, Tony, and Angela had NEVER seen “Tangled“!! So, of course we rented it and watched it with them 😀 :D.

Then came leaving day :'(. But it started off with a nice rainbow to cheer it up :D.

Bro. Clint and Mrs. Jenny Leiter (Angela and Tony’s parents) very kindly drove me 2 hours and 15 minutes to the Kansas City Airport. I had such a nice time with them :D. A favorite part of the time with them was discovering that Bro. Clint calls Mrs. Jenny “Tink” like Tinkerbell. It was SO cute!! I love them :D. And so, we got to the airport and everything was smooth sailing. I LOVE the Kansas City Airport! It’s so nice, small, not intimidating, the workers are friendly (I told one of them so :D), and not hard to figure out :). And a nice man on the plane graciously granted my request and helped put my suitcase up above and bring it down for me again when we got off :D. The flight was nice; listened to music the whole time and stared out the window :). I took this picture right before we took off…and yes, that man kind of crashed my self portrait. Lol. Oh, well, that’s life, this is Walgreens ;). (That’s Walgreens’ catchphrase [or whatever you call it]…out of that context, it doesn’t really make sense, but I like to say it. Hehe :D).

With a smile,
{ Rachel Leigh }