3 Things to Know About... Part 2:
Cinder:
1. Cinder one of the most brilliant human beings you will ever meet. If you ever need to find a life-saving mad scientist serum locked behind 20 different brain-melting puzzles, Cinder is going to be the one to find it. I had never been to an escape room before, but just watching her do her thing was more than worth the price of admission.
2. It is truly dangerous when she and I get together. We can find offbeat, 6th grade humor in ANYTHING, and at one point we were laughing so hard that we'd pretty much stopped breathing (Lynx said all he heard was loud wheezing, and promptly came to check up on us.)
3. She has enough energy and adventure for 5 people. Everyday was a new itinerary for her (including massive hikes up mountains) and I wish I had just a fraction of her ambitions. And one of my favorite conversations with her is about the differences she's seen in how Christianity is interpreted in different countries all over the world when she served for 10 years of overseas missions. Talk about making me feel like a pew-warming slacker...
Love Comes Softly:
1. One of the sweetest, kindest people you will ever meet. She will laugh at ALL your jokes -- and REALLY MEAN IT when she laughs! She has a way of making you feel appreciated for just the way God made you to be.
2. She is a ton of fun at events. Just being around her makes you want to be a more joyful, giving, and understanding person.
3. If you try to do anything for her, she will absolutely make sure you are paid back, in one of the most sneaky (aka, truly ingenious) ways I have ever seen -- leaving behind her own escape-room-style puzzle in which she made sure everyone's contributions were acknowledge and reimbursed.
BONUS ROUND:
* Aside from one particular meal in which a particular appendage that shall not particularly be mentioned by name was procured in a Crock Pot, THE MEN did all the cooking. We ladies didn't have to lift a finger, unless it was to go get another helping. And the gents wouldn't let us pay them back for the army of supplies they bought either.
* I think everyone has horror stories of being part of Christian groups in which paying for things went terribly awry (someone forgetting their wallet, insisting that "if you were a real Christian, you wouldn't charge me for this," etc.) NOT in this group. If anything, people were nearly fighting to pay each for each other's dinners, tickets and other miscellaneous expenses.
* I'm sure everyone has also been part of Christian groups, camps, or retreats where romantic entanglements or drama took over -- but we were blessed just to be a group of good friends who liked to hang out together. NO worries about anyone sneaking off to go make out under the stairs!
* 3 people drove their own vehicles, so we were able to go whenever and wherever we wanted. Everyone got to choose whatever they wanted to do on any given day, at any given time. There was no pressure to do anything someone wasn't interested in, whether some wanted to go off on a grandiose outing about town, or others just wanted to stay home and read on the porch.
The group was about split as far as early birds (as in, some are 3 AM early) and night owls, but unless we had mutual plans, everyone was encouraged to follow their own natural schedule.
The last thing I'd like to mention is the joint respect we had as a group and the decisions that came out of that. For instance, we DID take a group picture which some opted out of (totally their choice, no pressure,) and we all decided that it would only be shared with our family and family-like friends.
None of us were trying to sneak shots at each other's worst moments (hello TN allergy season!!!) with the intention of plastering them all over social media. We mutually decided that there would be no sharing pictures of each other with random strangers on the internet. Everyone's privacy was respected, which is why we decided to share a picture of our hands here instead (although... Lynx's arm can probably now be identified from a very large list of suspects!)
We are very thankful for this time together, but the whole reason we're posting is that we hope this will inspire other people here to set up their own meetups (and tell us about them!) as well!
God bless and thank you for reading about our adventures (and a few mishaps.)