Since I’m posting on 5 days, I’ll just bold the day and describe stuff. I’m also at the point of being deliriously tired, so this entry might be edited tomorrow.

Friday: We left for the airport at 11:30 and got there around 13:00. We checked in and grabbed food and then decided to go through security. Well… it took me 20 minutes to get through because my backpack had something in it that was setting off the security x-ray machine and they had to get someone to hand-search my bag. The guilty party: my 16-count pack of batteries from Wal-Mart. (Probably a good thing I didn’t take the 20-count pack because that one looks like an ammo clip.) Our flights were good and the only downside was that we had to fly through Houston. [begin rant about Houston] Sorry to those from Houston but… your airport is a hole. It’s oversized, it’s ugly, and it’s named for George Bush — three strikes against it, especially when one gets in at the opposite end of the airport from their connecting flight and barely makes the connection. Oh yes… there’s also the fact that Houston is L.A. with Jon’s dad driving. When Victoria (my esteemed mother-in-law) found out that I hadn’t read Till We Have Faces, she decided that I needed to read the book while I was out there. I got partway in and fell asleep.

Saturday: I got up, showered, went over to the house where Victoria is taking care of some rabbits/cats/tortoise, loved up the smaller of the cats, and read the rest of Till We Have Faces. It’s a very strange book and you wouldn’t recognize Lewis’ style in it. My parents and brother arrived in Claremont around 2:30 and we hung out until it was time to go to dinner. The eight of us went to the Danson, which is a fairly well-known restaurant in Claremont. We sang to Jon and gave him his presents there and then we went over to Pitzer to drop Joanna (my sister-in-law) off and she showed us around the campus. After that, we went back to my in-law’s house and Ray (my father-in-law) played some organ and piano for us.

Sunday: We went to the 8:30 service at the local Lutheran church. It was a contemporary service (on a scale of 1-10, it was a 7) and went to take care of the animals when we got home. When we returned, my parents and brother came back over and we hung out until they had to leave this afternoon. I’m thankful that they were able to come down to see us (an 8 hour drive to my in-law’s house) because I really miss them and it had been 4 months since I’d been able to see them. That night, I went for In-N-Out and to see “Bend It Like Beckham” with Joanna and Victoria. I highly recommend the film — it is just brilliant. Jon was left to his own devices and spent the evening chilling.

Monday: After the fiasco that morning, we took Brian out to lunch (as a thank-you) and then we returned to my in-law’s house (with me driving) so that could go take care of the cats that Victoria has been feeding. I showered (again!) and we went to Saca’s to get some Mediterranean food for Joanna and then to visit Jon’s grandparents. When we got home, we had to figure out how to pack everything into our suitcases and a box so that we could get all the presents back to Ohio.

Tuesday (today): We got up at 4:00 am and Ray drove us to John Wayne Airport. We flew out at 6:45 and barely made our connection in Minnesota. (We had literally 30 minutes between flights and in addition to one of the moving walkways being broken, a fat guy was standing in the middle of one with his suitcase talking on his cell phone and blocking the way for the 50 of us who had tight connections. When he got off one of them, all of us ran around him and onto the walkway.) It was a fairly peaceful flight. We had some chattering kids (see my rant about this in a few days) but I wasn’t gonna sleep, so it wasn’t that big a deal. One of our church people picked us up and brought us home. I ordered some See’s Candy for Bill (I’d promised him anything he wanted as a thank-you present for saving our butts yesterday and he mentioned that he liked chocolate) and I’ve been trying to stay awake until 10 p.m. I’ve got about 90 minutes to go and I think I’m gonna go read…

For those of you who know us either really well online or in real life, you’ll know that Jon had his VERY IMPORTANT interview today that determines whether or not he’s going to be ordained.

Well… we got to the Ayers Suites where all the interviews were taking place and found out that Jon’s final internship evaluations hadn’t been sent to the Synod. This is a problem. Thankfully, I was available to call the sem and see if they could be faxed. No luck. So I and my friend Brian (a really good college friend who lives close to where the interview was taking place and who agreed to come and sit with me so I’d be less of a neurotic lepicat) called Jon’s supervisor Bill. Bill was shocked (I think he’d *WATCHED* Jon fax these to the Synod) and so he faxed his eval over and offered to go to our house and find the evals and fax them to us. So… we got the 60+ page fax and Brian helped me sort it into individual evals and we sent them up to the meeting room. Well… the results:

[drum roll]

JON WAS APPROVED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Or at least recommended for Approval when they vote on all of this later this afternoon)

We are elated. This means that we go through the Bishop’s Draft in a month and we might actually find out where we’ll be next year.