Area V- Part II

With suitcases in back and Starbucks in hand, we typed our destination into “Winston”, our GPS, and began our trek to North Texas. We were super stoked about our Area V trip…especially with all of the reports of snow. I even practiced my theme song again: “Snow, snow, snow, snow, snow…” Unfortunately, it was a false alarm. The weather man lied. All we got was rain. Sad day.

Despite the lack of snow, we had a successful week of travels! Our journey started with a stay in Boles, Texas, where Mr. Burton laughed at my awful parking job (I’m slowly getting better, though!) After a very tasty feast and a good night’s rest, we headed to Quinland High School for the first presentation of the week. Then, it was back to Boles for a presentation, where I forgot to look where I was going…and I almost fell in a hole. Oops. Before long, we were eating cookies in Greenville and talking about National FFA Week. “Yay leaders…” Ha. Ha.

The next day, we made our way on over to Wolf City to hang out with some of their Seniors. A trip to Anna (we had our very first experience with Mr. Jim’s Pizza there…YUM!) and a stop by Celina completed our day. That night, we entered into an intense tournament of Bananagrams with the Blums. Poor Kaleb. He got so upset when he lost. I think he is in serious need of some spelling lessons…

At Howe, we met some really awesome chapter members, and in Sherman, Pumpkin entertained us with the “Nickel, nickel, quarter, dollar dance”. I’m thinking he should try out for the talent contest! That afternoon, Jeremiah gave us the grand tour of his stomping grounds. We spent a little time driving down Frog Pond road and checking out the free range cattle before making our way to Garland for a chapter meeting.

Mark my words, the Garland, South Garland, and Naaman Forest chapter officers are the coolest kids EVER! We had a blast eating fajitas and telling stories. At that point, I thought that it couldn’t get any better than that. Guess what? It did. On Thursday morning, we received a tour of Naaman Forest High School’s Horticulture Department. It was HUGE, and they run it like an actual business. How awesome is that?! The caliber of students in that program completely blew my mind. I didn’t want to leave! Eventually, we had to, though. So, we headed on into Dallas to visit Skyline High School. Talk about the coolest Career and Technology Program EVER. Skyline High School is home to a childcare center, a plastics center, a culinary center, and one of only five aviation programs in the ENTIRE UNITED STATES. They have airplanes and helicopters INSIDE their high school! Of course, their Horticulture Department was not too shabby either. They have a floral sale every week and can make arrangements for just about any occasion. It was the bomb diggity! They even made Kaleb and I flower arrangements to take home with us and fed us lunch in their Culinary Arts kitchen. That was an experience that both of us will never forget.

We rounded off our week with a stop by S&S Consolidated High School, home of Jeremiah Miller. They had a whole wall of their high school dedicated to all of his accomplishments in high school. It was certainly a pretty cool thing to look at. And with that, we waved goodbye and made our long trek back home to prepare for The Bachelor Season Finale and a final trip to Area III.