Area VI

Making bandana bracelets. Coloring cardboard dolls. Singing to Broadway musicals. We certainly have a lot of memorable moments from Area VI with Layton. It all started off in Linden-Kildare with our stay at Ms. Hattie and Mr. Roberts’ house. We quickly found that cell service is nearly non-existent in that part of the state…AT&T is anyways. We managed to survive without our cell phones, though. In fact, we had some entertaining experiences despite the lack of contact with the outside world.

In Daingerfield, we dared Kaleb to pick a Habanero pepper off a bush and eat it. For some odd reason, he agreed…and we caught the whole thing on video. Needless to say, he drank A LOT of Sunkist Orange Soda on the way to Hughes Springs. You would think that he would have learned his lesson the first time, but I guess not. Later that night, we dared him to eat two ice cream sundaes in under a minute. Once again, he agreed…and we caught the whole thing on video. I’m pretty sure that by the end of the year we could make an entire series on the stupid things Kaleb agrees to do : )

On our trip, we decided that rock, paper, scissors is the solution to every problem. Unfortunately for Kaleb, he loses the game at the most crucial moments. One night, he lost rock, paper, scissors and had to end up sleeping on a small day bed while Layton and I each get a double bed to ourselves. One day, he will learn…

The LDE Invitational at Alba Golden High School was really neat. I got to sit in on the Senior Creed Speaking contest. I felt so strange, though. It was the first contest I had ever been to but not competed in! It was definitely interesting to see things from strictly an audience member’s standpoint. That night, we had an enjoyable dinner with Mr. Prewitt in Grand Saline before heading back to his lodge for the night. He is always full of motivation and good advice. I felt as if my IQ doubled just by getting the chance to listen to him.

The next morning, we watched as Kaleb participated in a dance off to “Party in the USA” at Harmony High School. I wish we could have gotten that one on video. It was certainly interesting. Ha ha! Luckily, Mr. Boyd from Union Grove taught us a few dance moves that afternoon. Hopefully, Kaleb will put a few of those to good use!

We went to Louisiana twice during our stay in Waskom: once for dinner on Wednesday night and again for breakfast on Thursday morning. That was way cool, despite the very early morning. Speaking of cool…we enjoyed playing rock band and pool with the Beckville FFA officers on Thursday night. Kaleb tried (keyword: tried) to sing “Eye of the Tiger”. It was…interesting, to say the least. Of course, that wasn’t nearly as embarrassing as the prank the guys played on me earlier that week. All I’m going to say is that the entire Hastings store in Longview knows me by name…Just ask the hundreds of students we spoke to in Area VI. They were sure to let all of them in on their little joke : )

Obviously, we had some good times in Area VI. It was a week that will certainly go down in the books. Of course, I’m sure that there are more of those stories to come as we continue making our way across the state of Texas.