This past week was crazy but good.

Last Friday, Syneva drove up from Nashville to visit. It was really wonderful to get to see her. She, Cindy, and I went out to dinner at a Turkish restaurant. Though the evening was really too warm to sit outside, we did, and we ate delicious minty soup and grape leaves. On Saturday, Syneva, Scott, and I braved the heat again in order to go to the Fourth Street Festival, where we saw works by all sorts of local artists--woodworkers, painters, sculptors, glass-blowers, leather-workers, potters, etc.

On Monday it cooled down suddenly, so Laura organized a bonfire to celebrate the beginning of autumn. We have a fire pit behind our house, which served the occasion perfectly. Laura bought a big bag of enormous marshmallows for us to toast. Grant G., Peter, Nathaniel, Eric, Cindy, and Scott all joined us.

Then Emmaline flew into Indianapolis on Tuesday evening. Scott and I drove up to the airport to collect her. It was as though no time at all had passed since we'd seen each other; we picked right up with catching up on each other's lives. She stayed until Friday afternoon. Whenever I wasn't in class, we were doing things together: shopping at the mall, visiting Nashville to look at the artisans' shops, hiking Lake Griffey, exploring the zoo, or eating with friends from church. Scott even cooked a delicious pasta sauce for us one evening.

Yesterday afternoon was the church outreach picnic. Since I'm on the outreach committee, I helped set up, which took a solid couple of hours. During most of the picnic, I played with the small children, which was my designated job. Mostly that meant pushing Jane on the swing and opening bottles of bubbles and packages of chalk for the kids. It also meant that I got to talk to their parents--Wes and Angie, Amy, Minda--which was quite pleasant.

So it's been a wonderful week for hanging out with people, but now I'm a bit behind on school, so tomorrow will be an intense reading day.