Kansas

On Thurs. afternoon we flew to KS. We got into Witchita at about 10. We rented a full size car and a PT Cruiser. We then went to Braum's for some excellent ice cream and some mediocre burgers. We got to Iwashige's about 12. Went to bed. Next morning (Fri.), got up early, and went to the office worked all day. Ate lunch at the Dutch Kitchen with Dad. That evening we went to the Miller Reunion and had supper. That night Shane (1st cuz), Joel (1st), Marilyn (2nd), Medori (2nd), Charla (2nd), Ben (Charla's fiance), and myself went mini-golfing. We got home about 1:30. It was a blast! I won! Marilyn scolded me for smirking. The next morning, most of us were late for brunch at 10. We sat around awhile. We played basketball. After supper we had introductions @ the Miller reunion. Then there was some storytelling by Leroy Hershberger, a Yale grad who currently is an auto mechanic, and who sports a half-bald head of bushy gray hair and a great big bushy gray beard. After that we went to a Christian Coffee shop called Common Ground. We had coffee drinks and "To Die For"s (awesome slushy type drinks). Some played Dominoes and some played Scum. There was a black Gospel band of three there. The singer played a keyboard, another guy the drums, and another guy the saxaphone. They were all family. They were pretty good! R.C. (2nd cuz who works at Common Ground, but was never @ the reunion) and I played two games of pool. The record was 1-1. We then ordered Dominoes pizza which was delivered to Common Ground. We took it back to Sara's and watched Shrek. I got to bed about 2:30. On the way to Sara's from CG, Sara was driving and told us that her dad (IT guy at HCC-Hutchinson Community College) had a bootleg of Shrek 2. I was like, "Cool! Would you mind sharing? I could trade 'Passion' for it." Shane then remarked, "Ya'll really shouldn't be 'sharing passion' because ya'll are related." We all busted a gut and Sara said, "It must be late, because I'm not as ticked at you as I should be." Shane then related a time when himself and Jeff (no relation, just a guy I know from KS) were driving in Hutch and a cop stopped them. A lady cop got out and walked up on the drivers side (Shane was driving) and guy cop stayed back about five feet. The lady starts asking if they are on drugs or alcohol or anything. About that time another cop car drives up and two more cops get out and cover the other side of the car. The lady cop sniffed the air and said, "I think I smell alcohol; what are ya'll drinking?" Shane replied that they were just sharing a fruit drink. It was a Strawberry passion drink. Jeff almost said, "Yeah, we're just sharing passion here in the front seat!" Shane and Jeff got clean away with no breath test required of them. On Sun. morning, I dragged myself out of bed and went to church remarkably alert for the late nights. I was probably the most voluble one in SS and paid attention as Grandpa preached the sermon. At 1 we had lunch at the reunion. Louisa Schmucker was there as well (she is not related). Eldo Miller (1st cuz once removed) passed by the door just as Louisa was walking to get more food and he said, "Which Miller are you angling for? You should try one of Gary's boys." At that point Merlin (2nd cuz, one of Gary's boys) leaned out the door and said, "Sorry, I'm already dating and so is Kevin [bro. to Merlin]" Eldo turned around to see what Louisa was going to say to that, but she had made her red-faced escape. (The next day in the office, Myron (uncle) and Eldo were talking about it, and Eldo offered the opinion that: "She should marry Shane!" I told him that they were just "Good buddies." He said, "Yeah, that's what they always say.") That afternoon we went over to Sara's and watched the first part of Shrek 2. That evening there was joint Center-Cedar Crest youth event. We met at Cedar Crest (CC). And waited... and waited... for Louisa, who is on the CC youth committee. Someone called her, and woke her up, and she came as fast as she could. LOL! We piled into a pink bus that had the top and sides removed from the back (a flat-bed bus). We drove a couple of miles over to someone's pond. We threw the football and I jammed my finger. We played vball and I was in a vociferous mood as a result of my extreme tiredness. We had hamburgers and fingerfood for supper. After supper we played more vball and then we sat around the campfire. Josh (fellow Tribes 2 player) and I went to his car and got some firecrackers. I threw a string of 'em in the fire, except it didn't quite go in the fire. It was just at the edge. After about 5 mins. I heard a hissing sound from the fire and then they went. Everyone jumped and one person screamed. It was so long between the throw-in and the explosion no one knew who had done it. They suspected two guys, Tony and Darren, on the opposite side of the fire, 'cause they looked guilty. About 3 mins later another one went off. We went back to CC and talked a while. We rehashed an adventure that my 2nd cuz had once: He and his friend were out with their 4-wheeler ATVs around 1-2 am roaring around Fairview (little shopping center in community). Someone called the cops. The cops came. My cuz and friend left, fast. The cop followed. It was a lady cop (hence lady driver). She called for lots more cops. About 5 more cops came. They chased my cousin and friend who were on their four-wheelers. They guys on the four-wheelers saw that they were going to lose the race unless they changed the strategy of driving on the roads. So they drove in the fields. The lady driver cop decided to drive in the fields, too, to catch them. She was not in a vehicle well suited to driving in a field. She was also a lady driver. She wrecked into a irrigation pipe. She totalled the car. She was drenched with 800 gallons a minute. It should have been called an irritation pipe, because that's what she was. Some people from Cedar Crest were camping at Cedar Crest church. The cops were mad. They wanted to find the four-wheeler drivers that they had lost when the lady hit the pipe. They searched and searched. They came to the Cedar Crest campers a couple of times and asked them where "they were hiding their little friends." They told them they hadn't seen them. The campers got in their car and went cruisin' looking for them, too. They had a police scanner. They heard the police say, "I see a suspicious car over there; I'm going to check it out." They quickly turned off the police scanner and shoved it under the seat. A cop stopped them and asked them a couple of questions. The cops finally figured out who my 2nd cuz was and that he was one of the drivers. They went to his house. His parents indignantly answered the door. They asked them where their son was. They told them, "In bed, of course!" The cops asked to talk with him. The parents came back, very worried, and said he isn't in bed. They went out to the garage and his four-wheeler engine was warm. They found him at this friend's house. They couldn't really prove anything, tho. And they hadn't done anything wrong (the cops never turned on their lights). So there was an interesting police report, but not much more. The next morning I worked all day. It was definitely a Monday. I spilled coffee on my pants. This morning, Tuesday, Joel took me to work with him. He works for a company that develops applications for investors. We talked at length about programming. I then came to the office and worked.