Trip to Aggieland and Down Memory Lane

When I first came to Dallas back in the summer of 2002 to do a youth internship at Highland Oaks, my host home was with the David and Sandi Campbell family. This random decision on their part to host an intern and my random decision to come to Dallas ended up leading to some of the most special relationships in my life! At the time, Meredith was either 14 or 15 years old, the same age as my little brother Dawson, so I always thought of her as the little sister I never had. :-) At the same time, Meredith only had brothers, so I was her "big sister." After the summer was over, I went to Guyana, South America for a few months and then ended up returning to Dallas to do an internship at Central Dallas Ministries. The Campbells graciously opened their home to me again for about five months and even offered me a part-time job at David's law firm. This family was such a huge blessing to me and instrumental to me getting my feet on the ground here. At the same time, Meredith has continued to be a great friend and "sister" to me. She has always been very mature and focused for her age and we have been through a lot of personal ups and downs together. It has been awesome to watch her through high school and drill team and college applications and then through college and career decisions and boyfriend uncertainties. And now, seven years later, Meredith is getting married! Whoa! I feel so old!! She met a great guy, Brandon, at her church at A&M and their wedding is at the end of May, when they will get married and study happily ever after. (He's going to med school in the fall and she is starting her Ph.D in clinical psychology at A&M).

So this weekend was her birthday and one of her showers in College Station. Now, for four years, I have been saying I was going down there to visit her. Now that she's about to graduate, I figured that it was time for me to stop procrastinating. So Saturday I hopped in Lady Yac (my car) and headed south through our very beautiful state to Aggieland! I ended up really enjoying the weekend. A&M is a really one of a kind place. Everytime I visit a big college campus like that, I'm blown away because it's such a drastic contrast to LCU. At the same time, it's crazy because the whole weekend reminded me of my college days and made me miss college a lot. Because despite the fact that our universities are completely different, the general experience is so much the same. As I hung out with Meredith and her roommates, the conversations and the camaraderie was so familiar. When you're in college, you just don't realize how much you'll miss that time in your life later. It's the only time in your life when you're so much on the same page with so many great friends and people, when you share so many unique bonding experiences with people.

Sometimes I wish I could have went to college twice. I loved LCU and I loved the small college experience. At the same time, I will always be curious what it would have been like to go to a huge university like A&M or UT with all of the traditions and history and school spirit. It would have be awesome if I could have just rewound my life back to age 18 after I graduated LCU and started over as a freshman at some big college just to see what that was like! :-) However, since I'm now knocking on the door of 30, I think I should give up my big college dreams and just live vicariously through people like Meredith!

The funniest thing that I saw at A&M was in front of Kyle Field where they have the 12th man statue and then this little roped off area where all the Revellie dogs are buried. I don't know why it is so humorous to me that these dogs get their own special roped off memorial site with special lights and plaques and everything, but it cracks me up. Only at A&M!!

Unfortunately, I can't seem to find my camera so I don't have any pics of my adventure in Aggieland, but hopefully I will find it before the wedding so I can at least post pictures of that in a few weeks!