This weekend has been awesome. Harding has something called “Spring Sing” every Easter, and it’s this big musical event where over half of the students of Harding put on a song-and-dance show. Parents and grandparents come from all over to pay exhorbitant prices to see their kids dressed up in cheap costumes and glitter, waving jazz hands in the back of a large crowd on a brightly-painted stage. And, afterwards, they can buy videos of it.

Two of our friends, Trey and Julia, came for Spring Sing because they were bored and wanted to see people again. They stayed on our livingroom floor. Trey is a computer programmer like Alex (they met here at Harding) and Julia is his wife. Julia is an extraordinarily beautiful girl from Russia who came to America to get back surgery and stayed to get her bachelor’s in computer science (she and Trey worked in the same senior project group). She has a metal rod in her back that gives her perfect posture and Trey says that when he has to move something heavy, he just uses her as a lever (he’s kidding). Anyway, they planned to get married a few Octobers ago, but the government decided to step in and warn them that her status in America would be “invalid” before summer was over. So they had to do a quick wedding in June and have the reception in October. Julia calls them her first and second weddings, which confuses people who don’t know the story.

(left to right: Trey, Julia, Thomas)

Anyway, this weekend has been wonderful because we’ve just been hanging out with awesome people who are fun and interesting. Trey and Julia brought Thomas, who is an artist and who is the weirdest person we know. Alex says I’m the second weirdest person he knows, just because he knows Thomas. I suppose that’s why I kind of get Thomas — I mean, I don’t think anyone can really get Thomas, but I like to imagine that I do a little. He does things that you just have to stand back and accept, no questions asked. Like talking on a phone that isn’t attached to any sort of socket. Or laughing and rocking in a dark room alone. Or running for Student Association president. (And it’s not because he’s crazy. He’s just an odd boy.) He’s not much of a talker, so sometimes you might forget he’s in the room if he isn’t chewing on your chairs or doing slow-motion martial arts. ^_^ He’s a good guy. Usually, Alex says, girls that got involved with his group of friends would get a crush on either Thomas or Dan. Dan grew up in France, always wears black, liked to light matches and toss them over the balcony rail in chapel, and carries a switchblade.

(This is Dan. This was also a dare.)

We also had Tom and Susie over with the three visitors and I made a batch (a bucketload) of chicken-and-dumplings from my great-grandmother’s recipe. And Julia did the most onerous task of deboning the chicken, which freed me to get the rest whipped up without dying. And Alex and Thomas and I went to Susie’s play at 3pm (this was all on Saturday), and congratulated her and later she and Tom came over and we ate dumplings and watched Oscar. And when the guys went out to pick up the movie, we three girls (Susie, Julia, and I) chatted and had fun and talked about males. Susie, you see, is getting married at the end of May and Julia and I are both married, so we had some fun conversation about men and kids and our families and the books I’m reading for my women’s ministries class.

Anyway, today Alex and I skipped out on Trey and Julia for lunch because we’d promised Alex’s parents to have Easter lunch with them. And it was a really nice lunch. Alex’s step-mom was in a great mood because Zech, her son, was there (he moved to Little Rock, and it makes her happy to see him) and Ben (Alex’s brother) showed up when we were finishing eating. So everyone was happy and jocular and it was just really nice. And I hugged Alex’s parents before leaving and just felt good when we left. ^_^

So I’ve had a really great weekend.