Lemonade

I’ve been feeling a bit sentimental lately as we are in the less than 40 days and 40 nights range before Lori leaves on her mission…I’m SOOOO not ready for this. In fact, I call Lori every morning to wake her up and chat for a few minutes before we both get going for the day. A couple of days ago I was sitting across the table from mom who, just as Lori picked up the phone mentioned that I only get to do this for a few more weeks and then I had to get through the call as if I wasn’t crying. Anyway, back to the story.

I was thinking of a day trip we took while living in Boston. Lori was home for the summer and one of her co-workers had told her about this really great town or place (I don’t even remember now what or where it was even) in New Hampshire. Lori decided that we would all jump in the car and we would drive there. Well, after an hour or so of driving, we weren’t even close and didn’t have any idea how far we had to go. We stopped at a rest area off the highway and picked up a map and found we had much more driving to do before we would even get there.

I’m ashamed to say that I was a little less than pleasant on this trip. I was irritated that we had been driving so long with no real direction, and when we got direction I didn’t like what it had to say (I guess I wasn’t feeling super adventuresome that day). Lori and Mom were both so chill about it, and that made me more frustrated. Every so often, mom would pipe up from the back seat and say, “we’re just making lemonade”.

Eventually I settled down and enjoyed the trip. We never made it where we were planning on going, but we stopped in some little town. There was a cute town center and a parade of some sort happening that day. The four of us were having such a great time and after a short visit it was time to head home. And that’s when it got fun.

We were cruising down the freeway at 70-ish miles an hour. New England is gorgeous in general, but we were driving by this huge lake off to the right with lots of trees behind it. As we’re flying down the road, dad looks out the window and says, “Hey look – missionaries!” We’re talking a good ½ mile or more across the lake. They were itty bitty over there. And then the next words out of his mouth floored me. He said, “Take this exit, we’re going to go find them”.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m not usually a stalker, and I especially don’t stalk missionaries. Here we were, literally hunting them down. So, being the obedient daughter, I took the exit and we were off, taking roads that looked like we were heading towards that lake, driving through neighborhoods and laughing at the whole situation, knowing full well that we likely would never find them. But then it happened. We were at a stop sign, ready to turn right onto the road that would take us to the lake when who should pass us but the missionaries. I can only imagine their concern when we made eye contact and I turned the car around to follow them. For some bizarre reason they pulled over. Dad got out and probably scared them silly. Within just a few seconds, we were all out of our cars and getting to know one another. We chatted with them briefly and related the story of just how we had come to be there. And just as quickly as we found them, we left.

And then we laughed the whole way home. Best lemonade ever!

Speaking of lemonade, have you heard this song?