Saturday, June 28, 2008

SGDC

Last weekend was extremely busy with the event of SGDC coming to Chicago. I had not attended SGDC for two years and although this year's group was much smaller than normal, it was still great to see familiar faces. Sophia and I watched the 8-12 year old group and we had 7 kids in our group. Jonah and Lydia Cline, Alvin and Ambert Cagle, Calvin and Jasmin Hamilton, and Silas Hoxie. It was crazy to see how all of these kids have grown! Little adorable Macklin Hamilton is a teenager with facial hair and all the awkwardness that accompanies that specific growing phase, so he is not so adorable any more. Sorry!
The kids seemed to enjoy the weekend even though I felt there was not much that had been planned for them. It was an all around enjoyable time though.
James came with me on Saturday and I was excited for him to meet all the people that I consider my "extended family". He enjoyed putting faces to names and seeing that not all deafies are weird like most of the people at Dad's church. (Which to put it bluntly, is sorta true.) Later that night we were able to get together with the Hoxies and (a few other unexpected guests, as always) for pizza and fellowship. James and Kenton smoked cigars and drank beer and they were all sharing their conversion experiences which was really neat.
The Hoxie kids have all grown up that I almost cried seeing them. They are still the sweetest kids and were all genuinely happy to see me and didn't seem to mind that I kept hugging them and cupping their faces. haha! When I saw them for the first time, they all crowded around me to say hi. I looked at Stefan and said "You're so big!", then Stuart said "I am big too!" I told him that of course he had gotten bigger and that I remembered when he was just a little boy. He then told me "I was waiting for you!" Aww. That was so sweet!
While we were at dinner the first night Stuart had an ice cream cone and I asked him if he was going to eat it all, he said yes but pointed out that there was more at the machine. I teasingly told him that he had to save some ice cream for me then and not eat it all. Then after a little while he came up to me with his ice cream level with the cone and said "Here, I saved some for you". lol I told him that it was very thoughtful of him but he could go ahead and eat the rest of his ice cream. He happily obliged.



1 comment:

Sunny said...

Stuart really looks like Samson and Silas. Sophia is a beautiful young woman and Samson is not a kid anymore! The other boys aren't babies anymore. Time goes so fast. Thanks for taking the picture and video. I loved it. I feel very special and am glad they remember me!