It’s raining men.

Sometimes, and only sometimes, I realize how little I understand boys. This is shocking to me as I grew up with both a dad and a brother, several male cousins, and having only guy friends until I was 13 years old. Yet it seems as I get older, the more their antics baffle me.

Let’s start simple. This year, in my class of 26, I have 19 boys. Count ’em. Nine-freaking-teen.  Don’t get me wrong, I love them just as much as if I had 19 girls but seriously…the classroom seems to shrink to about half it’s normal size after recess. And they’re WEIRD. Never, in all my education classes, was I informed that I might have to one day say these words: “Kevin, don’t pinch Collin’s nipples.” Or, no sooner do I get after one kid for jumping and trying to slap the doorframe that the guy right behind him does the same thing! And the noise…oh the noise. Between the foot tapping, beat boxing, talking, wrestling, pencil sharpening, and “can I get a drink of water?” some days I long for just 30 seconds of quiet.

Now fast forward another 12 or 13 years and you have Brad and Josh. Who I love dearly. And yet… they’re still boys! Last night for example, Josh and I went out with Brad and Rachel for supper and coffee. At some point in the conversation Brad and Josh hit on the topic of high school football and off they went, completely leaving Rachel and I in the dust. Or how when Josh is doing something on his phone or the computer and I will be speaking to him, he will hear every word I say — the subtle signals that women are used to for conveying listening are absent (i.e. eye contact, affirming words or noises, head nods).

But there’s some pretty amazing stuff about boys too. Like watching some of my students who are dying to help me or to put up the chair for a girl. The boys who get together to organize a game of wall ball everyday or help each other up when one of them trips. Girls do those things too but it’s not quite the same. If I give my boys a competition kind of game, they are instantly partners or enemies and they are determined to either help or hinder each other in accomplishing the set goal. I guess to a degree this doesn’t change much either. Give Josh and Brad a problem to solve at church and they are instantly doing everything they can to help each other “win”.

I pray, most earnestly, that the boys I have to teach and love this year would grow up to never lose their “boyishness” and to learn to lead and be men.

But seriously, 19 boys? Sheesh.

“I do. Now hold my umbrella.”

Saturday morning dawns bright and…really, stinking early. Lyla, Mom, me, and poor Jojo were hustled out of the house by 7:30am to have our hair done. Except Jojo who, not being in the wedding party, was instead forced to hang around with a bunch of women she didn’t know for the entire day (which she handled like a champ). The stress and lack of sleep for the week took it’s toll on my mom though and before we could finish our hair, she had to leave and recover for a few hours before feeling well enough to meet us for lunch. For the majority of the day there is the typical hanging around, getting ready, stuff that happens with any evening wedding.

Things went off very smoothly considering the last minute change in location. 3:30 rolls around (ceremony time) and we roll up to the church in the limo and who do I see? Soaked from ankles to chin, holding an umbrella and wearing a smile is Josh. He stepped in to shelter people coming into the church but in the meantime drenched himself (he claims greeting a hundred odd strangers was no big deal because he greets at church every Sunday. Though apparently they did look at him funny because he would tell them “y’all have a good time!”) Both he and the limo driver tried to shelter my sister and I as much as they could and while she and the dress made it inside just fine, I…well, not so much. The ceremony went fine — Jeremy cried and Lyla looked beautiful. The reception was fun and I have a sneaking suspicion that there will be an inordinate amount of pictures of Josh, Ethan, Jojo, and I dancing. Mostly because we were the only ones that were. (On a side note, I have never EVER seen my brother dance and act as goofy and confident as he did that night. I think, in large part, this is due to Alex Denning’s friendship and while there’s a skill level still left to be desired, I can’t thank him enough for helping my brother see that being silly and looking ridiculous sometimes is ok). Party over, we took a (slightly terrifying) ride home with Jared.

Negotiations in the airport

Our original flights were supposed to leave Sunday but had been cancelled due to the hurricane and so we took a trip to Mohegan Sun, a local casino. We came out winners and taught my parents Munchkin — not bad for a wedding recovery day. Monday dawns and the plan was to catch a flight to Charlotte which would then connect to Raleigh — no Greenville flights were being offered for when we could go. On our way to get my grandparents, the airline informs us that our flight has been delayed which means we miss the ONLY connection from Charlotte to Raleigh. What ensues is a lot of last minute scrambling (again) to arrange a rental car to drive from Charlotte to home when we land. Our flight gets delayed again. And again. And again. And now we’re landing in Charlotte at 11:00 at night and fighting my grandparents who insist on driving home to Williamston once we reach Greenville (at about 3am). Some more scrambling and essentially my dad tells Josh (who is driving) to kidnap my grandparents and just take them all the way home. As we are passing the airport, my heart and stomach are both crowding for a place somewhere in my throat — I have never openly defied my grandparents before. But, because Josh is amazing, he said probably the only thing that my grandpa would accept: “I told Dennis that I would take you home, now I have to do what I said I would.” And things were fine after that.

Quite an adventure? Yep.  I probably could have written an entire post just on trying to get home Monday. Instead, I’ll just say what my grandma did when we finally pulled into her driveway: “The next time I fly, it’s gonna be with Jesus.”

“I’m calling the mayor!”

Friday morning when I woke up, I thought (briefly) that I had spent the night in a hammock. Truth was, my air mattress had all but deflated leaving just a little bit of air under my head and under my feet. But as it had been a 1am bedtime with a 7am wake up call, there wasn’t enough time to feel sore.

Long before we arrived, Josh and I had started reading some Jonathan Edwards (for those that don’t know, he was the guy that wrote “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”) and I learned that he had been the pastor of a church in a town not far from where I grew up. I mentioned this to my mom and we made plans to try and visit the church while Josh and I were both in Massachusetts.

Northampton is an old town (like most in New England) and rich in history. I had never spent much time there growing up but it has a great local music scene and is host to Smith College. It’s also very well known for it’s tolerance towards the homosexual community. I forget sometimes that people who aren’t from my area don’t know this and when we arrived at the church there was a large gay pride flag flying out front. This confused Josh and saddened us both — Jonathan Edwards, a pillar in New England’s Christian history had preached in that very building (they still have the original front step) and here was the modern church turning their backs on truth.  It’s a discussion for another time but it was eye opening in a sad way to experience it with someone who didn’t have the mindset of “well that’s just Northampton.”

From there we decided to head back to Jeremy’s parents house because it is around 1 o’clock by this point and the rehearsal is due to start at about 3 with the dinner afterwards at their house. We get there only to find out that while we were gone, the mayor of Springfield had closed all the city buildings for the following day. It just so happens that both the church and the reception site were historic buildings owned by the city of Springfield. Everyone handled the news well, neighbors and parents were able to secure both a new church and a new reception site within a matter of hours. It was a little funny to watch Jeremy though. You would think that the bride would be the one panicking or at least one set of parents rather than the groom. I was extremely grateful for Deb and Steve (Jeremy’s parents) for being able to keep a level head and help get everything in place in such a short amount of time. The  rehearsal went off without a hitch and we were able to enjoy the steak-and-lobster dinner afterwards. Last thing on the menu for the night were the bachelor and bachelorette parties. To summarize: Josh met a New England church planter and I played Apples to Apples (in case you didn’t know, I despise that game for some reason). Another busy day followed by another late night sets up for the epic event: the wedding.

“The heart of a man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.”

Or as The Message puts it “We plan the way we want to live, but only God makes us able to live it.” Some people have life verses, we used this as our trip verse because our trip to Massachusetts was nothing but changed plans and new schedules.

Josh's first plane ride

It started for us Thursday afternoon, the day we were supposed to leave. It was the first day back to school for me and the principal had come up with a new traffic pattern for parents picking up their kids from school. Do I really need to say this was a nightmare? If you ever been around an elementary school when they release the hounds (parents) you know that it’s an experience equivocal to the running of the bulls. Weeks of planning and meetings and construction had all led to this moment and it was an utter disaster. A process that was supposed to take about 15 minutes lasted over an hour. People are hot, frustrated, and I’m aware that if it takes much longer I’m going to be late meeting Josh to catch our plane. I finally leave and instead of having about an hour to go to my house, get last minute things together and change — I’m flying across town to grab my suitcase (pray I have deodorant in there) and get to Josh’s house to run over to the airport.

After arriving at the airport, my mind is still going a hundred miles an hour and I’m hungry and thirsty but I figure the worst part is behind us. Wrong. As I’m going through the metal detectors with my sister’s wedding gift primly wrapped I get stopped for something in my carry on bag. Apparently wedding gifts are “multi-purpose weapons” like bats and I have to sit and watch as the TSA tears through my careful wrapping and informs me that I need to run downstairs and see if the counter will let me check the item in my (already very full) suitcase.  I’d like to add that this was not a knife set.

Our flight to Charlotte was uneventful, although we did meet Susan – our flight attendant – who had been working her job for 28 years.  It made me realize how easily Josh can communicate with people he doesn’t know. I would have buried myself in my book and never thought about speaking to another person on the plane but he asked her about herself, not just to be polite but to be friendly. I don’t know how often that happens in a job like that.

Landing in Charlotte, we find out that our connector has been delayed by about an hour. This turns out to be somewhat of a blessing because it allows us time to get dinner (and Pinkberry yogurt for dessert!). From there we went on to Connecticut and then my sister’s house, finally getting to bed around 1am. Bed for me was a twin sized air mattress that became merely two pieces of rubber on the floor by the next morning. But more on that in the next post…