Christmas Break is the best invention.

This is a fun game to play with Linc-- Raise your hands if you look really cool in a bow tie... Yep. Raise your hands if you love your Aunt Sarah... Good. Raise your hands if your best friend is blue dog... Uh-huh. Raise your hands if you're a cute baby... Score.

This afternoon was a grand reunion. Arielle, Mel and I got to have lunch with Whitney, Abby, Rachel, Grace, Cailey and Karisa. West Lafayette dwellers, these CILT girls of sessions 1 and 2 are so much fun. They were waiting at the door when we arrived and attacked us with hugs.

It was my favorite type of lunch with friends. The kind where you sit for hours telling old stories and asking questions and sharing life with each other as you keep getting refills and having to take bathroom breaks but you come back and the conversation keeps going. Today was the kind of day where none of us really had to go anywhere else. Being together was exactly what we wanted to do.

Visits with CILT girls like this are sparse during the year but they are without a doubt some of my very favorite moments. The time we shared in the Longhouse this summer was the foundation of a strong friendship that is nowhere close to ending. We all wish we could show up in each others lives like this more often. Wouldn't that be the best if we all lived in the same place or if teleportation could just be invented already?

But the things that made us grow so close at camp--sincerity, intentional conversations, character, trust, faith, love for adventure and the way we value people-- will keep us close all year long. These girls, Whitney, Cailey, Grace, Rachel, Abby and Karisa, will continue to grow into the joyful, courageous, loyal, dedicated young women God created them to be.

Days like today are reminders that getting to work with teenage girls whether it's at school, in Young Life or at Tecumseh, is one of my favorite things and biggest blessings. There is nothing else I'd rather spend my days doing.

Other highlights of the night included being real life friends with Arielle, dinner with the family, a visit to the Meyaard house and running around with Bryn, Shay, and Liam, playing fishbowl back at home and laughing together, and watching Harry Potter 7 with Nick.