Most of the group had never flown before, so the trip there was quite interesting. They had a ball though, and everyone enjoyed it. The adults had fun encouraging them to watch the towns grow smaller, the wing wobble, the clouds go from above to below us, and more. We had a two-hour layover in Houston, so we had some lunch.
Then we flew on to Harlingen. This time around, most of the group were either bored or tired, so they watched DVDs or slept.
Once we landed, we met Lee Martinez at the bottom of the stairs. He was holding a sign that said “Mt. Zion FWBC”. We gathered our luggage and headed to the van to load up. We talked to Lee a little and found out that he’s home for the summer from Hillsdale College in Oklahoma, where he goes to school. Ben, who is the youth director and the male adult on the trip, told Lee that we were tired from the flights and would like to just go to the hotel. We were checked in quickly, changed into swim attire, and hit the pool. The guys were playing keep-away mixed with tackle football. A few of the girls joined in also. Pretty soon, though, most of the guys had cut their feet up on the bottom of the pool and were ready to stop. Chase began playing ball with some of the kids that we were sharing the pool with.
Some of the girls got in the hot tub and struck up a conversation with the women there. The guys and Tonya, the female adult (other than me), began a diving contest of sorts. They basically were seeing who could make the most water splash out of the pool.
After a while, most of the kids had left the pool, so Ben decided to order some pizzas. He called Dominos while the kids either showered or changed clothes. We found that the wind seems to always blow in southern TX, so we sat out in the breezeway, talking and drying off. It was definitely a natural blowdryer (I only used mine once that week).
We ate and ran through each others rooms. We had two suites, so everyone just left their doors cracked to the rooms and would go back and forth between them. Tonya’s room quickly became the party room, as all the food was in there. The guys broke a bed in their room (never was quite sure if it was really their fault or just a pathetically built base) and the other guys room had a leaky air conditioner (to the point that a stomp could splash water as tall as me), so everyone pretty much stayed in either of the girls’ rooms or in the breezeway. We went to bed at a decent hour, since we had to be at the church at 9:00 the next morning.
