It was six carts. Six.

Do you have one of those friends that is always on the go and always getting you into some stuff? Well mine invited me, quite spontaneously, to go "back home" with her.

"Back home", as she calls it, is Gulfport, Mississippi. You know, Alabama's only saving grace - Mississippi.


Now I fought it a good deal because I am not a spontaneous person. I like all my decisions to be carefully weighed and thought out. At first I decided to decline since she was leaving Friday night, thinking that if she were only leaving Saturday morning I would accept.

Got a phone call.

Leaving Saturday morning.

So guess where I was going?

After getting there by way of Louisiana (don't ask) our first stop was at their "country house", where they had more neighbors than I do at my "all the time house". It was so cute and so nice.

Fences always beg to be climbed, don't they?

They don't like to stay at the country house all the time because it is so far out. Translate - 15 miles. They may not want to come see me, I thought fifteen miles out was close!

They came upon this house as a foreclosure with the intentions of flipping it. Enter: hurricane Katrina. They stayed here until their home was habitable...2 years. I think it's pretty awesome how God worked that out for them and so do they.

I didn't tell Schyler they lived close to the beach, mainly because I didn't realize it myself. You should have seen her face when I asked if she wanted to go for a walk and the front yard came into view!

Besides us, there were other interesting creatures to behold. These guys seemed to be washing up -

Google and dissection came next so you better believe I counted it as a school day.

Next stop: Dirt Cheap. Have you ever been to one of these stores? Well don't take my friend. She may end up buying so much stuff that she has to get her mom to get the maintenance man at her church to drive it all back to her parent's house in the church van.

I was a little worried that I would be driving home with shopping carts tied to the back of my car. Don't laugh. It could have happened. You have no idea who we are dealing with here.

All in all I am so glad she got me into this. The one thing about good friends is that when they get you into stuff, it's good stuff. You don't regret it and you look back with gladness.