First post from the ATL (actually FL)

This is a little late for all my bloggin' fans. I made the move down to Atlanta with a WHOLE lot of help from my friends. We arrived in Atlanta at 5 a.m. (it was a really long drive) and crashed at the Marriott. My sister and I got up early to sign my apartment papers. We drove to the apartments which I had not seen yet. I was getting freaked out a little when we passed the nearby prison, graveyard and 4 out of 5 boarded up houses. I was trying to be a strong and fearless girl, but I was getting a little nervous (ok, a lot nervous). Turns out mapquest was wrong. We were totally in the wrong neck of the woods. After a 411 call to Jordan, we found out that my apartment was actually near where we were staying. It is nice...very nice! Better yet, it's less than 10 minutes from Perimeter Mall. I've yet to enter the mall, but have been in the bazillion stores around it. It's a pretty amazing area.

Mike, Scott, Loretta, Whitney, Roxanne, Sherri and I were met there by Jordan, Jay, Alex and Dave. Within 45 minutes all of my stuff was moved in. The power of team...actually family...it out performs an individual ever time. God had a great idea when he created family.

My first week has been amazing, a total whirlwind, but amazing. The apartment and job is everything I'd hoped it be and more. I'm still far from figuring everything out, but I'm getting it. They run hard and are so unified, I love that. They are the same up close and personal as they are from afar.

Right now we are brainstorming the upcoming year near a beach in Florida. I have no idea what town we are in, but it's near Destin. The condo is beautiful. We drove down yesterday and updated the manual on the ride down. Once here Dave, Alex and I giggled late into the night playing with the Mac's Photo Booth Effects. I think we were giddy from the long van ride. The beach is a stones throw but we haven't been there yet. We'll explore that later for today was a full day of brainstorming....seriously 9:30 a.m. straight until after 7 p.m.. I've learned so much in just a short time. We started the day by celebrating what went right last year, which sounds like there was a whole lot. We then moved into how to improve for next year. There is some pretty amazing stuff on the horizon. I can't wait to watch it all unfold. I'll keep you all posted.

Here's what I excited about so far...
1. I thought I worked hard...I found some people who worked harder.
2. The team is amazing. It really feels more like a family. Dave gave me a great compliment today when he said that me being here felt so natural.
3. We all took the Leading From Your Strengths test and got a good laugh. I'm still pure lion (with some Beaver), although I've tamed it a little (which is good). I think Jeanne's influence has helped me with that over the last two years. The rest of the team has a lot of Otter and Lion in them. I'm just an Otter wanna be. Alex tells me hanging out with them will bring the Otter out in me. I hope so.
4. I've got a way with babies that I didn't know about. Dave and Stef brought their twins with them. They did EXTREMELY well on the way down even though they both have double ear infections. The last 15 minutes they started getting fussy, but all I had to do was peek my head over the seat and they'd quiet down.
5. The Cadre (mentoring of youth pastors) will be my primary focus and I'm pretty excited about that. I will also have the opportunity to teach the 90 Master Commission students some stuff. That will be cool. Jeanne's also given me the opportunity to teach at Oxygen, but I think I'm going to hold off on that right now until I get grounded.
6. Mike and Scott are coming down for Master's Commission. We're all pretty excited about that.
7. Jordan taught me how to cook a great dish tonight. I now have two recipes.

We'll that's the scoop. I'll be home for my birthday, so I'll see a whole lot of my blogging friends then. Praying you are all well and CAMP ADVENTURE is as AMAZING as always.

Oh yeah...meet Alex. Alex is the Academic Dean and Discipleship Director for the Master's Commission down here.
He's fun, bright, has a great laugh and, as documented in the photo booth, straight pearly whites.