We met @ our church @ about 7:15 pm on the day after Christmas (Tuesday, December 26, 2000)... then we left the church, and got to the airport, checked in luggage and all that good stuff... and took off in our airplane at about 10:30 pm. We had a lay-over in Atlanta, Georgia after a four and a half hour ride over for about an hour and a half. You don't know HOW much we enjoyed running around that airport. :o) Who knew it would take us that long to get Starbucks??
We finally arrived in O'Hare airport at about 8:30 am (I believe), on the 27... waited for our luggage... waited for a bus... took the bus, and took about 3 and a half hours to finally get to the University of Illinois' campus. We arrived, looking like we'd seen better days at about 12:30 pm. I'll show you pictures when I get them. :o)
We went through registration, and endless amounts of people everywhere, and finally got settled in our hotel... with enough time to freshen up before dinner @ 5. We had our first worship time that night @ about 7:15. Wow!
When we got back to our hotel... we practically just took off our clothes, and fell into bed. TOO tired. After about fourteen or so hours of traveling, we needed it.
The next morning, we overslept, and decided to skip our small group. We had Jewel and Cheri come and ask us to join them... little did we know that that was it for the small group! We (btw, that's just me, Sarah, Elizabeth and Heather) went in search of food. Fortunately, there was a little diner across the street, and we ate there. Pancakes, potatoes, omlettes... yum!
We then headed over to the Assembly Hall for a morning of worship... and started settling in for a week of awesomeness and semi-routine.
Our days would look like...
6:45 am - Attempt to get up... half of us in our room would shower... get dressed/ready/prepared for the morning...
8:00 am - Get some breakfast over @ the hotel (Holiday Inn) across the way... we were staying @ the Ramada
8:30 am - Small Group in Jewel and Cheri's room... they were also in the Ramada
9:40 am - Get on the bus to Assembly Hall... or miss it, and have to wait for the 10:10 bus... which meant you might not get a *good* seat in Assembly Hall
10:15 am - Worship Service *officially* started
12:30 pm till 2:00 pm - time to go to seminars and worshops, see exhibits, naps, go to churches... basically free time
2:00 pm - lunch... yeah! LATE!!!
After we were done with lunch... we had more time to do seminars, workshops, see exhibits, go back and take a nap, have quiet time with God, or whatever until dinner
6:45 pm... I believe that was our time for dinner
7:15 - Evening Worship... you had to get there @ 5pm to actually get seats close to the stage... our group always sat in C23 though... except for one time... but that's another story :o)
9:30 pm - We'd head back to the hotel, throw our stuff in the room, and go to Jewel and Cheri's room for small group
10:30ish pm - Get ready for bed... some of us in our room took showers, got ready for the next day
12:00 am/1:00 am/2:00 am/3:00 am - Actually getting to sleep... where did all the time go???
Pictures from Urbana
More Pictures from Urbana
