A chance to breathe...

Please forgive me for the lack of blogging. As I stated in my previous post, my life has been anything but slow the last month and half. I thought coming home from Milligan would be a breather..HAH, someone should have warned me. This post will let you in on the world of Miriam and what has been going on since I returend to the good ole Hoosier state.
One of the first priorities was to hang out with this gal..Mehg, my BFF from high school. Mehg's getting married this weekend and I'm the maid of honor. So before she goes from Ms. to Mrs, we had a date night: out to eat in Indy and then to a movie. It was great to be with her and reminisce
about people and memories and talk about the future as well. (Wow, sounds kind of mushy: but I mean we are the ones who said we'd marry each other if God says it isn't wrong..but He doesn't.)
That same week, Beth and I took Stephen lunch at Warren. Okay, may I tell you that Warren Central is like a college campus. Stephen's graduating class is approx. the same as the number of undergrads at Milligan, +/- 50. Naturally with as many students as it has..something like 3,000, there are quite a few police officers patrolling the grounds at all times. Two different times I was stopped in the hallway by two different cops, questioning me as to why I was wearing a visitor's pass. My response, "I'm visiting." Duh? They both gave me strange looks when I gave them the what I thought was an obvious answer. One said, "Oh, you've graduated? You're done? Congratulations!" and the other one proceeded to ask me a series of questions. "How long have you been done?" "How old are you?" "Where do you go to school?" "You don't look old enough to be out of high school." Each time I gave a response that assured him of my age, he looked at me like I was trying to pull on over on him. He asked Beth who was standing next to me how old she was..just once..and he believed her, but kept..almost interrogating me. I couldn't believe it! I asked him if he wanted me to go get my ID but he said, "No, just don't let the cop stop you on the way out." Ohh the nerve! To think I'm a senior in college and they didn't believe I had even graduated from HIGH school!? Come on, y'all..seriously? Do I look that young???!
The family took a trip to Michigan for Mother's Day, to join the two Michiganite sisters. While there, Beth and I and a few of Cindy's friends took her out to eat for her first of two bachelorette parties. We went to "The Bob", a 3 or 4 story restaurant with a club on the bottom floor and dining on the second floor. Because part of the restaurant is a bar, they check IDs at the door. Neither Beth nor I are 21 yet, so the bouncer at the door wanted to make sure everyone in the restaurant knew. He held our IDs while we ate just to make sure we wouldn't try anything. Then, he banded each wrist very securely, might I add, with the paper bracelets
you get when you go to the fair. And then, with permanent marker, wrote a big M (for Minor, for those of you who didnt' catch it) on each hand. I felt like a prisoner! All I wanted to do was eat some good food and enjoy a bachelorette party! Beth got the same royal treatment. These are some of Beth's girls who came to church with us. Kelsey and Lauren have really been a blessing for Beth during her first year at college. They are such sweeties and have quickly become a part of the Solomon gaggle of girls!




One weekend in May, we had a chance to go to the races at Mt. Lawn Speedway. This is a tradition my dad likes to keep alive because he went when he was a boy. Our family tries to go a couple times a summer and this was the first trip. But as you can see by the picture, it was uncharacteristically deafening. One would think the noise from the cars was what made our eardrums throb, but instead it was the PA system that apparently Mt. Lawn has been able to afford to upgrade. We were all wearing earplugs.

Grandad and his brother came with us to the races. We had a blast! Grandad especially enjoys it because he used to bring Daddy when he was little. There's just something about the dust in our eyes and the burning rubber up our nose that keeps us coming back for more! The four hours spent at the race track that night were ones of great fun and laughs!






As I was driving home from church a couple weeks ago, Beth and I were enjoying the scenery of downtown Mayberry, when we approached an intersection. The direction we were going did not have a stop sign, however the intersecting road did. The driver of the big Chevy truck approaching the intersection did one of these: slow to a yield, not a stop, look both directions, double check one way but not the other way, fail to see driver coming from the "other" way, continue through the intersection, "is that a horn?" "what's that black thing I'm getting ready to run over?" and BAM! End result: no one was hurt, except for the Stallion, who is now totaled.
He will continue to be driven, but he has a limp. We're working on getting him healed but it will be a long process.

If you didn't know or haven't heard: we have one of the BEST churches around, filled with the Holy Ghost and amazingly fun people. This guy right here is one of them. He's central to our church, leading us into the presence of the Lord each week. Here Jonathan is trying his best for the Zoolander's Magnum look. I think he's almost captured it. He struck several poses and this is one of the better ones. (My apologies for the blurred pixelation.)








Not only do we have a great praise and worship leader, but we have a dynamic group of young adults. A couple weeks ago a group of us decided we needed a time of fellowship after evening service. What better way to fellowship then over hot wings and a coke? Exactly. That's what we thought. We headed to B-dubs in Anderson to enjoy ourselves. When it was time to pray for the food...all twelve of us stood up and held hands around the table and prayed. We got quite a few strange looks, but who cares? God was glorified. I love this picture of Ashley because it truly captures Paul's reminder to be ready in season
and out of season. I didn't give these guys any
warning about taking the picture, I just took it, but Ash was ready.

This is the drummer man, teaching me how to "throw up the deuces" whoever thought of that? Anyway...this picture was taken after his contest with Keith concerning who could snort the most pepper/salt combo. Why? Because boys will be boys. His facial expression is probably a result of the sniffing accompanined with much burning, I'm sure. After we all had our fill, we headed on out to the parking lot. But since we were having such fun, we asked a bystander to take a snap-
shot and capture the memory for us. As you can
see, everyone was doing something random. My favorite though is Keith and Beth. While in B-dubs, Keith was "reading" his discipleship book because he had his meeting with his discipler the next morning. He was trying to catch up. However, his discipler happened to be sitting at the end of the table. :) Here you can see him taking every moment to try and read about how to live for Jesus. Beth is kind enough to help him find where he left off by pointing to the right spot. Ashley is praising Jesus like she always is. Cindy appears to have just sucked on a lemon. Matt seems to have a few marshmallows in his mouth. Josh and Dustin look confused. Bekah has somehow startled me with her crazy smile. Danny and Katie...they're thinking about the wedding... :)
Speaking of weddings, my sister just had one! But that will be saved for the next post. This one is already long enough. The night of Cindy's wedding, I went to my aunt's house to see cousins who had come in from out of town. Two of the littler ones were getting ready to leave, but mom was having trouble getting them out to the car. I yelled, "Last one to the car is a rotten egg!" And out the door the ran. I ran after them and scooped the 4 year old up in my arms to try to catch big sister a few paces ahead. While holding the 4-year old in superman position on my side, and running at the same time, my flip flop caught on uneven pavement. Seeing that recovery was not an option, I next thought about how to sacrifice myself and save the child from hitting the cement. Down on one knee I went and having my arms full of a 50 pound child the next thing to stop my fall was my face. And so down I went, trying to make an indent in the concrete with my face. As I sat up, my first thought was to make sure the child was okay. She had hit the back of her head on the ground, but I didn't hear any screaming or crying, she was fine. Next, I realized I couldn't feel my face except for an intense cool throbbing. I looked at the mom and in a panicked sort of way asked about my face. She told me there was a little bit of blood, but nothing too big. I walked into the house, past my uncle who asked which child had beat me up. After I got cleaned up, I had a nice raspberry on my knee and a slit above my lip. My nose and chin got a couple scratches, I bit my top & bottom lip simultaneously during the fall, yet I still had all my teeth. It's weird that none of my extremeties on my face were injured. Instead, the inner most part was slit in two different spots, down the middle. This picture shows my pathetic bandage. A week and half later, I am still recovering, but it has healed fairly quickly. With Mehg's wedding coming up, I'm hoping to be completely healed.

The end of May brings graduation. This past weekend, we went to an open house of our "summer buddy" Kyle. He's been really busy with a new job and a girlfriend that we haven't seen much of him lately. But he's a vital part of the "summer group" and we've missed him. Josh, Bekah, Stephen and I were able to go and celebrate being done with high school forever. After the first couple minutes, it was like we had never been apart and the guys were all cracking jokes on each other and having fun. It was good to be together again! We made Kyle promise to hang out with us and encouraged him that the
summer group just isn't the same without him. I
think we have him convinced :)

This missy here is one of the most beautiful gals ever. I've been able to hang out with Bekah a lot in the past couple weeks and she truly is a woman of righteousness. I'm learning lots from her and love to be around her all the time...except when she's playing Risk. I wouldn't advise playing that game with her; things can get pretty intense, just ask the fiancee Josh. :)

So alas, this has been my crazy summer thus far. Next week is finals for my first summer session of college classes. It is also the beginning of church camp. I'm helping out in the kitchen for children's camp and will be a counselor for teen camp and teen work study camp. Also in two weeks, my second session of summer school starts and will be going to indy 3 days a week until August. This summer is flying by but I'm growing in the Lord and am learning to trust him more and more each day. Thank you for taking the time to read this!! Be blessed!