I’ve been taking a little five-day hiatus from blogging to experience being home again. I’ve been spending time with my family and seeing friends again. It’s been a lot of fun, but it definitely is strange being back.

Today the twins, Brittany, Reilly and I went to Rapid City. We got up early and left town at 7am. We went to Rapid to voice our opinion. Family members of Fred Phelps the highly controversial leader of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka Kansas were picketing in Rapid. They came to Rapid City because one of their aldermen is a transsexual. We went to voice our opinions in support of the councilmen and against all of the negative things the Phelps family members had to say. We stood outside the churches with our signs. Then we went to a diversity gathering, and rounded out the day with a final church gathering protest. It was one of the most interesting and intense things I’ve done in my life. We(the five of us from Spearfish) along with two boys from Rapid City were the only ones that were picketing on the opposing side of the Phelps family. We stood our ground and didn’t speak to them. We were interviewed and photos were taken. I'm looking forward to seeing what shows up on the news tonight. I was surprised our presence was such a big deal. We figured there would be tons of people doing the same thing as us. We dressed in our tie-dyed t-shirts and smiled and waved. It was an awesome day. Tomorrow we’ll get up really early again and go down to Rapid to counter protest the last two locations.