Life would be pretty dull if our it wasn’t sprinkled with some surprises.

Unfortunately, some surprises are not always of the happy kind. However, this past week, I had some pleasant and exciting surprises.

As a starter, my daughter, Kim, told me my granddaughter, Olivia, had won a competition at a recital last Saturday singing “Always True to You,” from “Kiss Me, Kate.”

I am always so proud of her talent at only 11 years old. I wanted to go so badly to see her but was sick and unable to make it.

I may sound like a typical grandmother when I say this, but I was not surprised she won. She will be in a national competition in Kansas City in July. I am excited just thinking about it.

Nothing seems to phase Olivia; she can sing in front of anyone. I will be keeping my fingers crossed until the upcoming contest is over.

Later in the week, a friend of mine, Elena Davis, told me her daughter Mia had won first place in a national gymnastics competition held in Charleston, West Virginia. She won in the tumbling and trampoline competition. I was so proud of her.

She had moved to Florida and was out of gymnastics for a few months. She had to work extra hard when she returned to Winchester to catch up with her group, and it paid off.

The Class of 1966 girls’ reunion went well Friday.

We are always surprised to see someone come that we have not seen for a long time. For me, that was Marilyn Abney Warner. I do not think I had seen her since high school. Somehow getting old did not catch up with her.

Then on Saturday, I went to my great nephew, Logan Wiler’s wedding to Emilee Cannon. It was at a place called Whitlee Springs near Jeffersonville. It was a beautiful venue.

I was shocked to see several people from Winchester at the wedding. There was one lady that kept standing out to me. Finally, I could not stand it anymore and asked a friend of mine, who lives in Montgomery County if she knew her. She told me she did not.

A minute or two later, the lady I was inquiring about came over to tell me hello and called me by name. I told her I had just asked who she was. I was shocked to find out it was Robin Bush who used to live in Winchester for years and is now the owner of Whitlee Springs wedding barn.

I knew I recognized her, but she just was not in the right place. She told me they had sold their 3,000 square foot home in Winchester and bought the land where the venue is, and my nephew and his new wife were their first booking last year.

She said they are now already booked for the rest of 2019 and 2020 is filling up quickly.

I must say it is a great place to have a wedding. It is beautiful there. It looked like their wedding held about 175 people, so it is large enough to hold a crowd. I have been to other venues where the weddings are in a barn, and this one was as impressive as any of them. Their wedding was beautiful.

On Sunday, as my husband and I were getting out of the car to go into the church, I noticed a big U-Haul truck in the parking lot area. I remarked to him that we must have some travelers stopping through and going to church.

When my family took little trips when I was young, we stopped on Sundays to be guests at several Baptist churches wherever we were traveling at church time.

Talk about a shock when we got inside. There looked to be around 75 to 80 kids sitting in the back of the church with T-shirts on that read Winchester, Ky.

They had spent the night in the basement of our church on Saturday night. I soon learned most of them were from the First United Methodist Church in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, which is east of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Some were from Kansas, and yet another group would be at our First Fire Campus from Virginia.

All would be on a mission trip to help improve some homes in the Winchester area. They are painting and doing some electrical work in some homes that were severely in need of fixing up. They will be working hard this week.

Mission work is both gratifying and satisfying, but it is work.

According to a count in 2017 Broken Arrow’s population is 108, 303, which is decidedly larger than our small town of Winchester. I feel sure we will see these young people around town this week, so I hope we all make a special effort to welcome them to our town and put forth our best effort to make sure they have an enjoyable time.

They seemed to be well mannered, and I hope after they leave our town they will want to come back later in life for another visit and who knows some may decide to move to Winchester as a permanent resident.

Though our church surrounded them and had a special prayer for them, it would not hurt for them to receive more prayers that they will have a safe week, a happy week and will arrive back to their homes safely and with a glad feeling they had been a visitor in Winchester.

Sue Staton is a Clark County native who grew up in the Kiddville area. She is a wife, mother and grandmother who is active in her church, First United Methodist Church, and her homemakers group, Towne and Country Homemakers.