Monday, April 20, 2009

Conference Highlights, pt. 5

I am sitting here with a cup of Jasmine tea on a very warm spring day in North Carolina, and thinking that perhaps a cup of hot tea was not what I really wanted. So, let me grab my water bottle of water with no ice and continue this Conference Highlights series.

I've pretty much given up on Lily. I don't think she's even a reader of the blog anymore...much less an author :) But who cares?! We (meaning "I") quote so many other people all the time that we (of course, meaning "I") never serve up the tea around here anyway.

The next section of Conference Highlights is everything except the lectures :) I'm saving the lectures for last because maybe by the time we get to them Lily will be on summer break and might actually...occasionaly...sign on to the blog. Totally rad, I know.

The conference–which, I know, was a 1 1/2 months ago. How do I know? Because I and the Girards are already counting down to the next one :)– started on Tuesday afternoon and went until Thursday at noon.

One of the things that I was most looking forward to about the conference (besides the actual conference, and seeing my best friend) was spending the whole week with my buddies, the Girards. You'll have to come visit Redeemer to understand why I love them so much. Anyway, so the Monday before the conference Lily and I packed at the same time while we were talking to each other on the phone. (we postponed our Saturday talk time until Monday) It was so much fun. We pre-planned when to talk on Monday so that we would both be packing while we were on the phone. I know.....ridiculous.

It was one of the goals of the week to fit everything for the conference in my backpack. Which I did. Now granted, Leah said I looked like Christian in Pilgrim's Progress with that great burden on his back, but I reminded her that I was riding with the Girards and I wanted to fit everything...yes, everything...into one bag so who cares if I look like [a] Christian? Sounds like a compliment to me, sis :)

On Tuesday morning (after 5 1/2 full hours of sleep...that's another post :) I got up at 6 o'clock (I was so excited!) and got all ready to go. I made sure my burden was fully loaded :) and ate a quick breakfast. I was way too excited to eat anything worthy of being called "breakfast." Actually, let me brag on Mama for a minute: she made lemon curd (which is one of my favorite things that Mama makes) and let me have it on toast for breakfast that morning. And I had "Cassie Tea" to go with it. My dear friend, Cassie, gave me Chocolate-Mint Tea for my birthday. It is my favorite tea, ever. Oh, and the smell.... I save it for the Lord's Day to make it super special. But the conference day was such a special occasion that I had Cassie-Tea with my toast and lemon curd. Anyway...enough of breakfast (that took less time for me to eat than I'm taking to type it)

At 8:30 the Girards were here to pick me up (actually, to my great delight they were supposed to be here at 8:30 and they got here at 8:15 - you can tell The Crew was in high gear on Tuesday morning. Great job guys!)

So, we loaded up the car (which took about 30 seconds because...of course...I only had one bag) and I got to sit in the back with all the little bugs. Since this is a blocked blog I could probably just use real names here, huh? So, those cute little buddies of mine were my backseat companions for the week: Gabrielle, Alexandria, Dwight, and Calvin.

On the way down (one of my favorite parts of the whole trip) I got to read Matthew 26 for family worship in the car. Sweet deal!

Oh, and we did play the Shotgun/Gunshot game. That is also another post. But I will get to it because I can't leave that out of the Highlights series....we played it all week!

Ok, there's the morning of day one. Aren't you glad we're (meaning "I") doing this in sections and not one post?

To close the post...this has nothing to do with the conference but I just read this quote a minute ago and so I had to share it:

"Faith is looking again towards God's holy temple, and love is stretching out for the first sight or sound of the Beloved's approach." ~Ruth Bryan

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