Last week was SUCH a great week! I spent the week in Florida chaperoning a youth group trip to RYM. One of my best friends, Megan, and her husband are the youth group coordinators at our church. Several months ago, she told me that she was going to be chaperoning a trip to RYM this summer (it's in Panama City), and she asked if I would like to be the other chaperone. Of course I said yes! I was especially excited because I went to RYM with the youth group several times as a teenager and loved it. I have such fond memories of those trips, so I was excited to go and experience it again as an adult. I can say that it did not disappoint. It was exactly as I remembered it. This is such an excellent conference. The teaching is wonderful, the music is great, and I just love that everyone there has a passion and a heart for teenagers. Anyway, it was just an all around great experience! The group from our church was small - we took 5 teenagers, and 2 of them were my brothers ;) It was a sweet group of kids. (And I now feel like I'm 60 years old for referring to highschoolers as "kids." Haha!) I'm also SO thankful to David for taking such great care of our kids while I was gone and for my mom and mother-in-law taking so much time out of their weeks to watch the kids during the day while David was at work.
Sunday was a normal day at church. We aren't having children's church during the summer, so Aubrey and Jude are sitting with us in big church the whole time. It's.... interesting ;) But it's good for them to learn to sit through church! We came home and cooked lunch. We grilled chicken and realized when we took it off the grill that it had gone bad. I was SO annoyed. So, we had a nice lunch of sides (vegetables) but no meat. We went back to church that night and then had Newk's for dinner. I got my suitcase packed before bed.
David's mom came over on Monday morning, and David took me to church to meet up with the group. We took a quick picture, and then loaded the van.
We got settled into our rooms, and then we went to dinner.
When we got dinner the first night, we started to get nervous that we were going to starve all week. No, seriously, the portions were HUGE. |
We got up bright and early on Tuesday and went to breakfast.
Love these "little" goofballs. |
We then went and took showers and got ready for dinner and evening assembly.
The girls!! |
I did notice that there seemed to be a real lack of Tim Keller books on the book table, though. LOL. |
Wednesday was more of the same. Breakfast, devotions, break outs, lunch, and free time. We spent most of the afternoon at the beach again.
Just some girls and a Merman. |
Then we just walked around Pier Park for a long time. We got some ice cream.... see? Lots of treats! ;)
Love this friend!! |
We ended the night with a trip to Target and then went back for curfew.
Thursday was the last day of the conference, and it was another great day! We ate breakfast, had our devotional time, and then went to our first break out on Digital Christianity. The speaker wrapped it up really well. He basically said that when using social media, we need to remember the second greatest commandment (love your neighbor as yourself) and use it to build others up and not just to meet our own needs. Obviously, I'm really over simplifying it, and this issue is definitely more complicated than that, but I think that's really the bottom line, and I'd do well to remember that. Anyway, during the second break out, Megan and I had a really good talk. We went to lunch, and then enjoyed our last day at the beach. The weather was perfect that day, and the water was clear. (It had been really seaweed-y the other days.) We spent a good bit of time at the pool, and then we went to our rooms and got ready for dinner. After dinner, we had evening assembly. The theme of the week had been hope in a hopeless age, and we talked about how our hope is glorification. All of the sermons had been good, but this one was my favorite. The speaker talked about how the promise of glorification should effect everything we do and how we live. It's a lot easier to be content and joyful in hard situations when we remember what is coming. Anyway, it was just a great conference.
I have no clue what they're doing, but they wanted a picture with one of the speakers. Haha! |
I have no idea? Two moms trying to fit in with a bunch of teenagers? Hahaha! |
All good things must come to an end. This was a fun way to wrap up a great week! Here's our whole sweet group.
After the party, we had to go back to our rooms and clean up and get packed.
On Friday, it was time to head home. We left around 8:30 and stopped at Panera for coffee and a bagel. Megan and I took turns driving again, and the trip was uneventful. Well, we did have a little dance party and sing-off in the van, so not TOTALLY uneventful. Haha!!
We stopped at Chick Fil A for lunch, and we got home around 4. I was so happy to see David and the kids!! I missed all of them! That night we went out to eat Mexican food (Mexican on the 4th - it felt so un-American. Haha!). We wanted to go see some fireworks, but the big ones had happened the night before. Bummer! Instead, we came home and went on a walk and then put the kids to bed. I was super excited to sleep in my own bed that night ;)
On Saturday, David took the kids to the Farmer's Market, and then I met them at Whole Foods for breakfast. We walked around Highland Village for a while afterwards.
When we got home, we played outside in our inflatable pool until naptime. I took a shower and made a grocery list while the kids napped, and then I went to the grocery store. When I got home, we cooked dinner and ate outside. I went on a walk (I took our dog Jane this time instead of Knightly) and David bathed the kids. We got them to bed after that.
2 comments:
Hey, I started reading your blog through Sarah Denley's. I LOVE RYM. I chaperoned for my home church a couple of years ago. Who was the speaker last week?
My home church is Faith Pres in Brookhaven, Mississippi. What about yours?
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