Weekly Highlights (RYM Edition)

I promise that I'm going to post something other than weekly highlights on this blog at some point. We've just had a lot going on, and this has been all I've had time for lately!

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.

Seriously cannot believe that I drove this thing. With other people's kids in there. Praise God for His protection! ;) Oh, and I decided on this trip that my cutoff for having kids will be anything that's gonna require a 15 passenger van. Hahah!

The trip went well! Megan and I took turns driving, and we stopped for lunch at Cain's. We made it to Panama City at around 4:30.

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.

After dinner, we had our first group assembly. It was great! I LOVED the band and the music, and it was just wonderful to worship with so many people. After evening assembly, we had small group on the beach, and then we had free time. We went to our room at 11 and got ready for bed.

We got up bright and early on Tuesday and went to breakfast.

Love these "little" goofballs.

We then had time for private devotions. Megan and I found a quiet place together and did our Bible study separately, and then we prayed together for our group and the conference as a whole. Afterwards, there were break out classes. The kids got to choose the ones they wanted to take (they each took two). Megan and I went to the first one and we chose "Digital Christianity." It was SO interesting. It was all about living and being a Christian in an age of social media and "mediated communication." It was actually really convicting. I might expound more on that in another post. During the second break out, Megan and I just kind of took a "break." We just sat and talked and enjoyed an hour without kids ;) Next was lunch, and then we had free time for the rest of the afternoon. We spent several hours on the beach and a little bit of time at the pool.

We then went and took showers and got ready for dinner and evening assembly.

The girls!!

Once again, the worship time was great!

I did notice that there seemed to be a real lack of Tim Keller books on the book table, though. LOL.

That night, the worship band put on a concert during free time. It was so much fun! We had a little more free time after the concert, an then we went to our room.

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.

After several hours on the beach, we went to the little concession stand and got snacks. I got French fries and a coke Icee. I quit drinking coke a couple of years ago, but that Icee was SO good! I didn't regret my decision to indulge once (or twice... ;)) but I'm definitely ready to get back on the healthy eating train this week! There were a lot of "treats" last week. Ha! The schedule was a little different that night because we had the night off to go out to eat, so we had evening assembly before dinner. Then each church was on their own for dinner and whatever else they wanted to do. We decided to go to Pier Park. We ate dinner at The Back Porch.

Then we just walked around Pier Park for a long time. We got some ice cream.... see? Lots of treats! ;)

Love this friend!!

Late that night, we even saw Honey Boo Boo! Haha!

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!

That night, there was a "dance party on the beach." This was COMPLETELY out of my element. Haha! But I actually ended up having fun. They played fun music (that had been approved ahead of time - haha!) and everyone was just having so much fun.

I have no idea? Two moms trying to fit in with a bunch of teenagers? Hahaha!

The guy in charge of the whole conference literally sat up on a ladder and supervised the whole thing to make sure it stayed clean ;) I loved seeing him up there on that ladder - he just seemed very fatherly, and I loved that.

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.