A-MAZING Weekend!!

Had a great weekend all around (well, for one exception, which you'll read later on in my post). McKenna was involved with something called "Discovery" at our church--it's basically a youth weekend that just immerses the teen in God's love. They have all sorts of fun activities, but also some really "deep" spiritual stuff; the high schoolers give talks about different topics and the middle schoolers are the students it's targeted to. It was just awesome!!! (The picture above shows how absolutely gorgeous the altar looked on Sunday morning; on Saturday night we had a candlelight service in which we lit a candle for each teenager and they left the "decorations" up.)

From that experience, and some other stuff going on this weekend, I learned some important things (and have a few questions). . .

1-- Kids say the darnedest things--especially 2-year-olds. My favorite saying by our little Scout this weekend was (let me set the scene here by saying I was lying in the bathtub and Sydney was in the room running around and just kinda hanging out with me. LOL): "You want some ice cream, Momma?" Puzzled, I asked, "ice cream?" then realized that she meant SHAVING cream. She wondered if I needed it to shave my legs. TOO funny!!

2--Can appliances regenerate themselves? Amidst the hot water heater fiasco last week was the knowledge that our washing machine was also on the blink (it was--or so I thought--leaking whenever I did more than the smallest load possible). Well, now that we have a new hot water heater, our washing machine is acting like it's brand new. This is a VERY good thing, but I'm still puzzled by it all. Did the Cleaning Appliance Gods just decide that I needed a break?

3--Teenagers are the coolest!!! I tell people all the time that I absolutely love teenagers. Two-year-olds are a joy all to themselves, and ten-year-olds are pretty neat too, but teenagers are just too cool. I think that parents get way too scared of teenagers and truly don't appreciate them for the people they're becoming. And I love the group at our church. They are just absolutely amazing!!

4--Are all young teenage boys obsessed with sweat, nakedness, and being as crude as possible? On Saturday night, I served as a chaperone for a group of our middle school girls at the retreat. At one point, I went to check in on the boys and for some reason one of them shouted out, "Moon her!" And, lo and behold, one of the boys turned around and MOONED me!! I laughed and just fled from the room. Too much information!! (Did God know I needed daughters, or what?)

5-Young teenage girls, on the other hand, still love to play "Truth or Dare" and talk incessantly about boys. My four girls I stayed with overnight were a riot!!! We played "Truth or Dare" and my personal favorite--we had to list a cute celebrity, a cute boy at our school, and a cute boy in our youth group. Let's just that I learned all sorts of fun information!! (And how fun that they sat there and played this with me, an almost 40-year-old. I felt quite special!!!)

(my "adopted" girls this weekend!!)

6--My Mom is awesome. She celebrated her birthday on Saturday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!! I love you!!!!! (We haven't had a chance to get together for her birthday, but will have a big joint celebration for her and me near the end of the month. Something to really look forward to!)

7--(Ready for my rant? Here it comes . .) You should be required to get a Parenting License. I had a situation at the end of the weekend that did drain some of the joy out of it for me. I was reminded yet again that there needs to be some serious requirements to be a parent--you need to have to get a license or something!! It does not take a rocket scientist to understand that the things you say will actually affect the way your child behaves (like yelling at them, or calling them names) . . . and that belitting your child will go absolutely nowhere in raising a child who will actually respect you. I was SO angry at this situation and it just made me terribly SAD for the state that some children are in . .. that they live in environments where they are not uplifted and encouraged to be the wonderful individual God created them to be. (Hey, go hug your kid right now and tell her that you love her!!!!)

8--(Okay, I need to make this positive again. LOL) Church music can be fun!! We had an awesome youth-led service on Sunday morning and some music that ROCKED us all out! A group called Poor and Wretched (great name for a band huh?) played for us and it was TOO fun. They even took some traditional hymns (because there are plenty of older people in our church who like nothing but hymns) and made them brand new with the guitar, drums, and (my favorite) a violin. Amazing! My favorite was their rendition of "Come Thou Font of Every Blessing." These words just spoke to me in an unbelievable way (the hymn was written like a century ago, but when I sung them they felt brand new to me)--

Jesus sought me when a stranger,

Wandering from the fold of God;

He, to rescue me from danger,

Interposed His precious blood.

(this is my very FAVORITE picture from this weekend--maybe my favorite for a very long time!! This is my niece, Lori, speaking in front of the whole church. Wow! I was so proud of her!!)

9--I found a new fragrance that I love!!! Okay, this is totally NOT spritual, as opposed to most of the rest of my experiences this weekend, but it's pretty darn exciting. I had ordered a perfume from Avon several weeks ago that Gary's sister had recommended, and I picked it up on Saturday. I love it!! (It's Be Kissable, and it's light and yummy!) I actually was hoping people would come up and sniff me just to see how good I smelled!

10--Little ones love their Poppies too. A pretty BIG deal happened on Saturday night, when I had to leave to the church by myself and Sydney had to stay with Gary for the evening and overnight. They went to his parents' house and she was excited about that, but I really felt like she'd cry when they said they were leaving without me. But, she didn't!! And then on Sunday after church, she was given the choice of leaving with either me or Gary and she chose her Poppy! I was really excited about this, beause she is a big Mommy's Girl and I really want her to bond with Gary too.

I hope all of you had a great weekend!! I'm going now to check out all the blogs that I am now LOVING to read everyday. I feel like I'm getting to know so many people out there in Blog World (heck, last week I got to emailing with someone from Australia; how cool is that?!) and I love Monday morning because it gives me a chance to catch up with everyone!

See ya!!