Sickness, Conventions and Birthdays, Oh My!

This weekend wore. me. out. I had to take Monday to recover. The kids had been sick last week with pink eye and some of them got a chest cold and some others got a small stomach virus. Then David was sick with Bronchitis this weekend, and he even had a chest x-ray because they thought he might have pneumonia.

Saturday, I had volunteered to hostess some workshops for the Tulsa OCHEC Homeschool Convention. Can you believe that I've homeschooled for fifteen years and this is the first convention I've ever been to?

I hosted two workshops and the first one was about homeschooling with no regrets by Skeet Savage from Wisdom's Gate Ministries. She was so nice and I really appreciated what she said. Basically, you can fill your child with wisdom, but at the end of the day, what really matters? Good words to remind us to keep perspective.

The second workshop was by Cindy Nicolai with OCHEC. She had a great message as well-remember to keep your priorities straight. She gave a baseball diamond outline with God on the pitcher's mound, you are the catcher, your husband is on first, children on second and homeschool on third. Everything else is in the outfield.  I wasn't able to get a picture with her, she was setting up her presentation when I got there and she was talking to an attendee when I left.

While I was walking through the vendor hall, this sweet older lady stopped me to give me a sample of a Bible study she had at her table. She said, "Since you homeschool, I don't know, you might be old enough to have a middle schooler." I said, "Would you believe my oldest is in college?" The look of shock on her face..she said, "You don't look old enough!"

Bless her.

Before the convention I had raced over to pick up my nephew, Devin and Tyler's friend Matt for a birthday sleepover since Tyler turned 17 on Sunday! WHERE does the time go?

Of course they stayed up all night playing video games and eating spicy Doritos.

Sunday morning Brittany helped with a fundraiser breakfast for the three summer missionaries from our church (Brittany included.) As of the breakfast, she has made her financial goal! All money has been raised!

Brittany, Tyler and Timothy stayed at church all day, because it was youth night for the evening service. They do this once a year-the youth take over the whole service. Tyler and Matt did one skit about seeing God in the small things. Tyler and Timothy were in a different skit about being in bondage from choices you've made. I have to admit they did a fabulous job and I even teared up a bit in the second skit. It was a powerful message of Jesus freeing you from that bondage.

In addition to all this, the forecasters were calling for bad tornado weather on Sunday. It rained really hard that morning, but that was about it around here. I know there was a terrible tornado in Arkansas that killed a father and two kids from a family of 11. So sad.