It was great! We left on Friday morning, had a nice little drive over to Hatch, New Mexico (about 6 hours from here) and were able to get some rest before Convention started that night. I think we had 93 in attendance this year--which is terrific! Sister Erika did a great job preparing for and moderating the Convention and it was all soooooo good. Brother Jimmie Brooks was our guest speaker and although we didn't seem to get even one picture of him (?!), he did a good job. One of the illustrations he used on Saturday night was especially good, I thought, and really spoke to my heart. There was a good spirit throughout the weekend and, as always, good food and good fellowship--LOTS of it! Here are a few pictures.
This is a picture of part of the VLB's who were present, up front singing the VLB fight song. We have young people in abundance out here and I'm pretty sure we outnumbered those who were left seated!
This is a picture of part of the VLB's who were present, up front singing the VLB fight song. We have young people in abundance out here and I'm pretty sure we outnumbered those who were left seated!
This is Luis Banuelos who--although he is nothing but trouble outside of church service!--is a wonderful blessing to us in our Region. He preached a very, very good message on Saturday and I was just so touched by his sincerity and deep love for The Church of God. You could feel it in his words and his spirit. He and his wife, Kaila, are always a special blessing to us.
Here's a picture of those Shuler men. Did I just say that?! YES, I DID. I can't believe how grown up they're getting. Is it possible that they've aged that much in the past two months since we saw them last?! It's amazing. I just hope they'll always be as great as they are right now. I love those boys! I'm trusting that Philip doesn't read my blog faithfully and therefore won't be embarrassed by me proclaiming publicly that he is to-die-for cute!!! That kid. Emilee and I were both wanting to take him home, so it was only fair that neither of us get him and he just return home with his family. ;-) And Jacob. He is one in a million. I told him that he'd better always behave himself because he seems to have a lot more influence over a certain young man in my household than I do! Ha!
This, however unspiritual it may be (!), is what Katie was working on during Brother Jimmie's message last night. (At least, I think that's when it was.) It's a picture of Uncle Colin with the words "THIS IS YOU"... all on an Etch-a-Sketch! Can you imagine?! There is no way I could make a picture like that at age 29, much less age 6. CRAZY.
Here's a picture of those Shuler men. Did I just say that?! YES, I DID. I can't believe how grown up they're getting. Is it possible that they've aged that much in the past two months since we saw them last?! It's amazing. I just hope they'll always be as great as they are right now. I love those boys! I'm trusting that Philip doesn't read my blog faithfully and therefore won't be embarrassed by me proclaiming publicly that he is to-die-for cute!!! That kid. Emilee and I were both wanting to take him home, so it was only fair that neither of us get him and he just return home with his family. ;-) And Jacob. He is one in a million. I told him that he'd better always behave himself because he seems to have a lot more influence over a certain young man in my household than I do! Ha!
This, however unspiritual it may be (!), is what Katie was working on during Brother Jimmie's message last night. (At least, I think that's when it was.) It's a picture of Uncle Colin with the words "THIS IS YOU"... all on an Etch-a-Sketch! Can you imagine?! There is no way I could make a picture like that at age 29, much less age 6. CRAZY.
Although Kate didn't seem to get a whole lot out of it (ha!), the service last night was especially good and we had a wonderful prayer service that lasted quite some time. Everybody seemed to come away blessed and I know that I personally felt such a sweetness and freedom in prayer--like I haven't felt in a long, long time. I really needed it and I'm still rejoicing in what God did in my heart through it. I just love those "times of refreshing" that the Bible promises will come!
After service last night we all stayed up way too late doing a whole lot of nothing. There's only one motel in Hatch, New Mexico and we fill it up. You'll never believe this, but James actually invited the crowd to come to our room to hang out last night! WHOA!!! James is not exactly a crowd person and he certainly doesn't want them invading his personal space, so we were all a little shocked at his invitation (me, probably more than most!), but we took him up on it! I think I counted 36 people in there at one point, and that doesn't include however many children were running wild in the other room. (It was a "suite"--ha! If only you could see this motel, you would laugh at the thought of it having a "suite!"--with two bedrooms and the kids were turned loose in one of them...until things got too violent and I had to go break it up and send everybody to their mothers--including one of my own kids!) We just hung out and talked and did, like I said earlier, a whole lot of nothing. Although, I'm sure it was a loud lot of nothing. I was so excited about James being so friendly and welcoming and actually inviting all of the chaos into our room... until I remembered that Jon & Emilee were in the room right next to us and they were already in bed since they were the only ones in the whole group who intended to actually get up and leave early in the morning! (I'm so sorry, Emilee!!!) I think it queited down there toward the end. Until James talked Jake and Phil into doing some of their crazy acts, including "My Little Buttercup" which was new to Hector and Jesus and Sophia. Jesus laughed so hard! He's so cute!!! Ha! I just keep wondering what it's going to be like when the guys are 29 and 30 years old doing their "My Little Buttercup" routine... They've grown up sooooo much since they first did it for us at Camp a couple of years ago. They were just kids then but they're half men now and it just has a whole different look and feel to it. And it's a little disturbing! Ha!
People started dropping off one at a time, beginning with the oldest and working it's way down. I think the last of the party left at 1:45am and we crashed. Slept in until 9:00 this morning (!), then went to Sister Banuelos' restaurant for breakfast. Dustin and Jamey showed up, then Keven and Michele, so we were able to get in some extra fellowship before leaving. Can't have too much of that, you know. ;-) We hit the road and made it home at 6:30 tonight. That made us 30 minutes late for church and we looked pretty rough, but at least we were there! It was good. Then we came home, unloaded, put the kids to bed, and I went out and vacuumed out the van. It needed it sooooooo bad. It felt great to get that done! Of course, I've done nothing with the mountain of luggage and junk we brought in from the van, but that'll give me something to do tomorrow, right? Ha. For now, I'm going to call it a night. It's been a great weekend, but I'm bushed. Zzzzzzzz...
After service last night we all stayed up way too late doing a whole lot of nothing. There's only one motel in Hatch, New Mexico and we fill it up. You'll never believe this, but James actually invited the crowd to come to our room to hang out last night! WHOA!!! James is not exactly a crowd person and he certainly doesn't want them invading his personal space, so we were all a little shocked at his invitation (me, probably more than most!), but we took him up on it! I think I counted 36 people in there at one point, and that doesn't include however many children were running wild in the other room. (It was a "suite"--ha! If only you could see this motel, you would laugh at the thought of it having a "suite!"--with two bedrooms and the kids were turned loose in one of them...until things got too violent and I had to go break it up and send everybody to their mothers--including one of my own kids!) We just hung out and talked and did, like I said earlier, a whole lot of nothing. Although, I'm sure it was a loud lot of nothing. I was so excited about James being so friendly and welcoming and actually inviting all of the chaos into our room... until I remembered that Jon & Emilee were in the room right next to us and they were already in bed since they were the only ones in the whole group who intended to actually get up and leave early in the morning! (I'm so sorry, Emilee!!!) I think it queited down there toward the end. Until James talked Jake and Phil into doing some of their crazy acts, including "My Little Buttercup" which was new to Hector and Jesus and Sophia. Jesus laughed so hard! He's so cute!!! Ha! I just keep wondering what it's going to be like when the guys are 29 and 30 years old doing their "My Little Buttercup" routine... They've grown up sooooo much since they first did it for us at Camp a couple of years ago. They were just kids then but they're half men now and it just has a whole different look and feel to it. And it's a little disturbing! Ha!
People started dropping off one at a time, beginning with the oldest and working it's way down. I think the last of the party left at 1:45am and we crashed. Slept in until 9:00 this morning (!), then went to Sister Banuelos' restaurant for breakfast. Dustin and Jamey showed up, then Keven and Michele, so we were able to get in some extra fellowship before leaving. Can't have too much of that, you know. ;-) We hit the road and made it home at 6:30 tonight. That made us 30 minutes late for church and we looked pretty rough, but at least we were there! It was good. Then we came home, unloaded, put the kids to bed, and I went out and vacuumed out the van. It needed it sooooooo bad. It felt great to get that done! Of course, I've done nothing with the mountain of luggage and junk we brought in from the van, but that'll give me something to do tomorrow, right? Ha. For now, I'm going to call it a night. It's been a great weekend, but I'm bushed. Zzzzzzzz...
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