Girls Getaway

I and about 38 other ladies from Sovereign Grace Church have now returned from a wonderful weekend spent being pampered and worshiping our God. The Getaway was held at the Wyndham Hotel in Glen Allen, a place I highly recommend visiting. It was gorgeous, not only the hotel, but the scenery around the hotel and the underground tunnel with photos of places in America from "sea to shining sea".

We ladies were welcomed in the lobby by two SGC ladies handing out a lovely bag with not only our agenda (which I'll get to in a minute), but a SG CD, chocolate, hand sanitizer, a book and many other definitely thought out and deliberately placed items. The folder that contained our agenda also had lyrics to all our worship songs (including a great new one), a welcome kit from the Wyndham  and a personalized letter welcoming us from our pastors.

When we entered our room, we were greeted by a lovely note welcoming us, telling us we have been prayed for and for us to enjoy our stay. In addition to this beautiful note were Hershey Kisses and an elegant vase of flowers! So much attention to detail, and this was only the first few minutes!

After dinner, I and my 3 roommates, Chris, Sally and Janina went to our first of 3 conferences. Each session was begun by an entertaining segment, never disappointing!

We were met by the LORD in worship each time, with each song being very carefully thought out and by our  worship leaders after much prayer. This was a sweet time that I looked forward to, and occasionally I stopped singing so I could hear all the beautiful women's voices lifting their voices to God. We were introduced to a new song, Never Once, which sings of the marvelous fact that we have had "scars and struggles on the way, but with joy our hearts can say...never once did we ever walk alone, never once did You leave us on our own".

The theme of the conference was "Faith Through the Seasons". Sharon Hawkins did a fantastic job of sharing her heart with us as she walked us through "Faith in the Unchanging One", "Faith for the Unexpected" and "Faith for the Unknown". God met us every time as we learned about Him - there were too many precious moments for me to list the things I learned from each session.

For each of the first three sessions, before Sharon spoke, we had a time of prayer at our tables that was sweet and truly brought us closer together. As well as this, there were three precious women who so bravely came forward with testimonies of how God has worked in their lives. Also, we had time together Thursday and Friday night to fellowship with each other in which current friendships were strengthened and new friendships made. Time was allowed in between Friday's two sessions to SHOP, rest or sight see (can you figure out what I did?!)

This morning, there was again a time of worship followed by a time to make an altar showing where God had met us in each of our lives. After this, there was a great Q&A session. A panel of four shared trials in their lives and answered questions about being Godly mothers, wives and women.

This weekend will be a time for me that I will always remember, a time of laughing, learning, sharing and praising God. I want to thank Sovereign Grace Church for doing this and for the women who put many hours and much prayer into this. I truly came away refreshed.

This is really more or less just an audio clip of us lifting our hearts and voices to God.


Family Feud was one of the just plain fun things we did

Playing Family Feud

Uh oh - a wrong answer!

Our Altar 

Belvedere Plantation

On Saturday Marcia, Steve, Nathaniel and I went to Belvedere Plantation and had a blast! Between riding on the hay ride, picking pumpkins, sliding down the slides (boy is the slide that goes under the hill hard on the backside!) and eating the kettle corn, it was great. The weather was fantastic, at least until the sun went down, brrr! Nathaniel and Marcia also did the Maize Maze and didn't get too terribly lost :-)

Nathaniel going down the slide and he and I racing down the smaller one

Hayride to pumpkin patch

Picking pumpkins

He made it to Japan!

This morning Nathaniel received an e-mail from Japan saying that Flat Stanley had made it there. Wow - it took almost a month! My friend, Amy and her family are hosting him there;she sent a picture of him with her two sweet girls, Madison and Zoe. You can see in the picture that Madison is holding him up.

Autumn Scavenger Hunt

Nathaniel and I went on an Autumn Scavenger Hunt this morning. It all started when I found a small bird's nest in our backyard and I remembered I had seen a pin on pinterest for the scavenger hunt (you can see the site for the scavenger hunt here: http://imaginationsoup.net/2010/10/autumn-fall-scavenger-hunt-for-kids/) . With the air feeling so "fall like" this morning, I thought it would be a perfect day for it.

I called our friends, the Whittemores who live in a great area for a scavenger hunt, in a wooded area by a pond. They said, sure, come on over, so we did (thanks Whittemores!)

We found all the items on the checklist!

Nathaniel showing the smooth and the rough tree bark

What a beautiful flower! This filled two things on our list: a flower and a beautiful thing.

Checking things off of his list

VA State Fair

Definitely a perk of homeschooling is that you can have a field trip day any day you want - so with me being off on Mondays, we decided to go today. God showed His sense of humor today or maybe He was just demonstrating to me that He is in control:  it has been threatening to rain today, so I prayed that God would hold off the rain for us. It didn't rain, except for a second or two when we got off the Doswell exit (the exit to go to the fair)...no other time except that. So, praise God, it didn't rain on us while we were at the fair, and it was nice and cool.

We all had a great time, eating, shopping and seeing the sights.

Enjoying a funnel cake. Yum!