A Day at the Conference

Are you tired of these posts yet? No worries. I’m almost done. The conference is normally on Wednesday afternoon/evening, all day Thursday, and then Friday morning.  With Thursday being the longest day with the most activities going on, Luther Valley Retreat hosts VBS in the morning for the kids. It’s great! The kids get to play games and make crafts and we wives get to attend a session or two. (I did still have Elizabeth and Anna with me.)  The keynote speaker of the conference was Dr. Kleinig. I had heard many great things about him, so I was eager to hear what he had to say. He spoke on spiritual warfare and it was fantastic! We sat in the back since I had the babies with us. Jared ended up taking them out so I could listen. How nice is that? I wish I could have attended more sessions, but Jared did get his papers, so at least I can look over some notes. Now I am pretty eager to read his book Grace Upon Grace.

After a long day we usually get together with friends for dinner and to unwind, and the guys like to debrief over things that happened that day.  After hearing much about Pastor Graff and Elaine I finally had the pleasure of meeting them. I have to say that if there is ever a mustache contest between President Harrison and Pastor Graff, well, I think Pastor Graff wins.  Thoughts?

Another last minute guest (I only found out about half an hour before dinner) was this lovely man, Dr. Kleinig. Remember him? I got to listen to him speak earlier in the day, so it was a great to surprise to have him join us for dinner.

Believe it or not. We had seven adults over AND fourteen kids. That’s right we stuffed fourteen kids into our little place and we all survived and had a blast! The kids had no problems finding things to do. I think there was a massage parlor in the back bedroom, the bath tub room became a  playground, books were read, and Anna stole Abby’s binky. She’s asking for it back, but Anna is pretending she has no idea what she’s talking about. Cute, right? (Lauren, is your jaw just dropping at the sight of Luke? Really. That’s Luke in the upper left photo. You should see his hair when it’s dry. It’s wild.) All the kids (except the babies) went swimming before dinner.

As it got late we stuffed the kids into a room for a movie. I turned on the hallway light to get this photo and I was glared at by my oldest daughter in the pink shirt who probably thought I was ruining their movie theater atmosphere.

Dr. Kleinig really had these guys thinking.

 

Now our husbands are smart. They study and read a ton. They’re always thinking. Sometimes they’re so deep in thought that you can’t even get their attention. 

However, they were no match for Dr. Kleinig. No way. Dr. Kleinig is just brilliant. It was like he was three or four steps ahead of them all the whole time.

Now he’s questioning their thought process. :) I also found out that he’s a gardener. If I only had more time, I bet he could have shared some great gardening tips.

The conversation was soon over my head. I am not nearly as well read as these men, not theologically anyway, so I just snapped photos. It’s what I do best. Then Keri and I made Andi open a Facebook account. She resisted, but finally caved to the peer pressure. Now go find her and be her friend. Ha!