Lads-to-Leaders 2009

On Thursday, April 9,2009, we set off for the annual L2L convention in Nashville, Tn at the Opryland Hotel.
Daddy, mama, Aunt Kendra, Dillion, Erica, Pam, Xander, Jared, and I set off for Nashville! First stop was for brunch at Cracker Barrel in Cullman.

Our next stop was the Opry Mills mall in Nashville. We walked around there until our rooms were ready.






We rode the carousel at the mall. I started out with Erica in the spinning tea cup thing, but had to get off. Between being sick and spinning in circles I about lost my lunch! Jared was laughing at me. He wondered why I got on that one when the spinning tea cups at Disney made me sick! It was bad!





We took pictures by the fountain and outside the Bass Pro Shop on the rocks!









After we left the mall, we went to eat dinner at Cock of the Walk.







Friday, April 10, 2009
We watched Addi do her Oral Bible Reading. Then Hannah decided to "read" and then she got up again and started to preach to us, and then she got up and led her song, "God is so Good" which she was to lead the next day! She is too funny!
Xander was so excited to wave to us from the balcony of our room!
After Addi's Bible Reading, mama, Aunt Kendra, and I took the kids to watch some puppet shows, one of which Alissa was in!
Afterwards, it was time for Erica to do her Oral Bible Reading. She was so nervous, but still got a triple A rating! I was so proud of her for overcoming her fear and doing a wonderful job!
That evening was an award's ceremony. Dillion received his trophy for Advanced Bible Reading. I was so proud of him, too!





After the awards ceremony, we went for ice cream!







Saturday, April 11, 2009
Xander led his song despite being nervous because it was not at "our" church. Enjoy the many faces of Xander as waits for his turn. He was #9 out of 17. There were five rooms of K-2 boys song leading with over 17 in each room! That's a nice picture for the future our the Lord's church! Then we ate dinner in the hotel at their food court type area.











Sunday, April 12, 2009
After morning worship services we were to meet some of Pam's friends at Bob Evans for brunch. We had to wait a little, which was perfectly ok, by the way, so we headed over to Cooter's Garage of Nashville! Now you know Jared and I HAVE to go to a Cooter's garage if we are near one!


That evening, we made it back to church at home, Sylvan Springs C. of C. Jared or Pam or Aunt Kendra got ahold of my camera and took these pics of the church kids. I didn't even know it until I went to upload my photos. I'm glad whoever did so. I love these kids as if there were my own!

Easter Egg Hunt

On Sunday, April 5, 2009, Jared and I had an Easter egg hunt for my Bible class and a few others. We were supposed to have it at our house, but it rained so we ended up having it at the church building. Jared hid eggs in the foyer, nursery, and auditorium. We had a good time!
Jared and I both left our house keys in our car, which was at my parent's house. We had gone to church with them to Ragland that morning. We were running behind because church starts later there, so we went straight to our house to get the supplies for the egg hunt (we rode with my parents.) We had Xander with us. We broke into a window at our house. We put Xander in through the window of our bathroom in our bedroom in hopes that he would run through the house and open the door for us. Well, he is a scaredy cat! We had to coax and beg and bribe him! First, he turned the bathroom light on...beg, coax, bribe... Next, he ran into the bedroom and we were like "Oh yeah, he's gonna do it now!" False alarm! He turned on the bedroom light and then ran back to the bathroom window! Coax, beg, and bribe... he whines a little... we tell him he has to save the Easter egg hunt...he thinks...he tells us he's scared of the dark. Mama says she will give him her cell phone to use as a light. I then remember that I have a flashlight in my nightstand drawer, which is visible from the window. He goes to the nightstand, but can't open the drawer! I tell him to go to the other side of the bed to Jared's nightstand and open that drawer because there's also a flashlight in there. With a little fumbling, he finally got the drawer opened, grabbed the flashlight, and ran back to the window! Yay! Now...a little more coaxing- he's super hero afterall, so he can do this! Dad tells Xander he will knock on the door so he can follow the sound. Xander reluctantly goes out of the bedroom door...and then comes running back saying that the knocking is scaring him! We told him we would stop, but that he needed to hurry or we would be late to the egg hunt! Finally, he runs to the door and starts yanking on it...wrong door... he runs to the other one frantically yanking and...the door opens!!! Dad tells Xander that he is so brave and has saved the Easter egg hunt! Xander replies, "I'm not brave, I'm scared of the dark!" What are we gonna do with him?
In the chaos, I left my camera, so these photos are from my phone. The quality is not that great, but you still can see the smiles on the kids faces!