Where do I start?

I don't know where to begin to tell you about my weekend. There is no one word to describe it. I felt horrible for leaving my husband here with the 2 sick kids, but there wasn't much else we could do. Thankfully they are both pretty much back to normal now. They spent most of the weekend watching DVDs with their dad and sleeping a lot.

I made it to Kansas City a little before 7:30 Friday night, picked up my room key and tossed my bags in the room, then got to work helping judge the display events (drawings, paintings, sculptures, mixed media, photos, scrapbooks, banners, bulletin boards). My kids were already working on their first event of the weekend, Bible Bowl. I finally saw them around 9:30 or so during the opening session. Emily asked to spend the night in her best friend's room, so Noah and I got our hotel room to ourselves the first night. I don't know when the last time I've had a bed to myself was!

Saturday was filled with going from meeting room to meeting room to view and/or judge events. I judged the 3rd-6th grade song leading event. It is so neat to watch these young kids. I was able to see Noah's first foray into puppeting, as he was part of a skit enacting the story of the prodigal son. Emily's puppet skit was going on during my song leading judging, so I missed it; I'll get to see it when the kids perform for the church in a couple of weeks.

The kids all did a great job in their events. Noah cracked everyone up after his drama; he was playing Zacchaeus (the wee little man who climbed a tree to see Jesus). At the conclusion of his skit, while the actors were trooping off the stage, he grabbed a mike and said, "God bless America, folks!" There was no rock for me to crawl under.... Thankfully everyone found it to be quite amusing. It will be one of those stories we tell for years, I imagine. I am also glad the judges didn't mark the kids down for that. They all received a gold medal for their skit.

After closing ceremonies, a group of about 40 of us from our entourage went to Jack Stack BBQ a few blocks from the hotel. We had a YUMMY dinner and enjoyed relaxing with each other after the hectic events of the day. I think most of us pretty much crashed in our rooms once we got back.

Sunday morning brought an intimate worship in our congregation's suite on the top floor. We filled the room... kids on the floor, adults on the furniture. We called Brian on the cell phone and Noah talked to him for a bit. That probably wasn't a good idea, as Noah wound up in tears for the first half of worship, missing his dad. After all, his dad had been gone all week before he left... he hadn't seen him for more than 15 minutes in the last week.

Checked out of the hotel afterwards and headed towards home.... about 20 of us stopped at Cracker Barrel in St. Joe for lunch. I made it home shortly before 5 pm. The kids were happy to see us and we were glad to be home. Rather worn out, that's for sure!

Now it's time to work on all the little details for getting ready to move into temporary quarters before we close on the house on the 14th.