The Saturday 7

1. Last week, one of our fun summer activities was supposed to be a program at the library called "Ruff Readers" where kids can read to/with a service dog. Levi was so excited when I told him about it and literally counted down the hours all day. We finally got to the library, Levi ran in the door and shouted, "Where are the dogs?" To which the librarian sadly replied, "Oh, honey. I'm so sorry. The handler just called and cancelled." 😥 Levi got over it quickly and the librarian explained that the same program would be held at another branch this week. So on Monday, we drove down to a different branch for take two. We got there ten minutes early and when I went to the front desk to ask about it, the librarian told me all the slots were already signed up for. 🤦 You had to sign up in person, and apparently it's just a one hour program, with 4 measly slots. She suggested we stay the whole hour and the handler might stay a couple minutes late at the end. Fortunately, they had pity on us and snuck is in between a couple sessions so Levi could have his 5 minutes with the dog.

He was thrilled, and it was a good way to get him to read!

2. It was another hot summer week, so we spent a good portion of it at the pool.

3. Wednesday night was my grandpa's memorial. It was a good remembrance of him and it was cool to hear my dad's stories about him. He was the last of his siblings, so it's weird/sad to think that whole generation in our family is gone now. It's up to this kid to carry on the family name now!

The only son of my only brother. (We do have cousins to carry on the name as well, but not very many of them!)

4. On Thursday, I dropped my kids off to Niki at 6:40 a.m. so I could head to the Gospel Coalition for Women Conference in Indianapolis! I'd never been to a conference like this before, so I didn't have very many expectations, but it was so great! It was slightly inconvenient that it spanned Thursday through Saturday, since my husband works and my kids are home on summer break. But my wonderful mom and sister stepped up to watch the kids so I could go. I went with 5 other women, including 2 of my cousins, 2 women I knew a little bit from church, and one I didn't know at all. And we had so.much.fun. We laughed so hard and created so many inside jokes and enjoyed getting to know each other, all while growing in faith and being challenged together.

5. The conference was made up of 7 keynote sessions by different speakers (big names like John Piper, Jackie Hill Perry, Melissa Kruger, Jen Wilkin, and Julius Kim!). There were also six "breakout" sessions between Friday and Saturday, so we basically sat through 13 different sermons . . . and it was awesome. Lol. In truth, I did skip one breakout session because it didn't really interest me and I wanted to peruse the bookstore while everyone else was in a session! I took 19 pages of notes in a regular size spiral notebook throughout the weekend! There was just so much good information and wisdom to soak up! I was also surprised by the worship leader. I wasn't even sure that there would be worship, but when we showed up the first night, a couple guys came out onto the stage with guitars. No one introduced them. They just started singing. After a while I turned to Esther and said, "Is that Shane and Shane?" It was! I love them! So that was a fun surprise. Plus, there's nothing quite like belting out hymns with 8,000 other women. So awesome. (The screen is actually zoomed in on one of the backup singers in this video, but Shane and Shane were there too!)

6. The whole weekend was quite an adventure. We took a 15 passenger van from church to make the 4.5 hour trek - which was great until we had to park it in a parking ramp in downtown Indianapolis. You don't think about how low "low clearance" really is, until you're in a van that is almost 6'10" tall! Of course, we didn't actually know the number, until we tried to pull into a ramp that had a clearance of 6'8" and realized we didn't fit! Haha. Fortunately the same parking garage had another entrance that was slightly taller. It was still terrifying to drive through the ramp when it felt like the ceilings were going to scrape the roof of the van at any minute! (And I wasn't even driving!)

Then there was the airbnb adventure . . . Some people sign up for this conference a year in advance, so the hotels near the conference center fill up quickly or are very expensive. When we decided just a few months ago to attend, we reasoned that an airbnb might be cheaper. The problem with airbnb, though, is that despite pictures and reviews you never really know what you're getting. If you don't know the city, you don't know which parts of the city are better than others (safety-wise). When we left home, we drove straight to the conference center since we couldn't check in to the airbnb until after the sessions began. So we didn't actually see it for the first time until 9:30 at night, just as it was getting dark. First, we couldn't figure out how to park the huge church van on the extremely narrow city street in front of the house (we finally realized we could use the driveway that was shared by another house). But as we piled out of the van, we were a little disturbed to realize there was an RV parked in our backyard . . . and the lights were on inside. Of course, we couldn't figure out the keypad to let ourselves into the house, so we were all standing on the stoop in the near-dark in what was clearly the ghetto when the RV door opened, and out stumbled a very inebriated middle aged man. It turns out that our airbnb is actually part of a duplex. The drunk man fumbled his way up the steps on the other side of the duplex while we all stood there trying not to stare. And then as he was trying to unlock the door despite the loss of his motor skills, his shorts completely fell to his ankles. At which point we all turned away in horror and in an attempt to disguise our uproarious laughter! We were all relieved when the code finally worked and we were able to lock ourselves away in the house!!

Aside from its sketchy location and the nefarious neighbor (who did not bother us at all other than the unintentional drawer-dropping), the house was nice inside. It was well updated and had 3 bedrooms with 6 beds that worked well for our group. That said, the AC barely worked upstairs (it was in the mid 90s all weekend), there were 2 bath towels in the whole house, and the bathroom window was set squarely in the shower with only a flimsy "glass film" for privacy. I'd say it's safe to say we all slept a little uneasily the first night. Haha. But we lived to tell the tale, and have so many laughs and memories to show for it!