Weekend away - Beth Moore conference

Last weekend I had the privilege of attending a Beth Moore conference in Calgary.  It was such a good weekend.  I drove down with two absolutely wonderful friends and spent the weekend with them and a bunch of other amazing ladies.

We dropped the kids off at school on Friday morning and hit the road by 9.  Our plan was to have some fun shopping before the conference started so we went to Cross Iron Mills and shopped from 11ish until about 5:15.  It was so much fun to have a whole day to browse and get coffee and visit with friends while shopping.  After a bit of a crazy drive downtown (what on earth is it with the Saddledome?  I've never seen a place that's harder to get into...one lane for thousands of people...really?).  Anyway, we made it to the conference safe and sound.   A band came out and sang some amazing worship songs - I was moved to tears at numerous times and truly felt in absolute awe of the amazing God we can call Father.  Beth Moore came out next and led us through the "theology of walking" as she called it.

For those of you who don't know who she is, Beth Moore is a hard core bible teacher who is very interesting to listen to - she's very knowledgeable and always very good at sharing something applicable and not just theology.  She teaches huge bible studies on various topics and records them so that you can watch them at home or with a small group and follow along with a study guide with homework five days a week.  I've had the privilege of doing some - Believing God (at the start of our adoption journey), Stepping Up, Fruits of the Spirit, Daniel - and am looking forward to even more.

Anyway, it's hard to sum up the weekend in a few sentences.  I can't say I walked away with something concrete to work on, but it was a very uplifting conference and I would for sure go again.  Friday night we went to the hotel, had some snacks in the restaurant and went to bed.  I felt a bit out of sorts...I'm not away from Arvid or the kids very often and I definitely missed them.  I didn't have the best night (but who does, the first night in a new place?), but still enjoyed the conference on Saturday morning.

After the session we shopped a few more hours at Chinook Mall...so many more fun stores.  I was looking for a few things for myself and had worked a bit extra that week to compensate but wouldn't you know it...I barely found anything for myself and spent more on every other person in my family than I bought for myself!  Oh well...I made up for it this week.  :-)

Anyway, the highlight of my weekend (as fun as it was to be away) was definitely coming home.  I so rarely leave the girls with Arvid alone...usually the two of us will leave for a date but weekends with Dad don't happen very often.  They definitely had fun with him but it was such a treat to come home because they just couldn't stop hugging me and telling me how much they loved me.  They had a nice dinner set up with flowers and wine and I was so happy to be together again...all five of us.  Absence definitely made the heart grow fonder with all of us and I'm so thankful to have such an amazing family to come home to!

Here's a picture from the conference courtesy of my husband's cousin - thanks M!