Oh what a View, Days 2-9

So much for going a day at a time! We are literally on the way home, and while I’m sitting in the car for the next 15 hours, might as well catch everyone up on our awesome trip!

After we drove from Texas to beautiful Colorado Springs, we crashed for the night. The next morning we had a few hours before we had to check in for our conference, so we headed to the Garden of the Gods. I had been here once before, but it was a first for V. We had a blast! It was so cool to see God’s amazing creations!

Emily and I were so excited to get to hang out!

    

And my sweet husband jumped from rock to rock- and was dang good at it too!

     

Sam and Emily really are this fun all the time. I know, it’s awesome. Come live in the pineywoods with us!

Than after Garden of the Gods we checked out the Navigators headquarters, Glenn Eyrie, in Colorado Springs. It’s a real castle! Amazing! I want to go stay in the honeymoon suite at the top of the turret one day. Talk about feeling like a princess.

After that, we had a quick lunch at the most delicious French Bistro, La Baguette. The guys didn’t quite get what the big deal was until they had a bite of the yummy French cuisine. It was probably my favorite meal of the trip.

 

Then we drive up to Fort Collins, and got all checked-in for the Staff Conference! And this was our home away from home (that is for a few days anyway…)

These pictures somehow make it look nice enough, but it was one big YUCK! It was definitely a guys dorm, complete with mold, no ac, stench of feet and armpits, and urinals in the girls bathroom (which was down the hall, up a flight of stairs, and down another hall…) Note: we found out a few days later it was not too late to switch dorms, and get a place with a bathroom and ac- and we happily packed up to hit up dorm 2.

 

There was a welcome Country Fair that night, and it was so fun to run into so many friends from around the country that we don’t get to see often, but love to death!

The next day, we got fully geared into conference mode. Let me just share that I have been to many many conferences, and I have gotten the privilege of hearing lots of amazing speakers, and being challenged in so many ways, but God did amazing things in my heart over the week+ that we were there. So many times I found myself in tears (and for so many reasons…) and it was so amazing to get to share that with my amazing husband, and sweet friends.

Even though this is about 8 days worth of pictures, I am just going to share them all here.

This is from the first morning of CSU, and it was incredible to be in the same auditorium with 5,000 other believers who do the same thing that we do! This was one of the first times that I teared up a little.

 

For the past 50 years, the co-founder of Campus Crusade, Vonette Bright, opened the Staff Conference with prayer, and this year was no different. This woman is so inspirational, and her heart is amazing.

Vince and I could not get over that people get to look at mountains every day! We were a bit jealous and contemplating moving, until we realized that with mountains comes snow, and we are two birds that are just too used to heat! I am just glad we were there in the summer and enjoyed 70-80 degree weather, a HUGE change from the 107 at home… 

 

One night we got the fun of getting to hear Tim Hawkins, a Christian Comedian. Let me be the first to say that I think that Christian and Comedian are not usually 2 words that belong together, and my expectations were pretty low. Goodness gracious I was wrong! For an hour and a half this guy made me laugh so hard that I cried, and Emily couldn’t breathe. Her hands even went numb she was laughing so hard. Vince even had tears. He was that funny. I highly recommend him. Very very much so.

On Sat. morning I got to see Robin, along with the rest Rach’s fam. I love love love them. I enjoyed every minute- and they introduced us to a super-yummy little Cajun Breakfast place called Lucille’s. If you don’t think that Cajun and Breakfast mix, it’s ok, I didn’t either until I had the best french toast of my life.

Another day we got to spend time with staff from our Region in the CRU world, (TEXAS, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana) We had a fun picnic, and got to hear what God is doing locally. Besides getting to see old friends.

One night, we got a chance to be part of the program for the evening since we joined staff recently. All of the new staff from lined up and out from the stage, and it was amazing to see the 350+ people that committed to serve the Lord with their lives. The line (of all of us) went on for about 20 mins- and that was just so cool!

Samily (Sam + Emily)  walked with us too!

 

This is the view from our dorm to the the big arena where we had the conference.

One more of the more silly, but favorite parts of the conference was Jazzercise. Now I know the mere mention of the word brings mental pictures of lavender leg-warmers, and pink bodysuits, but I promise it is nothing like that, and it is probably the most fun I have ever had working out.  Em and I were the class managers since we loved it so much the summer before at New Staff Training, and so we went to class everyday! 1.) It kicked my butt. Quite literally. 2.) It kept me from gaining cafeteria food weight (YAY!) and 3.) it was a total highlight and delight.  Here is our amazing instructor, Angie, with Emily and I.

I was sick for the last day, and of course that is the only day anyone brought their camera, but I was there, every day minus sick day! And it was awesome! And the group was much bigger daily.

 

And finally (and congratulations if you have actually read all of this!) we had our last meeting. I was so sad the conference was over- it went by so fast! The Lord taught us so much, and we were so glad we got to go! The last night was a big celebration and send off, and let me tell you, I feel excited and ready to come home and share with all our student all the Lord taught us! It was awesome!