Nashville and House Stuff

We arrived home from Nashville early this morning at about 12:30am. It was the first time we had left Natalie even for 1 night - and we were gone 4 nights and 5 days! We missed her like crazy, but it was really nice to get away by ourselves for a few days!

We headed out to Nashville on Thursday for a National Youth Workers Conference (NYWC 08). There were about 5000 youth workers from all over the world including Australlia, South Africa, Canada and the US. It was amazing to see that many youth workers together from tons of different denominations (I even saw a nun in full garb) and worshipping God together!

We arrived late Thursday night, which allowed us to sleep in Friday morning, as the conference didn't start until about 1pm. There were great speakers, including Tony Campolo, Francis Chan and many more. And great worship leaders, including Starfield, David Crowder Band, Jars of Clay, Shane and Shane, Kendall Payne and others. There was also hundreds of booths of different ministries, most giving away free stuff! I think Nate got 6 t-shirts, cds, books, Bibles, footballs, balls, frizbees, pens and more! It was a great weekend! It was packed full of seminars and general sessions, but they really encouraged us to hang out with God first and foremost, get refreshed and renewed and if you had time for any seminars to attend!

one of the booths

So, Nate and I took them up on that and on Saturday evening headed out for a date night. We went out for dinner at BB King's Blues Club (very cool - great music, great food and great atmosphere) and then we headed over to the Grand Ol' Opry for a show. There were about 20 artists that performed during the evening, and some were really good. It was more the experience that we were after as opposed to seeing someone really amazing. We did however feel like we had been transported back to the '50s to the Ed Sullivan show or the like as the Opry is broadcasted live and so there was a man giving vebal advertisments between acts with a voice that sounded like he should have been on the radio 60 years ago! :) It was a fun evening though.

We had a great weekend - Nate really felt he got some great resources and attended some great sessions that will really help and grow him this year - and were really ready to come home and see our baby! It was wonderful last night to walk in and see her. She woke up, looked up at me, smiled, lifted her hand and waved at me and then rolled over and went back to sleep. It was so cute!

As per the "house stuff" in the title, the house that we had put an offer on actually fell through today. So, we now have some decisions to make as to whether or not to buy a different house (we have 1 other possiblity at the moment) or if we should just rent or something. You can keep us in your prayers as we mull over this and make some decisons in the next day or two.

Hope you all had a great weekend.