Women of Joy

3 Days 2 Nights 1 Purpose

This past weekend I attended WOJ 2010 and had a great time with the girls. I was super excited this year because last year I had my ticket bought and everything and it ended up being the same weekend as my surprise Anniversary get away! Needless to say I opted for some quality alone time with Brian!!

Friday night Lindsey, Roxane, Tanya and myself met up with Diana at Cracker Barrel on Blankenbaker for dinner. We had lots of laughs and enjoyed "quizzing" Diana about the intentions of her and Bro. Josh (for those of you who don't know that is our Youth Minister) since he was graduating next month. Rest assure, they are staying at MMBC for a while.

Diana and Me

When we arrived at Freedom Hall it was completely crazy how crowded it was: 16,000 women (and a couple of men) packed the place. We were seating 337 PP--balcony seats and it looked like thousands of ant on the floor--thankfully they had big screen TV to help some!

Charles Billingsley led worship which was awesome and then Sarah Palin talked. I was excited to hear her talk, but in the same way disappointed because mostly of what she had to say was verbatim from her book. She kept saying that family is first, and I think that God is first, then family and all else will fall in place.

Saturday morning we left Shelbyville at 7 and headed back down for another fun filled day. I stopped to pick up Lindsey and we had on green shirts, totally unplanned. Then headed to get Roxane and Tanya and they too had on green shirts, and get this they were all the same shade of green! What can I say other then great minds think alike. We kept saying that we were going to get a "green picture" but we forgot : (

This time we were on the floor half way back--awesome seats! The morning session was again lead in worship Charles Billinglsey

and then Becky Tirabassi came and gave her testimony, she was more of an inspirational/life coach

.

Anita Renfroe was the Christian comedian and let me tell you my checks and stomach hurt from laughing so hard--watch out Chanda Pierce you have some fierce competition.

At break we headed out to Cheesecake Factory. I was excited about this because I had never been and to enjoy a hot meal, not having to take kids to the bathroom, cut food up, or break up fights was an added bonus. The food portion was huge as was the price and cheesecake--good thing WOJ is once a year--it was a pricey weekend!! When we got done eating the wait was still 2 hours for table of 2--total craziness!

Still had some time to kill so we walked around the mall for a bit and then headed back down to Freedom Hall for the concert of Michael W Smith and Steven Curtis Chapman with our plan of attack in hand. Go in gate 6 (we had done this all weekend..it was our little secret, not many people knew of the back entrance to the Fairgrounds and get an aisle set so that we could get out before the "herd of cows" We arrive 45 minutes before the doors opened at 6 and the lines were crazy--wrapped around the buildings!

We sat on the side seats and it was still a mad house--our seats were perfect and just what we wanted!

First up was Steven Curtis Chapman and he was AWESOME--concert made you laugh and cry all in the same moments---what a man of faith still after the death of his youngest daughter Maria, 18 months ago.

Michael W Smith took the stage and was WONDERFUL--I grew up listening to his music, so it was crazy to think how long he has been doing this, 25 years! We decided that he is nice to look at as well. He closed his concert with "Friends are Friends Forever"an all time favorite--it was crazy to hear all the ladies singing it and holding up their cell phones instead of lighters--my how times change!! Our plan worked out beautifully--we got out in time and the Thunder traffic was minimal!!

Over all it was a great weekend, filled with lots of fun and new friends (Jack and Eli's mom), Manda and Leslie. I finally got to put the name with faces if you know what I mean!!

Manda, Leslie and Diana

(Jack, Eli and Lana's Momma's)

It was a great weekend and am so blessed that Brian kept the kids all weekend so that I could go and enjoy some me time! Kinda sad that it takes a something like this to make us take some timeout of our busy "Mom" schedules for some much needed down time. Don't worry we are already of talking about getting together over summer break for dinner and our next WOJ Conference!