No Cowboys, but lots of Other Stuff

One of the first questions the boys asked me after I got home from my conference was did I see any cowboys? I was stumped until they reminded me I stayed at the Westin. Get it? West-Inn? Yeah, I was dense for a minute too. Gotta love the humor of 7 & 4 year olds.

I had a wonderful time. I feel refreshed, frustrated, motivated, & scared. I took a 9 hour intensive course (over 3 days) on the psychology of faith development, a session on Helicopter parents, & a session given by the pastor of an innovative Lutheran church.

Here’s the top 10 things I learned at the conference

1. I love, love, loved the music. Billy Buchanan from Fusebox was there with his solo band & he was great! Oh the music. There were Lutheran’s DANCING! Well, it was more like they were clapping & intentionally swaying, which is about a dancey as Lutheran’s get during church. My kids love the Fusebox version of Every Move I Make aka, The Na Na song, so I screwed up the courage to ask Billy for a picture with him. I felt like such geek. He consented & as soon as I figure out how to get the picture off Jason’s phone I’ll post it. The boys were excited about the picture.
2. I really want to attend services at Room 211 in Lincoln NE. They do some very different things, like contemporary music, testimonies, & use a lot of media. Their sermons are online & I’ve only been able to listen to one so far. They do some different things, not all of them I agree with, but at least they are trying to reach people.
3. I love going to school. The psychology course proved too much for a few of the class participants. I think they found it too boring or technical. I found it interesting to study how we currently try to teach kids versus how they learn best. It gave me lots to think about.
4. Having more questions than answers at the end of the conference is a good thing.
5. Never stay in a hotel room close to the elevator. The bed can be soft as a cloud, full of pillows & down, but the sound of the elevator running all night will ruin your sleep.
6. Meeting Jenny B was wonderful. She was a bloggy/agency friend but now she’s an IRL/agency friend. We ate at Rock Bottom Brewery & stayed for HOURS talking. I love that when you finally meet someone & it feels like you’ve known them forever.
7. The conference swag was awesome! I came home with a t-shirt for Jason, a polo shirt for me, & a Nalgene water bottle, & of course about a dozen pens. Many times I had flashbacks of The Office episode where Micheal & Dwight “take the slow train to Philly” for a conference & Micheal talks about decorating his condo with all his conference swag.
8. Calling late for hotel reservations can pay off. We ended up being upgraded to Westin’s preferred customer floor & we were able to get a nice complementary breakfast, access to internet, free drinks & snacks all day. It kind of made up for the whole elevator keeping me awake all night thing.
9. The owners of Group Publishing are incredible people. They came to Indy after vacationing in Vanuatu, where they ended up setting up a mission trip for next summer. Amy & I visited with them our last evening in Indy & we learned a lot about Group & about what drives them. They are really neat people.
10. I cannot go on youth oriented trips when my sister Becky is pregnant. Two years ago, Jason & I had just returned from our youth mission trip to Mississippi when Becky was flown to Sioux Falls SD, to have her baby, 10 weeks early. The coincidences are a little eerie. In 2006, Jenny had been out to her place 2 days earlier with our boys, who were staying with my parents. This time, Jenny had been out 2 days before the onset of labor, & my parents were again watching the boys (& Tova), but they were at our place rather than in MN. Either Becky needs to stop having babies or I need to not travel when she’s pregnant.

K~