weekending- the one about a weekend with teenagers

 

Happy Monday, friends! How was your weekend? I hope it was good, and if you were in one of the flood zones, I hope you were safe and that you faired well. I was in a flood zone this weekend, but it wasn't as bad here as they had originally thought. I'm grateful for this! 

 

I made two loaves of sourdough bread last week that turned out like flat, hard discs. I attempted it for the second time and got up on Friday to stretch it one last time before baking it that afternoon. I met Mom for breakfast at Eggs Up Grill that morning. I wore something that I felt like was both cute and comfortable, but I loved what my shirt says:

"Chosen, not forsaken; I am who You say I am." It's the lyrics from a Hillsong single that I love; when we first started singing that song in church, I sang the solo to teach it to the congregation for the first time.

I woke up to these adorable earrings that were in my mailbox that Abbey gave me! They totally made my day, because Thursday night was hard and Friday morning sucked. I just sat and cried for a few minutes, because of how Thursday was. 

I felt good in my outfit that day; I dressed comfortably since I had an hours long hair appointment.

And then my weekend started with these ninth grade girls! 

I had fun being with my leader friends, Kim and Scottie. Scottie (in the middle) is who I co-led with. 

This is my young friend Hannah, one of the worship leaders for the weekend. Hannah and her husband Jeff led worship for the youth for a few years when my boys were younger; I've loved getting to see her grow into such a talented artist, wife, and mom. She gets bonus points for loving my sons!

I was having a good hair moment and wanted to document the amazing color.

Early morning worship!

I love the fun games they play with the students; this one required them to keep the balloons in the air.

This was after my outfit change Saturday morning since the weather was seventy. I was melting in a sweatshirt!

This is when I sat down to call Mom and almost fell asleep on the couch.

Ten minutes later when I walked into the fellowship hall again, my friend Kittie did, in fact, fall asleep just like this in these chairs. 

This is my friend Jennie; remember the painting of hearts that I received on that Wednesday a couple weeks ago? Three were from my friend's kids, but the larger one was from Jennie. She's a talented artist, and sidenote: her earring game is STRONG.

My sweet friend Scottie. I'm so glad I got to be with her all weekend long! 

DNow is basically an in-town retreat for two nights; we eat together, we worship together, there are sessions with teaching, and there are service projects. Our service project was making goodie bags to take to the local retirement home, where we played Bingo with some older friends. 

This is awake Kittie; she and her husband Curtis hosted us for the weekend, so we stayed at their house and she helped us with transporting the ten girls that we had.

I loved that Graham came to work on the tech team and got to see Jeff, Hannah's husband. 

It was such a fun weekend! I loved being with the teenagers and have missed being with them. There were about 150 of them, and almost that many leaders, making the number close to 300 of us being there and involved in some way. I loved that the older people in the church served the younger; the meals were made by the seniors in the church, the men's group, and some parents. I'm so glad the youth leader asked me to lead a group of girls; I thanked him for this, because I needed to be busy all weekend. It was an absolute blast, but mama was tired by Sunday morning! 

My eyes were ON FIRE when I woke up Sunday morning, probably from being tired. It was more than worth it, though! What'd you do this weekend? I'll share about the rest of mine tomorrow. Thanks for reading my blog today, friends! Love to all. 

Jenn 🩷❤️