This is ANOTHER guest post! :D

Hey, ya'll!
It's E. and Mom, along with assorted family and friends has asked me (forced me) to do a blog post about this past weekend.
While Mom and K. were visiting Camp La Vida, my team and I were not half a mile away at White Oak Conference Center for Creative Ministries Festival. First, let me explain a few things so no one's left in the dark.
1. For those who don't know, Creative Ministries Festival is a conference held each year in various places in SC. Funded and hosted by the Southern Baptist Convention, it boasts several ministry classes, such as clowning, drama, puppetry, and Interpretive Movement (my personal favorite).
2. Interp is a combination of dance, sign language, and drama, performed to music. Anyone who knows me will agree that Interp is a passion of mine. I have been doing it for 3 or 4 years now, and have shown no signs of stopping. Interp is a beautiful form of worship and in my opinion, anyone who has not seen or participated in it has truly missed out on a blessing. That's me and most of my team in the picture. Yours Truly is the one in the middle. There are currently 6-10 girls in my team and 2 leaders (though we did have two guys participate in one song, we're trying to get them to do another). At Creative Ministries we learned several songs. Two of which we will be performing in the near future: Worthy is the Lamb by Hillsong, and Shine by David Crowder Band (both wonderful songs).
I'll shut up about Interp for now (though if anyone has questions, I'll be happy to oblige), and shove on.
Creative Ministries was not all jumping from one class to the next. We also had a devotion and worship time. Very worship...ful... :D
For those few truly creative people in the world (or people like me who are fooling themselves but worship anyway) Creative Ministries is a wonderful, worshipful conference to attend, and I highly recommend going, you won't regret it!
Well it's almost time for supper, and it's pizza night, so I gotta dash.
Later Days you crazy bloggers!
EM

Camp La Vida

Hi, I'm K. My Mom really wants me to do a guest post about the camp I recently visited that I'm going to go to in the Summer. Being the not-so reasonable girl that I am, I've put it off a few days. But Mom insists I do, so I'll oblige.

For the first part of the tour of Camp La Vida, me and my friend were pulled aside. A woman that worked at the camp wanted me and my friend to pose for pictures for the camp's web site.

And get this: They wanted us to pose in a canoe. As for me and my friend, we've never even been in a canoe before. They asked our Moms,and they agreed.

First, we had to take a trip in a golf cart for a while to the lake. Me and my friend rode in the back ( Wheeeeeeeeee!!! ). Once, while my friend was reaching her hand out a tree branch slapped her hand. She pretended to hide behind a slip of paper to get away from the trees. We're so goofy.

When we where riding back to Camp, before the ride started me and my friend climbed in the back. Yet, we weren't ready for the ride to start when it did. We almost when hurtling through the air, and on the gravel! ( But we didn't ). The moral of this story is when your with a nine-year old and a eleven-year old, make sure they're not riding no-hands in a golf cart.
Bye!!!!!
K P.S. In the pics I'm the red-head and my friend has the dark brown hair.

Celebrate Good Times, C'mon!

I thought E.'s Fan Club might like to hear more about her 16th Birthday Extravaganza! First, and most importantly, it was great fun to have both sets of grandparents visiting us for a couple of days. That was the most special part of her birthday.

We had the traditional Opening of the Birthday Gifts as soon as everyone in the house was up. Like most teens, E. was quite happy to receive some money and gift cards, as well as a new ipod and some dvds. Also, some pencils. Don't ask.



For her celebratory lunch, E. chose our favorite pizza place, The Mellow Mushroom. A couple of E.'s favorite people in the world (outside of biologically-related people) joined us for lunch (Hi, T. and P.!). Afterward, we went back to our house for cake. E.'s birthday cake had a photo of our basset hound, Annie Armstrong, on it (E.'s choice). Someone remarked that it was so cute we probably had trouble eating it...not really :).


I put the same photo on the birthday girl's flag by copying it onto t-shirt transfer paper, ironing it on one of my old t-shirts, cutting it out, and then sewing the patch on the flag.


E.'s choice for the afternoon's entertainment was to see the movie How To Train Your Dragon. It's a rare treat for our family to go to the movie theater; do you know how much tickets and snacks cost these days?!? It was a cute movie and I'm sure we'll be buying it when it comes out on dvd.

All in all, a sweet, family-oriented celebration...just what the birthday girl wanted.

Later Days!
Kelly

Happy Birthday E!!

Sixteen years ago, God blessed our family with a beautiful baby girl...after MANY hours of relentless labor. {insert gratuitous mommy guilt here} She has turned out to be a pretty great kid in spite of our mistakes and "experiments" on her. We've always said she's our parenting guinea pig because first children are burdened with teaching their parents how to parent!

She's a godly, bright, caring, fun person to know and she has blessed our lives in countless ways. She's a terrific big sister to her three siblings and a huge help to me--she already knows much more about caring for children, cooking, and cleaning than *I* did when I got married! We love her bunches & can't wait to see how God is going to use her life for His glory!

Later Days!
Kelly