The Pate Potpourri: Polishing The Pulpit

This post is about a month late, but I just have not found the energy to blog everything that needs to be blogged. I still have an extremely long list of stuff that needs to go on the blog, but I have been super busy with church activities (we will be kicking off the iCare Ministry this Sunday) and baby shower planning. Two friends at church are having babies soon. Rachel is due early November and her shower is Sept. 25th. And Maggie is due in the middle of January which means her shower will be at the beginning of December. There are several other women at church who are expecting, but I am not heading up their showers. Not to mention, there is a certain little girl who will be turning "1" on December 13th! I am a planner. I love to have everything completed in advance. I am typically not a "wait until the last minute" kind of gal. I have also found a new love: Pinterest! I am ashamed to admit that I have spent hours on Pinterest pinning projects that I will probably never do. :) Pinterest is heaven for the hoarder at heart!! So...all the above mentioned stuff are real reasons why I have been negligent in my blogging!!

About a month ago, Jeremy, Ava, and I, hopped in our new car and traveled to Sevierville, TN, to stay in the Wilderness at the Smokies Resort. If you have passed through Sevierville, on your way to Gatlinburg, you have no doubt seen the Dr. Seuss-esque waterslide protruding from the side of a HUGE log cabin hotel. This is where we stayed. It is a neat place and I would definitely recommend it to anyone looking to vacation in the area! Anyway, the reason for this trip was Polishing the Pulpit (or PTP) It is a Christian conference held every year for members of the church of Christ from all over the globe. Everyone wears a name tag that tells where they are from. Missionaries from New Zealand, India, Tanzania, the Philippines, etc. can usually come while on their furlough. And ministers, elders, deacons, and church members come before school starts for their children. It lasts for a full week (Thursday to Thursday) and has sessions for everyone. I am going to brag on my husband for a minute and then I will post a picture and shut up! :) Jeremy was asked last year if he would be willing to be a speaker for the 2011 PTP. He was very honored and said yes. He had four 45 minute sessions and one 7 minutes of wisdom session. He spoke about youth leaving the church, creative VBS ideas, and did two sessions about Family ministry in the church. I was really proud of him for the great job that he always does. He spent a large time away from our family for the few weeks before PTP so that he could study and prepare for his lessons. Here is a pic of one of his sessions:

I was wrangling a baby while trying to take this picture and Jeremy was, of course, completely embarrassed that I was taking a picture of this. But, I was a proud wife! You see his session at 7:00. :)

Okay, as promised, I will shut up with my bragging! We did not get to sit through as many sessions as we wanted. Ava is an extremely wiggly baby girl and did not want to sit. She wanted to crawl and "talk" to the speakers while they were speaking. It really is cute, because she tries to talk to everyone, but we have to whisper in her ear to remind her that she can't talk to everyone sometimes! Jeremy and I would take turns taking her out so that one of us could sit and listen. It was not bad at all. We knew before we came that she would not sit through the lessons, so neither of us was really upset that we missed so much. Besides that, PTP has a policy that anyone who has to take their baby out, gets a free CD of the lesson. So, basically, we racked up on free bible lessons!

We had a great week delving into God's word and learning how to apply those lessons to our life. It was a refreshing week; just what we needed!

This is right before one of the sessions started. Ava had her bow intact and was enjoying the company of Mommy, Daddy, and her Mrow-Mrow (the little leopard looking animal was her favorite toy that week)

As is her custom, she pulls out the hair bow. There is nothing we can do about it! She can feel the weight of it in her hair and she can't stand it. :)

We finally got her to sleep through one of the sessions so we could pay attention! She is a sound sleeper when she naps!

The hotel had a pond between the conference center and the main lobby. Whenever we had to take Ava out of sessions, we would usually end up at this pond/fountain. It was very entertaining!

Daddy was so sweet to Ava. It didn't matter that he was in his suit, he took time to show Ava the pond and the little frog fountains. She loves water, so this was a special treat!!