Oak Island, NC - Generation LINK week

We headed to Oak Island, NC after church on Mother's Day for a 4 night retreat with Generation Link interns, Summer Link directors, and area directors (and some of their families). It's always a joy for our family to participate!

My family and I on Mother's Day morning at church. What a blessing it is to be their mom!

We enjoyed seeing these huge barges go by on the water.

We enjoyed gathering together and hearing from various leaders. 

We, of course, enjoyed the beach!

It was good to see Jon and Emet at the retreat too! 

Always a joy to hang with this friend!

There were 2 downers to our time…..kids got terribly sunburned (not sure if it was just the failure to reapply sunscreen well or using old sunscreen….mom fail!) AND Jeremy lost his wedding ring! I'd like to say this is the first time….but it's not! He needs a smaller size ring! He even rented a metal detector to try and find it…to no avail!

  

I'm clearly distraught over this! I should be more compassionate.

Aside from that it was a great time and I'm so thankful for the conversations and fellowship! Such a great group of people!

Black Mountain

We just returned home from 4 nights at the YMCA Blue Ridge Assembly in Black Mountain, NC for the Summer Link Directors Training and the Generation Link Retreat. It was a great time of fellowship and training. Matt Rogers taught the morning class on Evangelism. I am so thankful for this time to be a part of Jeremy's ministry and watch him lead. I am spurred on by the environment and conversations with others. 

The first day the kids and I went on a little hike near the house with some other moms and their little ones. It was fun to see my kids enjoy and love on the little kids.  

I'm so thankful that our kids get to grow up going on trips like this. Carson especially folds right in and enjoys hanging with the guys. Love that our kids have people like this as role models for them as they grow up. Thankful for how people interact and pursue our kids!

 Group picture!

The group went on a hike together and played LOTS of cards! Spades seemed to be the game of the week! 

It was a great time with residents, summer link directors, and area directors being equipped and trained! Proud of my hubby and his leadership too!

Glink Mid-Year Retreat

One of our highlights of the year is heading to Gatlinburg for the Glink Mid-year Retreat.  It's always a sweet time of fellowship sharing updates with one another and speaking words of encouragement to  one another.  It's also a time to evaluate and be in the word together and just relax and have fun.  The kids enjoy it too and I'm so thankful we are able to participate with Jeremy and his ministry.  

 We all stopped at Newfound Gap on the way up to Gatlinburg.  Below are the Glink girls/roomies.  

The house was great.  We spent lots of time circled up sharing and praying.  

The house had some arcade games and the kids loved that of course!

The men

 We left for home on our anniversary.  This picture above was 12:01 am of our anniversary;)  I'm blessed to be this man's wife!

A tradition is to head for Ober Gatlinburg for some ice skating.  This may be the first year our whole family attempted ice skating (no babies or strollers this year!!!!)!!!

Amanda & Katelin

 Marie, Megan & Miguel 

 Ryan & Micah

 Emily & Jonathan

 Bryn & Abbey

 Carson loved it (so glad he didn't break any bones...he's crazy!)

 Bryn loved it!

 Josh 

 Alex & Jenna

 Lydia & I

Spencer was hilarious!  He loved it although you basically had to pull hime along on the ice. So thankful for others helping!

 Ryan & Spencer

 Lydia improved SO much!  So proud of her!

The whole group in front of the Pancake Pantry the morning we headed home.

We stopped again at Newfound Gap on our way home and there was snow everywhere!  It was beautiful!

 So good having Abbey there!