Sunday Snippet

Oh, What a Week! Right now I am in Portland with 500ish High School students and 30 of them from Lewiston/Clarkston. District Youth Conference is put on by our District Office and is a top notch quality event. My first time going to DYC I was a freshman in high school and I have only missed 1 year since then. My roles have changed (obviously). First I was a Student, then I went as a representative of Simpson University and worked, then as Youth Leader, and now as the cook for our group (30 people). The event does not have any food provided and about 3 years ago we started making our own food because we were getting extremely sick of the "Fast Food Extravaganza" so I took on the task of preparing meals. This is no easy task considering I cook out of a hotel suite that has a mini fridge and a small sink.

I spent all day Wednesday prepping the food at the church: Cooking taco meat, making soup, cooking pulled pork, all to be frozen so I can rewarm in in a huge electric roaster pan (those things are amazing by the way). I also have spent the week shopping, packing, and making lists for this event (A LOT harder with a little one). There are grocery stores by the hotel, but to save money I do a lot of bargain hunting and bulk shopping here because it's SOOOO much cheaper.

We decided at the last minute to have my mom come because I was getting overwhelmed and we had a last minute addition to our group which changed driving arrangements - but I am so glad she's here to give me a hand with Addy especially.

A bonus to this trip was two of my Portland area friends came to visit me with their sweet babes!! One was born a week after Addy and one was born 6 days ago (super trooper mommy drove to see us)!

We also had a fabulous Valentines Day that I posted about! The day only got better as Jon planned a few surprises for me throughout the day.

It's been a busy week, but such a great one. As exhausting as these youth events are to prepare for, I love doing it and watching how God uses these trips in our student's lives. It's truly amazing, and although food may not have a huge "spiritual" impact on them, it frees their minds to be able to focus, and in all honestly what I make is way better than eating McDonalds 4 times in 4 days! Instead of focusing on their gut aches we were able to focus more on what God has for us!