Steeped.

What a great weekend we had in Gatlinburg!! This is the view from our hotel room's balcony... It was foggy and rainy the whole weekend, but still gorgeous! Nothing beats being in the Smokies...


Saturday we went up to Ober Gatlinburg for ice skating. A friend of mine bought us some fudge to share-- sooo good. I positively love "Smoky Mountain Fudge" ... I really am not a big chocolate fan, but something about freshly made fudge... Mmmm! When we got to Ober, the sky looked really cool. This picture totally does not do it justice, but all the same, it was pretty cool seeing dense fog settle like that.

Before we left Ober, we had to do our annual group picture... Usually, we take it outside, but it was raining, and none of us want to stand in the rain for a picture or risk our cameras to water damage!! I set mine up with the self timer and we took a couple "for-real" pics and a couple "funny" pics...


A friend of mine and of Sam's from Knoxville, DS Ferg, was the speaker this weekend. DS is one of the strangest, but smartest people I've ever known. He did a great job, and I think for the most part he connected pretty well to the students. He scaled back his vocabulary a lot, which I was concerned he wouldn't be able to do!! I did get a few glances while he speaking from some of my girls which seemed to say, "What in the world did he just say?! Was that even English?!?!" I was completely exhausted by the time I got home on Sunday, so that means it was a great weekend, right? Haha, one of the coolest things the whole weekend was seeing my small group girls leading small groups for the middle schoolers. I am so proud of them-- they did such an awesome job and I am so glad I was there to see them in action! It was great to catch up with DS, as well, considering we hadn't seen each other since I left Knoxville a year ago.

And, as always, it was awesome to be in Gatlinburg. I really do love that place... especially the Smokies. It's so awesome to wake up each morning and really feel the verses in Lamentations 3 (verses 22-24, The Message):

Your loyal love couldn't have run out, Your merciful love couldn't have dried up. They are created new each morning. How great is Your faithfulness! I'm sticking with You.

The theme during the weekend centered on steeping yourself in God's Word... Really letting it become who you are. Very cool to have that going on in my heart, but even cooler to see it happening in my girls' lives and the students' lives... :-)