Birthday Books

I'm back from the conference. My brain is definitely on overload and I can hardly remember what I learned, because I learned so much. I took pages and pages of notes, but hardly comprehended anything because I was just trying to get it all down on paper! Maggie and I are going to try to combine and type up all of our notes {eventually} and between the two of us, we went to about 5 breakout sessions and 5 large group sessions. If you're interested in getting a copy of the notes, email me! The conference theme was marriage, but I think the classes applied to counseling all types of people, not just those who are married. I love how CCEF teaches that you do not have to be a professional to give wise, Gospel-oriented counseling. If your understanding of the Gospel is clear, you can counsel people who are struggling by simply telling them the Truth.

As part of my birthday gift to Thomas, {he turned 24 yesterday!} I bought books at the conference. And just as I suspected, I couldn't have given him a better gift. He was SO excited about all of my purchases and immediately asked if he could stamp them with his own book stamp:

Maggie and I were thankful that our husbands were not there to see all of the books available for purchase. There would have been major marital/financial strife as they would have been wanting each and every book they saw. Most of the books were half off and there were special promotions throughout the weekend {kiss your spouse for a free book, buy one paperback get one hardback free} and Thomas and Tyler would have been like wild animals. Thomas would have probably even caused physical harm to anyone who got in his way of the promotions. They love books so much that they included it in their bet over the Patriots v. Steelers game last night. The loser of the bet has to buy the winner one spiritual book of his choice, and dinner for all four of us next time we are together. Maggie and I thought that a shopping trip to Anthropologie should be included for our benefit, but they didn't like that. 

Did I mention that we won the bet as the Patriot's beat the Steelers 39-26? I'd better get back to researching restaurant choices...