Friday, July 25, 2014

SBC, 2014 in Maryland!

Upon leaving Washington, DC, we headed to Maryland for the Southern Baptist Convention and Pastor's Conference.  
I've never been to Maryland, so it was fun to add another state to our list of places visited! 
On the way to Baltimore, we stopped in Anapolis to walk through the Naval Academy, which was so neat! 
I shared already that my grandfather was in the Navy, so it was really special to there myself and to take our littles.  
The museum was especially cool! 
Our boy was in heaven with all the model ships and rockets!
A sweet lady volunteered to take our family's picture on campus.  
Our four troopers!  We really wanted to walk through the chapel on campus, but they have normal services on Sunday, and we would've had to wait a while to go inside.  Plus, we were anxious to get to Balitmore to register for the conference and get settled in our hotel.  
This is our third year to attend the Southern Baptist Convention, and this was probably my favorite year so far.  The lineup of speakers and the worship was amazing.  Matt Redman led worship for an entire day, and it was just awesome! Like throw your hands up in the air and worship awesome! 
It was so great to hear this guy preach! David and his wife, Heather, and I went to college together, and they were also with us in New Orleans.  It was so great to see their faces, and David just brought the Word something fierce! 
We also got to hear Rick Warren preach, and he shared a lot of his story of his son passing this past year.  Such a sad story, but it is so evident that God is working through this story to bring good just as He promises.  After Rick Warren preached,  Meredith Andrews (I know) came out to sing "Not for a Moment," and I will never forget the sight of Rick Warren holding his hands up in worship to God, truly believing that God is all-sovereign.  Remarkable.  
James McDonald preached next, and he was amazing, too!  All of my teacher friends from ATL have talked about him for years, but I had never listened to him before.  Awesome! 
Last for the night was Francis Chan, and I have to tell you outside of David Platt, I was most excited about hearing him preach the Word.  He didn't exactly do that, so it was kind of weird, and that's all I am really going to say about that.  
Each year at the convention, there is a special lunch just for the pastor's wives.  I love this time, and it was even more special this year because I got to meet up with my friend, Sara, whom I met last year at the lunch.  There is a picture of us further down in the post.  Priscilla Shirer was the speaker, and she was awesome!  She has a new book out, God is Able, and all of the women were given a copy to read, so that's definitely on my list! 
Our hotel was located beside the inner harbor, so it was awesome to see all of these boats and fisherman everywhere.  
We ate at the Cheesecake Factory one night for supper, and it was amazing! Then, we definitely shared some cheesecake.  My favorite was the key lime and coconut you see in the middle! 
My sweet friend, Sara.  We met last year and have kept in touch over the past year.  It was so refreshing to see her and hug her neck and spend some quality time together.  We attended the luncheon together one day and another day we enjoyed coffee together and just talked and talked.  She is expecting her third child this year, so next year when I see her I cannot wait to see this little babe! 
Another tradition for us is to attend the NOBTS (New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary) alumni luncheon.  Carter and Summer got to go with us this year, so that was a treat!
The food was great, and it was a treat to see some familiar faces from our time at seminary.  
On our last night in Baltimore, we got to go to watch the Baltimore Orioles play against the Boston Red Sox.  It was awesome! 
It's no secret that we are Braves fans, but it was great fun to watch a baseball game in a new city! 
Our 8 year old!
And our 5 year old! 
From the baseball stadium, you can see the football stadium where the Baltimore Ravens play.  A fella from my hometown plays for the Ravens, so this was kind of neat to see.  
Our party of six!  I had the most fun with these faces on our trip.  The game was great fun.  It did pour down at the end of the 7th inning, so we definitely had to make a run for it in the rain all the way back to our hotel, ha!  Lots of memories we made on this trip! 
Our family did appear on the jumbo-tron twice! Before the game started, you could hashtag your IG pictures, and they chose some to put on the big screen.  It was so awesome to see ours up there!  Then, during on the innings they had a flex time, where all the fans would flex their muscles.  Carter and Tilly both were on the screen flexing, but we weren't fast enough to capture the picture.  Some of our other friends who were also at the game saw us up there, too! So cool! We loved our time in Baltimore.  Up next, Pennsylvania, Delaware, West Virginia, and home! 

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