Seattle and Small Group

2 weekends ago, Miles & I took a wonderful trip to Seattle. We went there so Miles could attend Coffee Fest -- a 3 day convention all about coffee. The church sent him to the convention because he is the lead trainer for our church's coffee stand/cafe. I just went along for the adventure and to get free coffee!! We got to Seattle on Thursday afternoon and that night we went to a Jewel concert. She is a remarkable singer and really showcases her voice during her live concerts. It was a great concert because it was an acoustic concert, so it was just Jewel and her guitar. We had a great time. Friday and Saturday were spent at Coffee Fest all day and then we spent the evenings exploring and playing around the city. We stayed until Monday afternoon so we could get the most out of our time there. The weather was absolutely gorgeous. Even though we live only a 5-hour drive away from Seattle, I've never spent time there so I was very excited about this trip. I definitely want to go back more, but being in a big city again sure made me appreciate our simple little town of Coeur d'Alene. I'm so used to a small town now that even Coeur d'Alene is getting big for me!

This past weekend I had a "girls night" with my new small group girlies. Rychelle & I are going to continue leading a small group. Most of the girls have left for college this fall, but a few of them have stayed locally to attend the community college or work full-time. So instead of 15 girls, we're going to have 6. What a difference! But we're very excited about it because it will give us the opportunity to go deeper and invest more time individually with each of the girls. So Saturday night we had a sleepover to sort of kick off our new group. We also have a new member, so the girls shared their testimonies with each other. It was a wonderful night. These girls are very special to me and such a blessing in my life.