I'm back.......

Chicago (actually Schaumburg, IL) was a blast. I went for a children's ministry conference at Willow Creek Church (which is huge!!!!) with the group of ladies who run our kids programs at my church. We stopped for dinner on Tuesday evening and then went to an outlet mall to walk off dinner in Michigan City, IN. The first day (Wednesday) was awesome listening to all the speakers that they brought in for us. The music was AWESOME too, can't forget about how it felt like I was at a big concert front row. :) The last set was Glen Keane, Rick Dempsey and Aaron Reynolds. Glen and Rick work for Disney - Rick is in charge of maintaining voice talent for animated movies and Glen is an animator (30 yrs. now) who drew Ariel, Beast, Aladdin, Pocahontas, and Tarzan. His dad draws "The Family Circus". Aaron Reynolds wrote a book on his creative approach to children's ministry and is hilarious. Needless to say the story behind Ariel and Beast were worth being there and shed a whole new light on the movies that are coming from Disney. Rick had a huge hand in bringing Narnia to Disney. Then on Thursday we had breakout where we sat in different sessions and learned different things relevant to our area in children’s ministry. I got a broad overview but had some music ones too. It was fun but seeing as how my first session of the day (music and motions) taught us 6 songs that were high motion/movement songs I was sore, tired and sweaty by the time I got to my second session. Where I got to be a third grader in a typical Sunday session at Willow. I was falling asleep by the end of it - not because it was boring but because I needed to eat something and we had been rushed out of the hotel that morning so I missed breakfast. :( I ate lunch and was fine but moving around and up and down the many stairs there and such made my legs hurt all the way to Sunday morning. Friday was that small day with only two main sessions the last being Phil Vischer - of VeggieTales fame. I was super excited to hear him talk and to start reading his book. But I got a ton of exercise as we walked all over that place and if I would have thought about it I would have put on my pedometer to see how far I was walking each day.

But the biggest thing to come out of the conference was the fact that I hooked up with another Herbalife distributor that is local! For me that is huge and she is running weight loss challenges so I joined one because I hate being this big. I went to my first meeting last night and the first thing I learned was that my scale is actually about 6 lbs. less than the Dr. scale and what the WLC scale is. T<spanclass=correction id="">he WLCscale and my Dr. scale are in agreement on my weight - 258.6 lbs. ugh! So Sunday I got back on the wagon fulltime with Herbalife products and will be held accountable with the WLC to any gains as 1 lb = $1 in the pot and the biggest loser wins the pot at the end. This is what I needed to get on track but I didn't know of anyone in my area, let alone the fact that I could have started one scared the crap out of me. Who would take weight loss advice from someone who is overweight herself and not working on losing it? See my dilemma? But the big thing is that by doing this and starting to exercise</spanclass=correction> (yes starting I suck at everything and keeping with it........) will get me into better shape and maybe I can jump around on stage and actually sing the songs without losing my breath halfway through like I do now. :)

So here I am with this wonderful opportunity to learn about kid's ministry things and it could be that God had me go on that whole trip to give me a big kick in the butt on my weight loss. LOL The way things work sometimes amaze me. So Monday night was my weigh in but I think I am switching to the Wednesday meeting next week. Well its back to unoacking, cleaning and reading for me plus my walking video before lunch. Hope everyone has a great day in J-land. ~Hugs~Jen