Monday, April 13, 2009

Lads to Leaders 2009


This past weekend, our family traveled to Nashville with about 65 others from our home congregation to attend the Lads to Leaders Convention. Let me give a little "aside" here, though, before I continue. Parker had been sick since Monday. He had gone to the dr., and she had said he had an ear infection and sinus infection. No problem. Got an antibiotic and felt like it would be cleared up in plenty of time for the weekend. WRONG! He continued to feel bad all week, and his fever just wouldn't go away and stay away. SO, back to the dr. we go on Thursday. She was baffled, saying he didn't seem to have anything more than a cold, but couldn't figure out where that fever was coming from. We decided to run a flu test JUST to rule it out so that we could tell people over the weekend that yes, he was running fever, but no, he wasn't contagious. WELL, it was positive!!!! That's right - he had the flu and we were leaving early the next morning. When the dr. told him he couldn't go, he was so upset. He just flopped over on the bed and cried!!! What were we going to do?? He had a big part in our puppet show, was signed up to do his scripture reading, and had worked super hard since Christmas on a speech! Needless to say, my mom came to stay with him, the rest of us headed out to Nashville on Friday, and we did some "quick fixin'" to our puppet show on the way. We were all so bummed that he couldn't come.

Well, the kids did a great job on their puppet show, especially considering the fact that one kid had to switch to Parker's part, and we grabbed another kid from our congregation who had never seen the script OR picked up a puppet to fill in, as well. We were so proud of them! Kinlee did very well on her part, and the others did just as we had practiced.
Shortly after puppets on Friday, Kinlee participated in her scripture reading. She did so well! She said she was a little nervous, but she marched right up there and read like a champ! I was very proud of her!!! She received an excellent rating.

We had kept in touch during the day on Friday with my mom who was taking care of Parker. Turns out that he did not run fever all day long!!! SO, Mark hopped in the car Friday afternoon (despite tornado watches and BAD storms) and drove back home to get him!!! They left early Saturday morning to head back to Nashville in time for Parker to do his speech. He was so excited! The competition was pretty strong this year in his age division, but he did an awesome job! He actually ended up doing his speech twice before they were able to decide the 6 finalists. He was one of them.
We had to wait until the awards ceremony on Sat. night to find out how his speech and our puppet show ranked. WELL, Parker won 3rd place in speech, and our puppet show won 3rd place, as well. All the kids were SO excited!! We were so happy and proud of them!!

As crazy as it was, we ended up having an awesome weekend! The kids are already talking about what they want to compete in next year. We are so glad that we are involved in this program. The real excitement isn't even in the winning or not winning, it is in the fact that our kids enjoy it and it is helping prepare them for service in the future. Way to go guys!!!!

2 comments:

Jill said...

AWWW! So tearing up and my heart hurting for Parker- I'm SO happy to read the rest and that Parker got to go. SO proud of yall and the puppet team! Yeah! Can't wait to see yall and give you big hugs- I'm in Birmingham and will be in Nashville tomorrow.

Wendi said...

It was great seeing you too!! I liked your pics! Do you have any of the puppet team? I have a question ...how many adult help with your puppet team? Just you and Mark or do some of the parents helps? We have sign ups this Sunday after our L2L presentation. I thought about asking for a few more adult helpers. We are going to have 2 puppet teams.??? I know I am crazy!