Paradise Weekend

Okay, okay - here are finally some pictures of the weekend our house was overridden with 8th grade girls. Poor Derek :( Actually, it was a wonderful experience. On feb 9-10, we hosted what is called Paradise Weekend. It is kinda like a lock in that our church does each year. What happens is that the youth group breaks down into small groups and then each small group goes to a host's house (which was us) stay the night and do devotionals with a leader that the church brings in from the church or from the community (mostly young college aged students). During the time at our house, they can do up to 5 devotional sessions and they kind of have a giant slumber party on our living room floor. Then on Saturday, we got to go out to the beach and hang out there - this was free time, we got to choose whatever we wanted to do. After hanging out at the beach, we had H20 (Hillcrest to Others - Hillcrest is the name of our church) to give out. It is basically just water bottles with bible verses and a map to the church on it. So we gave out two cases of water which was really a neat thing. It really opened all of our eyes to see how many people we came in contact with each day that were potential witness oppurtunities (or just oppurtunities to make someone smile). Then Saturday night, we came back to the church and had a night of worship and a sermon to top the weekend off. On Sunday, we were all instructed to wear our shirts we had received from the weekend and sit in a marked off section for a rally. The youth band led worship and it was lots of fun. Needless to say, our energy levels were low and our hot tub half empty (yes, we did let them get in.... our water was very nasty looking the next morning so we had to drain it) but our spirits were high. Derek is considering taking on more with the youth (along with his softball coaching). He is still purusing that further so we'll see how that goes.

in other news from the Poppell's, I got my very first ticket (for speeding) on Valentine's day. It was a little embarrassing since I was on the phone with dad as i was getting pulled over.... But, I had to take a 4 hour online driving course which was $30 and then I still have to pay most of the ticket ($178). I guess I deserved it as I was going 21 mph over the speed limit, but it was Valentine's day - the cop must not have a Valentine.... Good thing I have a Valentine and even though he didn't come through with the heart crab cakes (what a good husband you are louis!) he did surprise me by taking me to my favorite restarant in Pensacola - he even made reservations 2 weeks in adance!

We have started to pay a litte more attention to our lawn lately and we realized that we have a weed problem so we started pulling them up and got no where so this coming weekend i think will be dedicated to taking care of our weeds with good ol' Weed B Gone. Wish us luck....

So it's official - Derek earned us a cruise!! Since his office did so well last year, his boss said she would send us on a vacation (we chose a cruise). We gave her the dates and where we wanted to go and she booked it for us. It is on the biggest cruise ship in the world!!!!! It is royal caribbean's Freedom of the Seas - it has an onboard water park, and ice skating rink, and boxing ring and lots of other stuff. We will be going to San Juan, St. Thomas, and St Maarten leaving out of Miami. I cannot wait (I did make sure there were enough life boats for everyone though - i guess i've seen too many titanic and poseidon type movies....) You can look it up online at rci.com (click on the carribean cruise that departs may 6). Needless to say we are excited!!! Let us know if you would like to join us too!

I think that is all for now! Love you all!
Sharon